The Practice/Liberty Bells (2)

Liberty Bells (2)
Season 4, Episode 20
Airdate	May 7, 2000
Production Number	4P20
Written by	David E. Kelley & Alfonso H. Moreno
Directed by	Michael Schultz
Produced by	Gary M. Strangis
← 4x19 Till Death Do Us Part (1)	4x21 → The Honorable Man
The Practice — Season Four

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Liberty Bells (2) is the twentieth episode of the fourth season of The Practice, and the seventy-seventh episode overall.

Starring: Dylan McDermott (Bobby Donnell) (credit only), Michael Badalucco (Jimmy Berluti), Lisa Gay Hamilton (Rebecca Washington) (credit only), Steve Harris (Eugene Young), Camryn Manheim (Ellenor Frutt), Marla Sokoloff (Lucy Hatcher), Kelli Williams (Lindsay Dole) (credit only)

and Lara Flynn Boyle (A.D.A. Helen Gamble) (credit only)

Guest Starring: John Hawkes (Stuart Donovan), Gregory Itzin (D.A. Michael Stanfield), Caroline Kava (Mary Donovan), David Moreland (A.D.A. Matthew Platt), Leon Russom (Brian Kearns), George D. Wallace (Judge Andrew Wood), Carol Locatell (Erica Mathers), Nick Ullett (Justice Silk), Mary Anne McGarry (Federal Judge Graham), Joe J. Garcia (Joe Bullock)

Co-Starring: Dennis Neal (Justice Morris), James Newman (Coroner Mitchell Falk), Elliott Grey (Operations Officer), Robert Glessner (Technician)

Uncredited: Jennifer Badger (College Activist), Brett Rickaby (Earl Taylor)

Quotes

• (Back at the courtroom. The Bailiff brings the wrongly convicted Stuart Donovan to the courtroom. Judge Andrew Wood is back.)

Bailiff: All rise.

(They rise.)

Bailiff: Be seated.

Judge Andrew Wood: All right, Ms. Frutt, here we are again. The floor is yours.

(Ellenor Frutt will address the floor.)

Ellenor Frutt: May it please the court, we now have conclusive DNA evidence establishing it was somebody else, not Stuart Donovan, who raped Alisa Kearns on that night. You have the reports in front of you. You also have the affidavit of Joel Bullock outlining exactly how Earl Taylor learned the details of the crime, which details allowed Earl Taylor to go to the district attorney with the falsified confession, a confession he used to get his own prison sentence reduced. You also have an affidavit from his ex-wife stating that Mr. Bressler was habitually drunk and passed out by 9:00 every night. Mr. Bressler claims it was between 11:30 and 12:00 when he saw my client enter the victim's house, and he is basing that on the fact that Johnny Carson was on the television. We have also shown by affidavit that Johnny Carson was in fact on during prime time the night of the murders... 9:00 p.m. to 11 p.m... In an anniversary special. My client was convicted on 3 pieces of evidence, Your Honor... A confession fabricated by a jailhouse snitch, the eyewitness testimony of an alcoholic who was confused as to what time it really was, and a blood-type match which has now been conclusively disproven with DNA testing. As a matter of law, as a matter of simple justice, Stuart Donovan's conviction must be set aside, and he must be released immediately.

• (The clerk have arrived, he is going to ask the best D.A. Michael Stanfield to takeover and replace A.D.A. Matthew Platt.)

Judge Andrew Wood: Mr. Stanfield?

D.A. Michael Stanfield: We will not deny to this court we were shocked by this DNA evidence. We then tested the rape kit and learned just 10 seconds ago it, too, did not match Stuart Donovan. My first reaction yesterday to the DNA discovery was that Stuart Donovan should, in fact, be set free, but when we stop to think about it, nothing has changed so dramatically that it would alter the verdict. As Ms. Frutt correctly states, Stuart Donovan was convicted on 3 pieces of evidence... First, the confession. That confession still stands. It was introduced into evidence at trial and challenged at trial. Defense isn't free to continue challenging it after the verdict without new evidence, and they don't have any. They can argue all they want that it was fabricated. That argument was made at trial and rejected by the jury. Second, the eyewitness testimony... Again, the defense argued at trial that Mr. Bressler must have been mistaken, but there was nothing else to controvert that eyewitness testimony, just as there is nothing else to controvert it today. Third, the blood match... If you look at the court transcripts, this was never a big part of the prosecution's case. If you review the closing arguments, you'll see we hammered 2 points... The confession and the eyewitness testimony. Now we can all say, "I wouldn't have agreed with the jury on those points," but that is not the standard for review. The question you have to ask is whether this new evidence is of such character that a different verdict will likely result. The answer to that is "no" because there is nothing to disprove either the confession or that testimony... Not then, not now.

Judge Andrew Wood: All right. I'll grant you that, Mr. Stanfield. The court has no basis to throw out the confession or the eyewitness testimony, but this new DNA evidence... Doesn't that tell us somebody else did it?

D.A. Michael Stanfield: No, Your Honor, it tells us that somebody else could have been there. Somebody else made love to her. We have no time line on that. It could have been earlier, but it doesn't change the fundamentals of our case, and let's remember this... Mr. Donovan didn't confess to Mr. Taylor that he raped anybody or that he made love to the victim before killing her. He confessed only to murdering the two women. Hence, this new evidence does nothing to undermine the veracity of that confession.

Judge Andrew Wood: Do you still think he did it?

D.A. Michael Stanfield: My personal beliefs aren't relevant.

Judge Andrew Wood: They're relevant to me. Do you think this is the man who killed those women?

D.A. Michael Stanfield: I do, Your Honor. He has a heated fight with Alisa Kearns just the day before. He refused to accept the end of the relationship. There was no sign of a forced entry, so, the idea of a home invasion... No fingerprints but his, no motive for anybody else. Look, he confessed to the crime. You don't free a man just because it turns out that somebody else may have been there at the time.

Judge Andrew Wood: But you have to admit it does change things if somebody else was there.

D.A. Michael Stanfield: Not enough to upset a verdict. Recently, the Texas Court of Appeals was faced with this exact situation. The DNA turned out not to match the defendant. The court refused to grant a new trial, ruling that the DNA results did not preclude the presence of a co-conspirator. That was the case there. It's what we have here. You have precedent. You have the verdict of a jury. This court should honor both.

• Eugene Young: You can't rest. He was good.

(Ms. Fruit has something she has to say.)

Ellenor Frutt: One more minute, Your Honor?

Judge Andrew Wood: Go ahead.

Ellenor Frutt: 5 weeks ago when I took this case, I almost immediately started getting emotional about it, and I couldn't figure out why. I don't know Stuart Donovan. I realize now that what got to me is the reality that people don't get fair trials in this country. They often don't.

Judge Andrew Wood: Ms. Frutt, I was the judge on your client's trial.

Ellenor Frutt: And I don't doubt that you did everything right, Your Honor. But Stuart Donovan had a public defender who had just finished another capital case 48 hours before his trial began, and that public defender wasn't ready for this one. He didn't discover a lot of the things he could have. Defense lawyers... Especially public defenders, especially those taking court appointments... We just don't have enough time. We just don't have the resources, and it's-- it's understandable. Things are bound to fall through the cracks. How could they not? But I have a man facing death here. Technically, from an evidentiary standpoint, Mr. Stanfield is right. The confession still stands. Technically, from an evidentiary standpoint, the eyewitness testimony is valid. The time to impeach it would have been at trial. That never happened. Technically, the prosecution's two big pieces of evidence still hold up... technically. In reality, a man is going to be executed for a crime he didn't commit. And as I have been pounding my head up against walls, I have been continually hearing, "Ms. Frutt, there is a system... A system of evidence and appeals and..." The system doesn't always work, Your Honor. In the last 10 years alone, over 44 people have been released from death row for crimes they didn't commit. The system uses jailhouse snitches who fabricate confessions. The system has police lying. The system is very, very fallible, and maybe it is understandable. Given the enormous volume of criminal cases today, mistakes happen, lies happen. It is a byproduct of the system that I can almost comprehend. But what I can't fathom is when we have the ability to find out the truth through DNA evidence, we don't. In 48 states, this being one of them, prisoners do not have the right to a simple DNA test that could prove their innocence. You wouldn't let us have one, Judge. We had to go to the father of the victim. Miraculously, he let us dig up his daughter. And after we did that, did the test on our own, we pretty much proved Stuart Donovan's innocence, and still it hasn't ended. Mr. Stanfield now gets up, changes the prosecution's theory, and refocuses the court's attention on eyewitness testimony and a jailhouse informant, which everyone in this room regards as suspect. As technically admissible as it may be on evidentiary grounds, none of us in this room fully believe that snitch. None of us fully trust that eyewitness account, and a man is going to die. Is our system about getting convictions? Is that it? My co-counsel Eugene Young told me not to take this case personally. How can I not? How can't we all? A man... an innocent man is going to die. As human beings, as officers of this court, as players in this system... how do we not take that personally?

• D.A. Michael Stanfield: I hear Ms. Frutt's frustration, her emotion. I'd like the court to consider it from our side and from the victim's family's. You find the person who commits the murder, you put that person on trial, you secure a conviction. That's not easy these days. But even when you're lucky enough to get that far, the defense attorneys keep coming back over and over and over again raising constitutional claims, saying that the previous attorneys weren't good enough. 12 years they've been coming back on this one. 12 years this father, this husband has been waiting for this to be over, and this on a case where the defendant confessed, this on a case where we have eyewitness testimony. Most times, the defense attorneys are in here trying to free their clients on technical grounds, exalting the system above all else. But here, where the system has been adhered to, where the evidence is all sound, technically, they're in here... we have his confession on the record. The jury believed that confession. Why don't we just let everybody go?

• (Judge Wood is smoking. They're waiting.)

Judge Andrew Wood: I am persuaded by defense counsel's arguments that before we put a man to death, we should be sure of the person's guilt and not simply limit our inquiry as to whether the trial was technically sound from an evidentiary standpoint. That seems... so obvious. But Mr. Stanfield's contention is also a valid one. We could keep re-evaluating evidence ad nauseam forever. The point of a trial is to reach a final verdict on the facts. And though it would be nice to reconsider the confession, take a second and third look at the testimony, if we did that for one, we'd have to do it for all. And if we did it for all, surely the court dockets would clog beyond repair, and there would be no justice for anybody.

(For Ms. Frutt.)

Judge Andrew Wood: Ms. Frutt, it was the confession and the eyewitness testimony that convicted your client. Both of these elements were vigorously challenged at trial. And though you'd clearly like to keep on renewing the challenge, under the law, you don't get to, not with what you've brought me.

(To the D.A. Michael Stanfield.)

Judge Andrew Wood: But, Mr. Stanfield, had you had this DNA evidence, clearly, you would have investigated the possibility of another suspect. You didn't. I am an old man. I look at each cigarette as possibly my last. My last breath won't be spent executing a man I now think is probably innocent. The conviction is set aside. Mr. Donovan, you are free with the apologies of this court.

(Bangs the gavel.)

Judge Andrew Wood: Adjourned.

(Mary are relieved. Thanks to the D.A. Michael Stanfield. He did his best.)

Eugene Young: How about that?

Ellenor Frutt: Yeah.

(It's over? That Stuart Donovan is free? Yes. Jimmy Berluti turned to Lucy and hug Mary.)

Lucy Hatcher: Congratulations.

Mary Donovan: Thank you.

(Stuart's mother Mary Donovan is coming to see her son. Stuart is returning to his mother. He's free from death row. Wrongly convicted he didn't commit. Thanks to Lucy Hatcher. Assistant D.A. Matthew Platt are in shock. Brian Kearns looked silent. Ellenor Frutt are in tears. Mary Donovan hugs her son Stuart, and she's sobbing in tears. Stuart is coming home.)