have committed this vicious and senselessly brutal murder of a revered community leader. Aaron Stampler is guilty of coldly, premeditatedly killing Archbishop Richard Rushman. In the end, I am sure you will agree with the state that anything less than the death penalty would be as great a miscarriage of justice as the murder itself.
Vail, in sharp contrast, set up his entire defence in a complex and obviously impassioned plea to the jury.
VAIL: Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my name is Martin Vail. I have been charged by the court to represent the defendant, Aaron Stampler. Now, we are here to determine whether the defendant who sits before you is guilty of the loathsome and premeditated murder of one of this city's most admired and respected citizens, Archbishop Richard Rushtnan. In criminal law there are two types of criminals. The worst is known as malum in se, which means wrong by the very nature of the crime. Murder, rape, grievous bodily harm, crippling injuries - purposeful, planned, premeditated crimes against the person's body, if you will. This is such a crime. The murder of Bishop Rushman is obviously a case of malum in se. The accused does not deny that. You will see photographs of this crime that will sicken you. And you will be asked to believe that a sane person committed that crime. And you will be asked to render judgement on what is known as mens rea, which means did the accused intend to cause bodily harm - in other words, did Aaron Stampler intentionally commit the murder of Archbishop Rushman? Aaron Stampler does deny that he is guilty of mens rea in this murder case… The extenuating circumstances in the case of the State versus Aaron Stampler are of an unusual nature because they involve mental disorders. And so you will be made privy to a great deal of psychological information during the course of this trial. We ask only that you listen carefully so that you can make a fair judgement on mens rea, for in order to make that judgement you will be asked to fudge his conduct. Did Aaron Stampler suffer a defect of reason? Did he act on an irresistible impulse?… These and many more questions will hinge on the state of Aaron Stampler's mental health at the time the crime was committed. And as you make these judgements, I would ask also that you keep one important fact in the back of your mind at all times: If Aaron Stampler was in full command of his faculties at the time of this crime, why did he do it? What was his motivation for committing such a desperate and horrifying act? And if he did, was he mentally responsible at the time? In the final analysis, that may be the most important question of all. And so, ladies and gentlemen, your responsibility will be to rule on the believability of the evidence the prosecutor and I present to you. Whom do you believe? What do you believe? And most important of all, do you accept the evidence as truth 'beyond a reasonable doubt'?… In the end, when you have heard all the evidence, I sincerely believe that you will find on behalf of my client, Aaron Stampler.
St Claire had spent hours copying parts of the testimony and inventing his own chronology of the trial. The method would eventually guide him to the elusive clues he was pursuing. The initial skirmishes came quickly, during the first cross by Vail. The witness was the state's psychiatric expert, Dr Harcourt D. Bascott.
VAIL: Are you familiar with Aaron Stampler's hometown: Crikside, Kentucky?
BASCOTT: It has been described to me, sir.
VAIL: You haven't been there?
BASCOTT: No, I have not.
VAIL: From what you understand, Doctor, is it possible that environmental factors in Crikside might contribute to schizophrenia?
VENABLE: Objection, Your Honour. Hearsay. And what is the relevance of this testimony?
VAIL: Your Honour, we're dealing with a homicide which we contend is the result of a specific mental disorder. I'm simply laying groundwork here.
VENABLE: Are we going to get a course in psychiatry, too?
VAIL: Is that an objection?
VENABLE: If you like.
JUDGE SHOAT. Excuse me. Would you like a recess so you can carry on this private discussion, or would you two like to address the court?
So, in the opening interrogation, the tone and pace of the game was set. Stampler, St Claire learned from several witnesses, had been a physically abused, religiously disoriented, twenty-year-old Appalachian kid with a genius IQ and illiterate parents. He had been stifled in a narrow niche of a village in the Kentucky mountains, forced into the coal mines where the future was a slow death by black lung or a quick demise by explosion or poisonous gases. The thing he had feared the most was the hole, a deep mine shaft that, in his words, 'was worse than all my nightmares. I didn't know a hole could be that deep. At the
