|
THE PROSECUTION'S BOMBSHELL
Suddenly, a second state's
witness can identify Coleman as shooter
The prosecution's first witness, Henry Coachman,
posed no threat to Coleman, or so defense attorneys believed.
Coachman, a security guard for Florida East Coast
Railway Co., had told police he was standing just outside Roadburners
about 1:30 a.m. when he saw Smith and Roddy run out, followed by a
third man with a gun.
The gunman bumped into Coachman, took aim at Roddy
and fired.
``I saw him from the back - tall, slender guy,''
Coachman said in a deposition on Nov. 19, 1991.
Geesey's handwritten notes, jotted down before the
trial, say Coachman ``wouldn't know him (the shooter) if he walked
through the door.''
But when Geesey asked Coachman if he could identify
Roddy's killer inside the courtroom, Coachman surprised everyone.
``Yes, I can now,'' he said.
Coachman pointed to Coleman.
``After he passed me in the hall today, I looked at
the back of him. From what I remember . . . the back of his head
showed everything I saw.''
Pleasanton and his co-counsel, Jack Orsley, watched
in stunned silence.
Defense expert Lubin says they should have objected
immediately, asked to have the jury excused ``and held a hearing on
how this could have happened.''
For starters, they could have argued that Geesey
violated legal rules if he knew all along that Coachman would
identify Coleman - Geesey recently said he didn't know - and had
failed to alert the defense.
Pleasanton also could have asked Circuit Judge
Marvin Mounts for time to subpoena an expert on eyewitness testimony.
An identification made after someone has been arrested is tainted,
experts say.
But the defense attorneys said nothing.
On cross-examination, Coachman strengthened his
credibility. He said his experience as ``a cop'' had helped him make
his identification.
There is no record that Coachman was a police
officer in Florida or Georgia, his home state. But defense attorneys
hadn't checked his background, so they couldn't challenge his claim.
Orsley tried to rebound, pointing out weaknesses in
Coachman's testimony:
He recalled hearing only one shot when the gunman
fired at least three, and he said Roddy, not Smith, was the first one
out the bar door. That contradicted Smith's description.
But Coachman had made an impact with more than just
his surprise identification.
``I'm afraid for my life sitting in here,'' he said.
That fear affected jurors.
``He was obviously so reluctant to testify,'' one
said. ``That was very sobering.''
THE KEY WITNESS
Defense fails to spell out
for jury the inconsistencies in Smith's account
Geesey's next witness was the dead man's cousin,
Dexter Smith.
Smith had been the defense attorneys' key target
from the start. If they could discredit him, they could win Coleman's freedom.
Only Smith had identified Coleman before the trial,
and only Smith could establish a motive for the murder: the 1990
fight at the Kentucky Fried Chicken that intensified an ongoing feud
between Avery Clayton - Coleman's friend - and Roddy.
Police arrested Clayton for pistol-whipping Roddy
during that fight, and Roddy and Smith testified against him.
Clayton had vowed revenge, Smith told police.
From that moment, Roddy and Smith expected trouble
from Clayton and his friends, including Kevin Coleman.
At the murder trial, Geesey asked Smith what went
through his mind when he saw Coleman at Roadburners.
``Well, it brought back flashbacks of what happened
at the Kentucky Fried Chicken,'' Smith responded.
But that wasn't consistent with what Smith said in
one of his pretrial statements.
In fact, Smith's statements contain major
contradictions - exactly what defense attorneys needed to pummel him
on cross-examination:
Smith had told police the shooter was one of the
men with Clayton at the Kentucky Fried Chicken. A year later, he
changed his story. He had not recognized the gunman as one of the men
with Clayton at the Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Smith wasn't sure what the murderer was wearing. He
gave two different descriptions.
Almost immediately after the shooting, Smith told
police the gunman had been wearing bluejeans and a white T-shirt.
About 15 hours later, he changed his story. This
time he said the shooter was wearing a black sweat shirt, black pants
and a white hat.
A year later, during a deposition, Smith returned
to his original version. The shooter was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt.
But the jury never heard these inconsistencies.
Pleasanton never brought them up.
``The judge instructs jurors that one of the ways
to judge the credibility of a witness is whether they make
inconsistent statements,'' Lubin said. ``But you can't blame the jury
if it wasn't given to them.''
Pleasanton did coax Smith to admit a few contradictions.
Smith had estimated the gunman's height at 5-feet-8
or 5-feet-9. Coleman is 6-feet-2. Smith said he was supposed to wear
glasses but didn't.
And he admitted that there might have been two
shooters - one who shot and killed Roddy and one who shot him.
But those discrepancies didn't sway the jury.
``We went over and over the testimony and there was
something about it that convinced everybody that the Smith boy
recognized his attacker, '' one juror said.
*more: The Prosecution Ends
*beginning of story
*top
|
