22
The Defense’s Case
After court, on the days when the prosecution was presenting their case, Chuck Keller was having long, sometimes all-night, sessions with his client. The question was, should Stacey testify on her own behalf? It was risky. But possibly necessary.
If the jury didn’t find Stacey a credible witness, they were sunk. Of course, they might be sunk, anyway. Juries did not like it when defendants did not testify. Even though the law was clear that choosing not to testify was not an indication of guilt, juries were human beings and saw not testifying as a sign of something to hide.
So Keller spent many hours alone in a room with Stacey. They practiced cross-examination. Keller tried to anticipate the types of questions Fitzpatrick might ask. He would switch up, ask questions softly, and then become more firm. He’d ask many questions on one subject, and then abruptly switch topics. And throughout it all, Stacey was a rock. She was unflappable. Keller told Stacey the decision was up to her. Stacey didn’t give him the green light until hours before the defense was scheduled to start its case.
The first defense witness was Dr. John Roy, a Brooklyn College linguistics professor. He refused to testify with television cameras rolling, so the cameras were turned off.
Dr. Roy told the jury he was an “authorial attribution” expert. Based on syntax, spelling, punctuation, etc., he could determine whether or not an individual was the actual author of a written piece.
“Dr. Roy, did you have any contact with the defendant before this trial?” Keller asked.
“No, I never spoke to or met Stacey Castor before this trial,” Dr. Roy replied.
Dr. Roy said he had compared the language of the “suicide note” to writing samples by both Ashley Wallace and Stacey Castor.
Before getting an opportunity to offer an opinion, the district attorney popped to his feet and eagerly asked to question the witness regarding his credentials as an expert.
Fitzpatrick knew forensics and knew that “authorial attribution” was not what he would later describe as an “authorized beast” within the forensics community.
The DA knew there were some qualified people who could do authorial attribution, first and foremost Jim Fitzgerald, a former FBI agent who was down in Virginia now. He was good. But regarding this defense witness, Fitzpatrick had his doubts.
Under Fitzpatrick’s grilling, the doctor admitted that, no, he had never been published as an expert, and, no, he wasn’t a member of the International Association of Forensic Linguists.
While it was true that Dr. Roy testified in court twenty times before, his true expertise was in Creole and Caribbean dialects, obviously not relevant here.
With Dr. Roy’s credentials as an expert shaken, Fitzpatrick turned the witness back over to Chuck Keller, who rapidly switched the subject: “Who wrote the note?”
Dr. Roy broke down his methodology. He’d analyzed the note in terms of grammar, punctuation, spelling, and syntax. The note had little or no punctuation. He had to use his best judgment—his ear—just to break it up into sentences. He imagined the words spoken aloud and thus determined where the breaks should be. He said that he had examined writing samples of Stacey Castor and she always used proper punctuation. Her use of periods and commas was precise and accurate. That discrepancy was a strong indication that the defendant was not the note’s author. In the note, when punctuation was present, it was often wrong. “Commas, when present, were misplaced,” Dr. Roy testified. Not that Stacey’s writing was perfect. Her imperfect writing style was subconscious and a matter of habit. Stacey almost always had the wrong subject-verb agreement. Yet, the suicide note, despite its faulty-when-present punctuation, had correct subject-verb agreement. Obviously, if the defendant wrote the note in a purposefully camouflaged style, it would be much easier to mess up the things she usually did correctly than to correct things she usually got wrong.
“You also compared the note to material written by Ashley?”
“I did. I compared the note to between thirty and forty letters Ashley wrote.”
“How did you find the spelling in the note, Dr. Roy?”
“The note had many, many spelling errors.”
“Did you compare those spelling errors to the writings of both women?”
“Yes.”
“And what was your conclusion?”
“I found that the spelling errors were more consistent with Ashley’s writing than with Stacey’s.”
“Could you give examples of similarities between Ashley’s writing and the suicide note?”
“Yes, silent e’s tended to be dropped from the ends of words: e-l-s for else. P-r-o-m-i-s for promise. That was present in the note, and in Ashley’s writing samples.”
“But not in Stacey’s writing?”
“That’s correct.”
“So, of the two, which do you think wrote the note?” Keller asked.
“I believe Ashley Wallace wrote the note,” the linguist replied.
“No further questions, Judge,” Keller said.
Fitzpatrick rose to cross-examine, but Judge Fahey put up his hand. The hour was getting late.