Penguins Are People Too

While we wait for more news, if any, on the possible settlement, we’ll kick off another post with a question posed by everyone’s favorite cat (or penguin), Cat from Cleveland.  She may not sparkle, but ever since joining us here, she has certainly shined:
“I’m not much for party games, but reading the back and forth here about the New Yorker article, the spider, whether the knife was the murder weapon, and all of the less important details, as well as all of the things we suspect, but don’t know, leaves me trying to focus on what facts are known, and what I consider most important of those facts.

I’m interested in other’s opinions: what are the top two or three facts that lead you to your conclusion (whatever that is) about what happened that night?

For me, I don’t know what happened, and if I were a juror and everything I now know was learned from the evidence, I could not convict anyone of murder.

I agree with those that have noted that in times of high stress, people act in bizarre ways. Personally, I am calmer in a real crisis than I am when some little thing happens to disrupt my day (I’ve not encountered any dead or dying bodies in my guest room, but I suspect I’d be more like Dylan than Victor).

That said, the fact that Joe and Victor repeatedly insisted they were afraid the murderer was still in the house, but never called out to Dylan or expressed any concern for his well being, is pretty hard to explain. It leads me to conclude that they knew they weren’t in danger. And there is only one way they would know that.

Also, given that nothing was taken and anyone breaking into the house that night would have had to pass Dylan’s room to get to Robert, I’m left feeling that either Robert was a paid hit, or one of the housemates was involved.

That’s my summary. There are a lot of other facts and suspicions I find relevant, but if I had to pick a few facts that jump out to me, I guess those are it.”

The Civil Trial That May Never Be

We’ve heard from a source that a settlement has been reached in the civil trial between Kathy Wone & family, and defendants Joe Price, Victor Zaborsky and Dylan Ward. We’re trying to confirm this with the case principals.

This tip comes just one day after a private mediation session held with retired Judge Howard Chasanow yesterday, instead of the earlier June 14th mediation lifted by Judge Michael Rankin.  Arguments in the case were slate for later this October.

Kathy Wone originally brought the $20 million dollar wrongful death suit on November 25, 2008, around the same time the U.S. Attorney’s Office filed criminal charges of evidence tampering, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy first against Ward, and later with his two Swann Street house-mates.

On June 29, 2010, Judge Lynn Liebovitz foundPrice, Zaborsky and Ward not guilty of all charges. However, mere hours after the surprise verdict, attorneys on both sides of the civil case were hard at work for what was to be this October’s trial.

No details have been released on this possible settlement.  A call to plaintiff’s counsel yielded no comment, and calls to defense attorneys have yet to be returned.

This Still Coming In

We’re expecting that news could break in the Wone civil trial slated for later this October.

Watch this space.

Today marks exactly four months until the (scheduled) start of the October wrongful death trial.  That flurry of motions and filings we’d expected have yet to materialize, but the coming months should see the kickoff of a nasty battle over what evidence and testimony makes it to trial. 

Now that we know the proper pronunciation of ‘in limine,’ we feel like old pros (or paralegals) and are ready to jump into them.

And for you devotees of guest posts, we took “Christine’ up on her offer she made in a comment on Hoya’s essay - to do a statement analysis of Price’s portion of the ‘Anacostia Dialogues.” Statement analysis is to some an emerging (soft) science for criminal investigators, but not without its critics.  It should make for an interesting, if not exhaustive post, to come in the next week or so.

Part one of Bea’s submission generated close to 100 comments and the final chapter could elicit as many. When lobbing in a comment, if the preceeding one looks skinny, start a new thread and mention who and what you’re responding to up front.  Until the large print version of WMRW is released, that’s the best we can suggest. We now yield the floor bandwidth:

“We can all speculate as to how we would have acted/reacted under the same circumstances.  I might’ve been rattled and even overcome with grief that night, but I know that I wouldn’t stop cooperating in the days, months and years that followed.  Without a doubt some people are wrongfully convicted, but that would not be an overriding concern for me nor, I would venture, would it be for most people. 

There is no denying that that night was hell for the defendants – to see the bloody body of a murdered friend, to feel the heat of suspicion, to sit for hours in the sparse interrogation rooms with cops coming and going like car salesmen following a script to wear you down. 

Read more »

The Op-Ed Pages

Once again, taking to these pages with a guest post is longtime reader (maybe the very first), Bea.  She was one of the early trackers in this case when the only outpost was at datalounge. Few outside the immediate principals in this saga have a better grasp on the history of this case, evidence, players and the many dynamics.

This is the first installment of a piece she recently wrote. Treatise may be the more apt characterization. We thank her for her continued support, good humor and her indefatigable pursuit of justice in this case.

“Joe Price always wanted to be a hero, with a back-up plan of being rich and famous.  According to his anonymous friend here on WMRW, he was very exceedingly ambitious in high school.  At William & Mary, he stayed in the closet in part because of his political aspirations; he hammered out enough support and found enough backers, if not friends, to be elected Student Body President his senior year. According to the Facebook Page for “College Partnership for Kids,” one “Joseph R. Price” is credited as being the “CPK founder” in 1990, when he, along with other W&M students, forged a project to help elementary school kids. 

Mr. Joseph R. Price is quoted as saying “I wanted to create a way in which college students could give back a little of what they have received.”  He’s the only person quoted and given more “props” than any other W&M alum or current student in the organization, despite that he no longer appears to be an officer, member or admin of the group – I’m guessing it’s not easy to for Joe to be on Facebook these days – but it’s remarkable that he still gets top billing.

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What We Have Here, Is An Effort To Mediate

Last week, in response to a joint motion, Judge Michael Rankin signed an order to cancel the June 14 Court-ordered ADR (Mediation/Case Evaluation) that had been on the Scheduling Order since last October.

But that’s only half the story, and not as it seems that both sides in this case have a failure to communicate. Now scheduled for June 21 is a private mediation session. We learn that, “Parties are prepared to spend several hours with Judge (Howard) Chasanow in attempt to reach an amicable resolution to this matter and avoid future litigation costs and resources.”

It sounds like an impossible task.  Maybe so, but this Chasanow guy has quite a track record.

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“About pretty much everything. “

Longtime reader Hoya Loya has taken to these pages before with two thoughtful and provocative guest posts.  We welcome him back.

Last February, he tackled the thorny subject of whether there was consentual sex on the night of Robert’s murder, and opined that it was extremely unlikely.  

His first contribution here in October, 2009, was a succinct rundown on the key elements that if murder charges were ever filed, who they would more than likely point to, Dylan Ward, was his guess.

Today we share his latest thoughts, based on a fresh viewing of Defendant Joseph Price’s interrogation tapes from just hours after the murder, the “Anacostia Dialogues,” as they’ve become known. He zeroes in on a number of statements that Price made to the police that evening and questioned their veracity. 

With thouse doubts in mind, he applied a Latin phrase well known to those in the lawyer trade,and extrapolated from there on the apparent truthfulness of the larger Price narrative:

“Until very recently, I had avoided viewing Joe Price’s Anacostia interview. I had read the transcript and just didn’t have the time to watch. Big mistake. It was fascinating and possibly revealing in ways the transcript is not, as so many others pointed out when it was originally posted here at WMRW. We do know for sure that Joe is caught in at least one lie, if a white one, when he pretends Victor’s phone is his own.

That called to mind the old legal adage, one that first came to my attention as a summer associate back in 1987, when a partner asked me to research its use in legal opinions over the years. Later on, it had its moment in the sun when invoked by F. Lee Bailey regarding Mark Fuhrman in the O.J. trial: “Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.” Translated roughly, “If one thing it false, it’s all false.”

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