COLUMN ONE

A BITTER LESSON FOR LANCASTER COUNTY

Judge says Pennsylvania community 'lost its soul' in push to convict woman
of murder. Residents claim he, not they, are mocking justice. Right or
wrong, his ruling challenges U.S. court system's balance of power.

LANCASTER, Pa.By midmorning on the first day of Lisa Michelle Lambert's
federal habeas corpus hearing, U.S. District Judge Stewart Dalzell already
could be seen displaying alarm over what he was hearing.

From the lawyers' briefs alone, he'd read enough to persuade him to grant
Lisa's request for this uncommon federal review of a state murder
conviction. He'd read enough to suspect that just possibly,Lisa Lambert,
although sentenced to life without parole, hadn't killed Laurie Show over a
teenage romantic rivalry. He'd read enough to surmise that just maybe,
Lisa's boyfriend, Lawrence "Butch" Yunkin, along with a girl named Tabitha
Buck, had killed Laurie.

Now, he was listening to evidence that served only to deepen his concerns
regarding Lancaster County's prosecution of Lisa.

It was March 31. Computers, boxes of documents and piles of papers filled
the small hearing room on the fifth floor of the federal courthouse in
downtown Philadelphia. Lisa's parents sat in the first row, Laurie Show's
behind them. Reporters and court personnel occupied the jury box. On the
stand, an expert witness for Lisa's side, Northwestern University speech
professor Charles Larson, was testifying.

Contrary to the autopsy report, Larson believedas did three emergency
medical technicians and the Philadelphia medical examinerthat Laurie
Show's left carotid artery had been severed by whoever slashed her throat.
This, he explained, left her unable to say "Michelle did it," as Laurie's
mother, Hazel, had claimed. Her vocal tract was "destroyed," her left brain
hemisphere "dying." She was "totally incapable of speech."

How, asked Lisa's attorney, Christina Rainville, could two doctors have
signed an autopsy report saying that the carotid arteries weren't "involved"?

Those two doctors were both Lancaster County physicians, one the parttime
coroner, the other an earnoseandthroat specialist.

"I don't think they were telling the truth," Larson replied.

Dalzell peered over gold wirerimmed bifocals at the witness. "Oh," he
said. "Well, OK."

So it went, hour by hour, for 15 days.

That this hearing was even being held appalled most in Lancaster County,
about 75 miles west of Philadelphia. In the 1991 killing of Laurie Show,
Lisa had already been found guilty of firstdegree murder, Tabitha Buck of
seconddegree, Butch Yunkin of thirddegree. Now here was Lisa, claiming
her innocence, claiming all sorts of prosecutorial abuse. Now here was
Lisa, seeking a federal order freeing her because the state had illegally
imprisoned her.

For Lisa to cast herself as an innocent victim was maddening enough. For a
federal judge to take her seriously was unimaginable. Yet that was just
what was happening in this Philadelphia courtroom.

The second day of the hearing found Dalzell puzzling over two quite
different versions of a videotaped police search of the Susquehanna River.
The one initially provided by the Lancaster County district attorney, eight
minutes long, had no soundtrack, and no images of police finding a pink bag
Lisa said she'd thrown there. The second, obtained through discovery only
after Rainville realized she'd been sent an edited tape, was four minutes
longer. It had sound. It also had an officer kicking at a pink bag while
another asked, "What do you got, a bag?"

After watching these tapes, Dalzell removed his glasses and rubbed his
eyes, something he'd do more than once during the threeweek hearing. He
studied Lisa, also something he'd do more than once, especially in the
hearing's early days. Lisa, sobbing off and on, was staring down at the
table where she sat, bent over, her hands between her legs. Dalzell looked
as if he were trying to fathom her character.

The third day found Dalzell puzzling over Lisa's initial statement to the
police. He listened to East Lampeter Police Det. Raymond Solt try to
reconcile the typewritten first page, where Lisa says she wore her own
clothes at the murder scene, and a handwritten last page where Lisa says
she wore Butch's sweatpants. He listened to Solt explain how he destroyed
all his notes from the interview. By the time Solt stepped down, the judge
was referring openly to "Ms. Lambert's alleged statement."

With Det. Ronald Barley on the stand later that afternoon, Dalzell grew
even more openly dissatisfied. Barley was a wellregarded detective in
Lancaster County. A "very thorough investigator" is how Ted Darcus,
chairman of Lancaster's City Council, considered him. Barley "dealt well
with people in our community accused of crimes." Yet this wasn't apparent
to Dalzell.

Barley, being questioned about the taped interview he helped conduct with
Butch Yunkina tape full of laughter, clicks and obvious gapskept
waffling so much that Dalzell finally snapped: "Answer her question! Yes or
no?" Rather than heed the suggestion, Barley grew even more evasive. Asked
about a critical spot where the recorder clicked off, he denied even being
in the interview room at that moment.

Dalzell had heard enough. He called a recess and ordered all the lawyers
into his chambers.

"I want to know what is going on here," he told Lancaster County Dist.
Atty. Joseph Madenspacher. "I'm hearing perjured testimony. . . . As we had
with Det. Solt, [Barley] is contradicting his own statement. . . . My
patience has just run out. . . . I'm afraid the commonwealth is allowing
perjured testimony in federal court. . . . I'm being lied to. . . . This
man gives me the unbelievably fantastic statement that suddenly he
'evaporated.' It's totally incredible, and I'm afraid I'm going to have to
refer this, if this keeps up, to the United States attorney. . . ."

Madenspacher shifted uneasily. This hadn't been his case to try. He'd left
the prosecution to his seasoned first assistant, John Kenneff. "I
understand what the court is saying . . .," he replied. "I don't know what
I'm going to do, but I'm going to do something."

Little changed, though, when Barley resumed the stand. He didn't recall his
colleague, Det. Ronald "Slick" Savage, turning the tape recorder on and
off. He destroyed his notes after taking Butch's statement.

"No, no . . . please answer her questions. Will you do that?" Dalzell
interrupted at one point.

"You knew . . . because you took the statement?" the judge asked later. "Or
did you disappear for that part? . . . Oh, do you have that ability to
appear and disappear at will?"

By the time Barley tried to explain how he "completely forgot" they'd found
a pink bag during the river searcha pink bag that Lisa told them
contained Butch Yunkin's bloodied sneakersDalzell was beside himself. It
helped his mood little when, with Barley still on the stand, Rainville
moments later played the segment of unedited videotape that showed an
officer kicking the pink bag, then waving the camera off.

"No, that's not me," Barley said.

Rainville inched the videotape ahead a moment. "No, no ma'am."

Again she moved the tape forward. Now the man at the river could be seen
clearly.

"That is me," Barley allowed. "I don't know why I waved at that point."

Dalzell again peered over his eyeglasses. "Who were you waving to? The
record should reflect that the witness definitely waved directly at the
camera. What in the world were you doing, if you weren't waving to the
camera?"

Barley looked blank. "I don't recall, sir."

Defendant Alleges Gang Rape

On the seventh day, Dalzell began to hear Lisa Lambert's story of being
gangraped by three policemen six months before Show's murder.

Lisaher extravagant eye makeup toned down but still too thick for
Rainville's tastehad started testifying the previous day. Now she
described being stalked by an officer named Robin Weaver, of vainly calling
his police chief to complain, of receiving threatening calls after the
alleged attack. She explained how fear had kept her from telling this story
before. Finally, she explained why she now was willing to talk.

In a deposition given to Lisa's attorneys before the hearing, Weaver,
without being asked, had referred to the gangrape accusation. He thought
Lisa had cited it in her habeas petition, but she had not. The charge had
never been raised publicly. To Lisa, Weaver's comment, therefore, provided
independent proof of her claim: "There is no way that he could have ever
known about that unless he was there and he did it. It was not raised in
the petition."

Dalzell interrupted: "Is that true?"

"That is true, your honor," said Rainville, who had been appointed by the
judge to represent Lisa on a probono basis.

Dalzell again had heard enough: "We'll take another recess. . . . I want
[Weaver] here this afternoon, and I don't want anyone to say a word about
what has come up here. If he resists, please tell me. I will have the
marshal arrest him, OK?"

Moments later, Dalzell learned that prosecutor John Kenneff already had
discussed the rape allegation with Weaver.

"So he's been coached . . . ," Dalzell exclaimed.

The judge's budding animosity toward Kenneff was palpable. The prosecutor
had not yet appeared before him, but the residue of his work at the Lambert
trial was everywhere.

"I'm going to direct that Mr. Kenneff have no further contact with any
witness in this case. . . ," Dalzell declared. "And he might want to
consult with counsel. . . . I'm going to want to hear about this, because
in the context of this case, Mr. Kenneff, God help him, if he coached this
witness. God help him. . . . Mr. Kenneff, at his election, should retain
counsel for proceedings that may follow this one."

On the witness stand that afternoon, Weaver absorbed the full brunt of
Dalzell's rancor. The judge grilled him: Have you talked to any human
beings? You understand you're in federal court? You understand the laws of
the United States apply? You understand you're under oath?"

Weaver said he did, and then denied any involvement in a rape of Lisa
Lambert. Dalzell, though, wasn't finished.

Weaver had been among the first on the murder scene. It was he who'd
initially questioned Hazel Show, and it was he who had written the police
report. Yet, nowhere in it had he indicated that Hazel Show heard her
daughter make a dying declaration about Lisa. Nor had he done so in a final
report written three weeks later.

"Yes or no," the judge demanded. "Did you hear Hazel Show report a dying
declaration?"

"I don't remember. . . . " Weaver replied. "She could have or she may not
have."

"Is it your testimony that you would not have put it in a report if Hazel
Show had told you about a dying declaration, that you would not have put it
down in that report? Is that your testimony? Yes or no?"

"No."

"So the fact that you don't make reference to a dying declaration, is some
evidence that she didn't tell you that. Correct?"

"You can infer that, yes, sir."

"Oh," the judge said. "I could infer it. Could I infer anything else from
that?"

Mounting Anger Among Citizenry

Day by day, watching from afar or from a courtroom seat, the citizens of
Lancaster County grew ever more amazed and furious as the Lambert hearing
unfolded. This is shocking us, they declared. This is shaking our
confidence in the American judicial system.

What troubled them, though, were not the revelations coming out of
Dalzell's courtroom. It was, rather, Dalzell's conduct.

The judge was "making the county look bad." The judge sounds as if he
"revels in publicly humiliating Lancaster County."

Most irksome of all was the judge's handling of Lancaster County
authorities. He was "discourteous" to the police officers and John Kenneff.
He sighed and rolled his eyes and looked at the ceiling as they testified.
He interrupted with his own questions, as if to assist the defense. He
acted as if he didn't believe them.

Many in Lancaster County just couldn't fathom such an attitude. The police
and prosecutors were their neighbors, their friends, their protectors. They
couldn't possibly manipulate evidence. They couldn't possibly lie.

By midway through the hearing, a certain tone of frantic fear could be
heard in the county's response. Don't believe the "lies and untruths" being
aimed at our police, urged East Lampeter Supervisor Chairman John Shertzer.
Don't "rush to judgment." It's "unfortunate that so much is being made of
such insignificant points."

In his opening statement at the hearing, Madenspacher, the district
attorney, had allowed that the investigation hadn't been "perfect," that
maybe they'd been a little "careless," maybe a little "sloppy." Others,
though, refused even to acknowledge that much. All sorts of citizens
instead continued to offer glowing tributes to the police and prosecutors.

No one official drew more accolades than did John Kenneff. He is a big,
heavyset man with a full, broad Irish face. Growing up in Lancaster County,
Kenneff was considered a fine schoolboy, a high achiever. Not Harvardlevel
material, but his college, Villanova University, was nonetheless a good
school. Not as good as the University of Pennsylvania, but the next step.

He'd come back after law school, opened a private practice, worked his way
up through the D.A.'s office. He came to all the Fourth of July picnics; he
brought his family, he brought his dog. He was known as a committed,
persistent prosecutor, one of the fairest and most reasonable in the county.

Even the defense attorneys who went up against him said as much. Even they
called him a decent, honest guy. To Terry Kauffman, a dairy farmer and
chairman of the board of county commissioners, that particularly carried a
lot of weight: "A lot of people I know here, from both sides of the aisle,
say he's the best. I know them, and I've known Jack Kenneff for years. I
don't know Stewart Dalzell."

Darcusthe chairman of the Lancaster City Council, a black man from West
Virginia who followed a Boys' Club job to Lancaster 30 years ago and
happily settledbelieved he possessed an especially close take on John
Kenneff's character. They'd been involved together in a "Weed and Seed"
anticrime development program in Lancaster's minority community. So Darcus
saw Kenneff not just as a prosecutor, but a community leader. Also as a
father: Kenneff's children went to the same Catholic school as Darcus' son.

"I've seen how he cares about people," Darcus said. "I've seen him deal
with people in my community. I've seen him go beyond what was needed.
Knowing Jack Kenneff, I just can't picture this man doing what the judge
says. I wonder how that judge sleeps at night."

Denials From the Prosecutor

No, John Kenneff insisted. No, he didn't think Butch Yunkin's sweatpants
were a critical issue at the murder trial. No, he had no recollection of
looking at the sweatpants the state put into evidence.

It was April 15, the hearing's 11th day. Kenneff had taken the witness
stand soon after court convened. Questioning him was Peter Greenberg,
Rainville's husband, a partner at their law firm and one of Philadelphia's
mostaccomplished litigators.

At the trial, the state's theory of the murder had Lisa wearing Butch's
extralarge men's sweatpants, found full of blood in a dumpster after the
attack. Trial judge Lawrence F. Stengel accepted this theory and thought it
significant. So Kenneff's answers now caused Dalzell to lean forward.

"Did you make a conscious judgment at trial as to who was wearing the
clothing that you put into evidence?" Greenberg asked.

"It was my understanding that Miss Lambert had admitted to wearing the
clothing . . . ," Kenneff replied.

Dalzell interrupted: "I don't think that's the question he asked you. And I
think you ought to listen more carefully to Mr. Greenberg's questions
because I don't think you're answering them. . . . That question can be
answered yes or no."

So it went through much of the morning. Lancaster County citizens were
right: Dalzell by then couldn't hide his dismay for their assistant
district attorney. The moments when the judge removed his glasses and
rubbed his eyes were adding up.

For 10 days he'd been exposed to an evermore disturbing portrait of how
Kenneff had prosecuted Lisa Lambert. He'd listened to the pathologist
Isidore Mihalakisa defense witness at Lisa's murder trialdescribe
private conversations with Kenneff that Dalzell thought constituted
witnesstampering. He'd heard how authorities had concealed critical
testimony by Hazel Show's neighbor Kathleen Bayan. He'd been presented
evidence that convinced him the state had "lost" an earring of Butch's
found on the victim's body. He'd been presented evidence that convinced him
the state had edited critical video and audiotapes.

Now the man who oversaw the state's efforts sat before Dalzell on the
witness stand.

No, Kenneff was testifying. He didn't recall looking at the riversearch
video.

"You didn't think it worthwhile to look at the video?" Greenberg asked.

"I didn't think what happened at the river was a contested issue," Kenneff
replied.

This time, Greenberg snapped before the judge could: "You've been in this
business long enough to know that when I ask a question you're supposed to
answer it?"

"Right," Kenneff agreed.

Dalzell joined in now: "It would be nice if you would do that. . . . I want
to warn you, sir, that, if you don't do that, you are going to put me into
a position where this will have to get unpleasant. Do you understand that?
. . . The record should reflect that you have been consistently
unresponsive to the questions. . . . "

Greenberg turned back to the matter of Butch's sweatpants. Now, Kenneff has
even resisted saying he based the case on the theory that Lisa wore Butch's
clothing. He no longer, in fact, was sure whether the sweatpants were
Butch's.

The pair he'd produced for the habeas hearing, after all, were much smaller
than men's extralarge. "The sweatpants would have looked ridiculous if
worn by 6foot1inchtall Butch," Kenneff had argued in a written response
just before the hearing.

"You are the same person . . . " Greenberg asked, "saying that the
sweatpants would have looked ridiculous on Butch, who put Butch on to
testify in Lisa's trial . . . that they were his sweatpants, these very
same sweatpants that would have looked ridiculous on him?"

"Correct."

"These are the same sweatpants that Judge Stengel found belonged to Butch?"

"Correct."

"And if you had your way, Lisa would have been executed based on that
evidence, wouldn't she?"

Kenneff hesitated; Dalzell spoke: "Yes or no," the judge ordered.

"That would be correct."

Greenberg erupted: "Do you think this is some kind of game?... Do you
realize that there is a human being sitting here who is in jail serving a
life sentence based on the evidence you put on . . . that you are now
disowning. . . . Not only are you disowning it, you are committing perjury.
. . . Are you sure it is Miss Lambert who is a dangerous person in this
courtroom?"

Handling of Letter Infuriated Judge

In the end, the commonwealth's handling of the controversial 29 Question
Letter was what most inflamed Dalzell.

Lisa had written Butch from jail, asking a series of questions. The answers
Butch had scrawled under each question, the judge felt, left no doubt that
he was the murderer of Laurie, and that his accomplice was Tabitha Buck.
That the letter was authentic seemed equally certain to Dalzell: Both the
state and defense experts had affirmed there'd been no alteration.

Yet, Kenneffafter stipulating to the experts' opinionshad let Butch
testify at Lambert's trial that the questions were altered. That the
prosecutor knew his witness was committing perjury appeared obvious to
Dalzell. At Butch's pleabargain hearing after Lisa's conviction, Kenneff
wanted to revoke their deal precisely because of this perjury.

Experts had reviewed the 29 Questions Letter and Butch's trial testimony,
Kenneff told the judge at that Oct. 10, 1992, hearing. "They advised us
that his testimony . . . regarding that [letter] that was false . . . . It
is our opinion that he testified falsely . . . on that basis we feel we are
entitled to withdraw from the original plea agreement."

There just was no ambiguity, Dalzell felt: Kenneff knew that Butch
committed perjury on a material issue, regarding a document that
established Lisa's innocence.

Under such circumstances, Dalzell believed Kenneff had an unambiguous
ethical obligation to take remedial action with the court that convicted
Lambert. The Pennsylvania Rule of Professional Conduct was clear about
this: "A lawyer shall not knowingly . . . offer evidence that the lawyer
knows to be false. If a lawyer has offered material evidence and comes to
know of its falsity, the lawyer shall take reasonable remedial steps."

Yet far from complying with this rule, it looked to Dalzell as if Kenneff
had encouraged Judge Stengel to accept Butch's perjured testimony. "I think
he's just like any other witness," Kenneff told Stengel when Lisa's
attorney moved for a mistrial based on Butch's perjury. "You can believe
some of it, all of it, or none."

It was worse than that, in Dalzell's eyes. For, after obtaining a
conviction based partly on this perjured testimony, Kenneff had coolly
proceeded to seek the death penalty for Lisa Lambert.

Now, remarkably, Kenneff at this habeas hearingand in written responses
that looked to Dalzell to be blatantly falsewas back to arguing that some
of the 29 questions had been initially written in pencil, then altered. In
other words, Kenneff, before Dalzell, was defending testimony by Butch that
he had told two other judges was a lie.

"Do you want to take remedial actions with Judge Dalzell?" Peter Greenberg
asked.

Here the judge interceded: "I was just going to ask that myself. . . ."

It was the morning of April 16, the hearing's 12th day. Kenneff had been on
the stand for hours.

"Well, your honor," Kenneff responded. "I think I still feel the same way
about the 29 questions. . . . That there is some type of tampering with it.
. . . "

"No, no, no, sir," Dalzell interrupted. "I am going to jump in here. You
said in your answer to me that there was pencil. And you have testified
under oath here that your expert and the defense expert said there was no
graphite. . . . "

"Judge," Kenneff began.

Dalzell spoke over him: "I want to warn you, sir, you are under oath, and
you are subject to the rules of professional responsibility. . . . Do you
retract that statement that you signed . . . as to pencil? Yes or no?"

"I just don't think I can answer that question yes or no, judge."

Dalzell turned to Madenspacher, Kenneff's supervisor. "Does the
commonwealth retract it?"

Madenspacher rose. "Yes, your honor. We retract it."

"Thank you," Dalzell said. He turned back to Kenneff. "Your boss just
retracted it. Next question."

Their confrontation hadn't peaked yet.

The climax came minutes later, when Greenberg began listing all the pieces
of evidence that the district attorney's office kept from Roy Shirk, Lisa's
attorney at her trial. What if Shirk had the names of the emergency medical
technicians? What if he knew the police had found a pink bag? What if he
had the unedited riversearch video? What if he knew a neighbor had seen
Butch at the crime scene?

"Well," Kenneff tried to answer, "the Pennsylvania Rule provides for
certain . . . "

That's as far as he got. Dalzell exploded: "No. Excuse me. We're talking
herelet me just make something clear to you. We're talking here about
something called the United States Constitution, and in particular the 14th
Amendment thereof, which has a clause in it that refers to due process of
law. OK? Have you heard of that?"

"Yes sir."

"That's what we're talking about. . . . So we're not talking about the
Pennsylvania Rules of Criminal Procedure. We're talking about due process
of law here. . . . That's what we're talking about here. You got it? Do you
understand?"

"Yes," Kenneff replied.

[Continued in part 2, Biggest Drama Begins to Unfold]