COLUMN ONE: JUSTICE SERVEDOR SUBVERTED?

A U.S. judge called Pennsylvania murder trial 'corrupted from start to
finish,' sparking outrage by freeing the convicted killer in unprecedented
ruling.

LANCASTER, Pa.On its face, the handwritten document that arrived at the
United States Courthouse in Philadelphia the summer of 1996 looked to be an
entirely futile affair.

It was yet another petition for a writ of habeas corpus, filed by a
convicted murderer seeking an order freeing her because she was illegally
imprisoned.

Federal courthouses receive thousands of such pleas each year from state
prisoners; virtually all are rejected outright.

This oneLisa Michelle Lambert vs. Mrs. Charlotte Blackwell, Supt.,
entered in the docket on Sept. 12 as civil action No. 966244faced even
more obstacles than most.

Lisa Lambert, then 24considered "trailer trash" by some in Lancaster
Countyhad written her habeas petition without the help of an attorney.
Unable to pay assorted fees, she'd attached a request to proceed as a
pauper. She'd listed a number of claims, but none that judges hadn't heard
countless times before.

Worst of all, she'd found no way to obscure the basic details of her case,
since they were readily available in newspaper accounts as well as court
records. Lisa Lambert's murder trial had been the most notorious ever in
this bucolic region known for its Amish enclave and Pennsylvania Dutch
culture.

The East Lampeter police arrested Lisa and two friends just hours after
finding the body of 16yearold Laurie Show on the floor of her mother's
condominium, her throat slashed eartoear. Lisa, then 19, had been
harassing Laurie over a teenage romantic rivalry. Yes, Lisa conceded to the
police. Yes, she'd been at the Shows' condo that morning.

At her trial, courtroom spectators jeered as they eyed Lisa's tight skirts
and heavy makeup. The presiding judge, after hearing the case without a
jury, found her guilty of firstdegree murder. Lisa's defense attorneys
were pleased when she drew life without parole rather than the death penalty.

In the trial's aftermath, the victim's mother, Hazel Show, successfully
campaigned for a new state antistalking law. The lead police detective
signed a contract with a television movie production company. Lisa failed
with no less than four appeals, the last denied by the state Supreme Court.

Now came this federal habeas petition, Lisa's final chance.

Whatever meager prospects it possessed appeared to evaporate when, after
being received by the clerk of the U.S. District Court, it was assigned to
Judge Stewart Dalzell. Dalzell's background suggested little interest in
the plight of a convicted murderer. Then 53, a former real estate lawyer at
a bluechip Philadelphia firm, he was known as a probusiness Republican
who favored strict sentences and victims' rights.

Yet something in Lisa Lambert's petition caught the judge's eye.

After studying the handwritten pages, Dalzell reached for his phone.

This one isn't a capital case, he told a death row specialist at a top
Philadelphia law firm. But I think someone there might be interested.

So began a federal proceeding unprecedented in American historyone with
farreaching implications for how criminal cases are handled throughout the
50 states.

Lancaster County citizens are still reeling over what transpired, and what
was revealed, in Judge Dalzell's courtroom last April. What happened there
represents a frontal challenge to how the courts, the states and the
federal government administer justice. Increasingly in recent years, judges
and Congress, bowing to state jurisdiction, have sharply narrowed convicts'
chances of gaining federal review of their cases, no matter how strong
their claims may be. Yet this federal judge, saying he didn't trust
Pennsylvania to be fair, did not just grant a review; he reached deeply
into what are normally sovereign state proceedings.

When it was over, Lisa Lambert walked out of Dalzell's courtroom a free
woman, declared by the judge to be "actually innocent." When it was over,
those prosecutors and detectives who'd put her away faced criminal
investigations by a U.S. attorney. When it was over, all of Lancaster
County stood condemned by Dalzell for having "made a Faustian bargain" and
"lost its soul."

In barring the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from ever retrying Lambertthe
action that makes this case unprecedentedDalzell proclaimed: "We
entertain no doubt at all that [her] trial was corrupted from start to
finish by wholesale prosecutorial misconduct. . . . The fact is the
Commonwealth rigged the proceedings in the state trial to such an extent
that it was a trial in name only. . . . The Commonwealth's conduct in this
matter shocks our conscience."

Here in Lancaster County, though, it's not the commonwealth's role that
dismays, but Judge Dalzell's. In a community informed deeply by a
fundamentalist Christian ethos, legions still seethe over Dalzell. By
formal petition, many thousands now call for his impeachment. By distraught
letters and phone calls, many thousands insist that it's Dalzell who is
guilty of monstrous misconduct.

Has a federal judge, out of moral outrage or a motive more sinister, so
overstepped his bounds that he's made a mockery of justice? This question,
rather than the dismaying particulars of Lisa Lambert's prosecution, now
consumes both Lancaster County and the broader legal and political
communities.

At times, the furor focuses on Lisa's conduct: Whatever the authorities'
"mistakes," she stalked Laurie, she was in the victim's condo, she was
party to a murder. At times, the furor focuses on issues of law: Six state
attorneys general, including California's Dan Lungren, have filed an appeal
warning of the "potential to seriously weaken if not dismantle entirely"
the habeas process.

At times, the furor focuses on hardball politics: An archconservative
Washingtonbased groupendorsed by four Republican U.S. senators, former
Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III and former appeals court Judge Robert H.
Borkhas assailed Dalzell in a 15minute fundraising videotape.

Yet matters run even deeper for most Lancaster County citizens:

They are struggling to maintain steady grips on all they believe; they are
rising in agitation to defend themselves, their community and their view of
the world.

How could this be? they demand. We don't know Judge Stewart Dalzell, but we
know our detectives, we know our prosecutors. We live in the same
neighborhoods, we sit with them at school meetings, we drink beer with
them. They couldn't have done anything wrong. These are men of honor and
integrity. These are Lancaster County's leaders and protectors.

"I just can't believe it," offered Ted Darcus, chairman of Lancaster's City
Council. "That's the hardest part. The people involved in this. I have a
tough time because I know them. It's just not in their character to do what
the judge says they did. To me, it's humanly impossible. I do not believe
it. I cannot believe it."

Philadelphia Lawyer Takes the Bait

In late September of 1996, an email message flashed across computer
screens throughout the prominent Philadelphia law firm of Schnader,
Harrison, Segal & Lewis.

Anyone interested, a senior partner wanted to know, in a habeas case in
which the client's life isn't at risk?

Christina Rainville, 35, a senior associate in the firm's litigation
department, happened to see that message. After a 2 1/2year battle, she'd
just won a $12.5million breachofcontract case. She suddenly went from
being exceptionally busy to being idle. The message intrigued her. She
hadn't done pro bono work in a long time. Knowing nothing about the case,
Tina Rainville volunteered to defend Lisa Lambert. Only after Judge Dalzell
appointed her counsel for the petitioner on Oct. 4 did Rainville learn what
she'd bought into. When she did, she blanched.

It seemed clear from the newspaper articles alone: Lisa Lambert was guilty.
The details of Laurie Show's death looked that obvious.

Called to an earlymorning appointment at her daughter's school, Hazel Show
left their condo before 7 on Dec. 20, 1991. At the school she discovered
the call had been a hoax. Returning home, she learned from a neighbor that
there had been a commotion in her condo. Rushing upstairs, she found her
daughter lying on the floor of her bedroom, bleeding profusely from a deep,
wide slash across her neck.

"Michelle . . . Michelle did it." That's what Hazel Show testified she
heard Laurie say before the girl died in her arms.

There was no question who Michelle was: Lisa Michelle Lambert.

There had been bad blood between Laurie and Lisa for months. It had started
in the summer of 1991, when Laurie had a brief fling with Lisa's boyfriend,
Lawrence "Butch" Yunkin. As a parade of teenage witnesses testified at her
trial, Lisa hadn't hidden her anger for Laurie. She'd confronted her once
at a shopping mall and hit her. She'd stalked and harassed her. According
to one acquaintance, she'd once threatened to slit Laurie's throat.
According to others, she and some friends had plotted to kidnap her.

East Lampeter police never seriously considered other suspects.

They found Lisa at the bowling alley, sitting with Butch Yunkin, 20, and
Tabitha Buck, 17. Butch was a blond, muscular, 6foot1 truck driver's son
whom Lisa called "my Adonis." Tabitha was a plain, heavyset girl whom Lisa
had recently befriended. Then six months' pregnant with Butch's baby, Lisa
talked freely after her arrest.

The three of them had gone to the Show condo that morning as a "prank," she
told police. They planned to tie Laurie up, scare her, cut off her hair.
But everything spun out of control. As Lisa lingered outside, Tabitha
charged in and attacked Laurie. Lisa tried to intervene, but Tabitha kept
swinging a knife. Lisa fled down the staircase. Lisa wasn't there when
Laurie's throat was cut.

In Lisa's first account, neither was Butch Yunkin; he was at a nearby
McDonald's, unaware, waiting to pick them up. But by the time Lisa's case
went to trial in June 1992, her story had changed:

Now she'd bumped into Butch on the way down the condo's staircase that
morning. He was on his way up. As Lisa fled, Butch joined Tabitha in the
condo. Butch and Tabitha killed Laurie. Then Butch convinced Lisa to
protect him. Butch beat her, Butch abused her, Butch scared her. Butch gets
his way with everything.

The prosecutors went with Lisa's first version: she and Tabitha in the
condo, Butch at McDonald's. So did Lancaster County Court Judge Lawrence F.
Stengel, who in July 1992 found Lisa guilty of firstdegree murder.

Three months later, a jury convicted Tabitha of seconddegree murder,
believing her an "accomplice" who didn't wield the knife. A judge sentenced
her to life without parole.

Tina Rainville, flipping through the news accounts, came finally to Butch
Yunkin's fate. She read the words once, frowned, then reread them. It
seemed so odd. He'd negotiated a plea bargain of just three years for
"hindering apprehension," but prosecutors later withdrew it, saying he'd
lied at Lisa's trial. Butch finally pleaded guilty to thirddegree murder
and was sentenced to 10 to 20 years.

Why such a sweetheart deal? Rainville wondered. And why did it fall apart?

She turned some more pages. Here now was an account of Lisa's sentencing.
It seemed even stranger.

On the day Lisa appeared in court to learn whether she would be executed,
she wore a white satin evening gown. To please Butch, she'd dyed her brown
hair the color of champagne. To please Butch, she'd turned her brown eyes
blue with colored contact lenses.

According to the article, her defense attorneys considered Judge Stengel a
"thoughtful man" for sparing her life.

Closing the file, Rainville felt sick to her stomach. The mother of a
2yearold, she was a film school graduate who'd turned late to the law.
Considered a prickly maverick by some of her firm's more vintage partners,
she now specialized in civil matters such as computer technology and
securities fraud. She'd never considered criminal defense work because she
cringed at representing guilty people. Yet now she'd signed up to defend
the killer of a teenage girl.

That, at least, was what she thought until she first called Lisa. She
expected to hear the voice of a rough tramp, the rancorous teenager who'd
been kicked out of her family's home at 15. On the phone, though, her
client sounded timid, afraid, lost. Also, utterly cogent. Laurie could not
have said "Michelle did it," Lisa insisted. Because it wasn't trueor
possible. Laurie couldn't have said anything with her neck slashed. Ask a
pathologist, find an expert witness. He'll say Laurie couldn't talk.

Rainville picked up a pen.

It was a good thing we were speaking by phone that first time, Rainville
would say later. When she finally met Lisa, she almost fell over. Lisa had
on more makeup than Tammy Faye Bakker. No visible flesh on her face, her
eyelashes a single panel, her mouth covered with multicolored lipstick. Her
makeup so unbelievably dramatic, so abnormal, she looked mentally ill. If
she'd seen Lisa first, she would never have believed her.

Now though, listening only to a voice, Rainville did believe her. I took
the blame for Butch because I was afraid of him, Lisa was saying. He pushed
me around, he slapped me. I was scared; I thought he'd hurt our baby. He
told me to take the blame because I'd get less time than him. He promised
me that. He begged me, he ordered me, he told me I had to do it.

Point by point, Lisa built her case. When she finished, Rainville grilled
her, tried to break her. For every question, the client had a logical
answer. Lisa offered advice about points of law, suggestions for how to
proceed. Where to find the truth, where to uncover lies. Most important,
she talked about a motive for why Butch Yunkin killed Laurie Show: He had
dateraped her; Butch feared Laurie was about to file charges.

She also offered a motive for why the police focused on Lisa: Six months
before the murder, three East Lampeter cops gangraped her. Three cops who
knew her through Butch. Three cops who'd been called to their trailer when
Butch beat her.

Had this come out at your trial? Rainville asked.

No, Lisa said. I wouldn't let my attorney use it. Won't let you either.
They'll hurt my family if you do. They'll hurt my baby. After an hour on
the phone, Rainville hung up. Parts of Lisa's story sounded outlandish. The
gangrape business sounded particularly dubious. Still, Lisa was offering
facts that if not true, could easily be proved lies.

She had a lot of leads to chase, Rainville decided.

Pages of Petition Urge a New Look

When Lisa Lambert's amended habeas petition reached Judge Dalzell's desk on
Jan. 3, it differed considerably from the handwritten version that aroused
his interest four months earlier.

This one, drafted by Rainville and seven of her colleagues, offered
professionally printed blocks of type instead of graceful schoolgirl curls;
now it looked like a legal brief rather than an invitation to a birthday
party. More important, it raised the stakes. This revised petition declared
Lisa Lambert innocent.

"Inevitably," her lawyers declared, "there are situations where the
criminal justice system fails. So far, this is such a case. . . . Police
and the prosecution first decided that she was guilty, then tried to find
evidence to support their theory. When evidence failed to suggest that
Lambert in fact was guilty, evidence was altered, manipulated, and even
manufactured. Witnesses were tampered with, and perjury was committed. . . ."

{to be continued in a separate post as Part 2 of 2: COLUMN ONE: Justice
Servedor Subverted?)