Post by Anja Nieser on Sept 17, 2006 23:07:29 GMT -5
DA's care for killer worries lawyers, victim's kin----Good intent, bad
judgment, Gibson says
News that District Attorney General Bill Gibson worked behind the scenes
to get a lighter sentence for a murderer has some of his Putnam County
neighbors mad, and others confused.
But the family of murder victim Lillian Kelley feels one thing: fear.
Letters between Gibson and convicted killer Christopher Adams have once
again thrown together Kelley's family, the murderer and the area's top
prosecutor - three years after the slaying and two years after the case
ended in a conviction.
In the letters, Gibson gave legal advice, encouragement and religious
counsel and talked to Adams like a friend, even though Gibson was
prosecuting Adams' case. He sent the letters to Adams without telling
Adams' own lawyer. He sent some while Adams was negotiating a plea
bargain; he sent others after the plea, while Adams was trying to win a
do-over of his case and an even shorter sentence.
The letters are unusual and could be ruled unethical and illegal.
Attorneys' ethical rules prevent lawyers from secretly talking to other
lawyers' clients. Gibson also undercut efforts by his own staff to get a
longer sentence, not a shorter one, for Adams.
"I had good intentions in all of this but did not exercise good judgment,"
Gibson wrote in a statement Saturday to The Tennessean. "I will face this
matter, myself trusting in God, and life will go on."
Fallout from the letters, published by the newspaper Saturday, could be
far-reaching.
Gibson could lose his license to practice law after 16 years as top
prosecutor for the rural Middle Tennessee area that includes Putnam and
other Upper Cumberland Plateau counties. He's also the subject of a
criminal probe by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
But the impact could go beyond that.
Some, such as Cookeville attorney Phil Parsons, fear similar
communications may have tainted other cases tried by Gibson. In the
letters, Gibson sought Adams' prayers for other defendants he was
prosecuting, including a man accused of murder and another of child
molestation.
"If he's done this in this case, as serious as it was, what's happened
elsewhere?" Parsons asked.
'Very hard meeting'
Carl Calfee's home is on a winding rural highway in the hills outside
Cookeville. It's also just 500 feet from where his mother-in law was
murdered.
He is tight-lipped about the killing. "We're gun-shy," said Calfee, who
described himself as a private man. He didn't want to discuss Gibson or
the case.
He worries Adams will use letters from the county's top prosecutor - sent
covertly while Adams' attorney was negotiating his plea agreement - to
overturn the conviction that puts Adams behind bars until 2037.
Carl Calfee doesn't want to be a target. He said he thinks he and his wife
might be in danger if Adams gets out of prison.
It also could mean more trauma for a family that agreed, with advice from
Gibson, to a plea bargain to avoid the emotional strain of a court battle.
During a string of robberies, court documents say, Adams entered Kelley's
home Sept. 9, 2003, and stole her checkbook before killing her.
According to an autopsy report, the 79-year-old woman was stabbed through
the heart, neck and shoulder. Adams later tried to use her checks at a
Bi-Lo store.
"The case against you is strong even without the confession," Gibson wrote
to Adams in an undated letter. "I understand that they have your
fingerprints on a B.C. (headache) powder in her purse at the scene and a
video of you cashing her check the next day."
The Calfees, who relied on Gibson and another prosecutor to guide them
through the legal process, did not know about the letters until The
Tennessean provided them copies.
They had a positive experience with Gibson for the week they were in
contact with him, according to Barbara Calfee, Kelley's daughter. She
described herself as "a simple person" who didn't know much about the
court system.
She read the letters stoically on her back porch Friday evening. Other
than a few soft exclamations - "That's sick" and "I can't believe he was
talking to all these people" - she was silent.
The Calfees were actually mentioned in one of the letters: Adams wrote to
Gibson that he would like to apologize to them face to face, though it
would "be a very hard meeting."
"It may help the healing process," Adams wrote. "What do you think Bill?"
In the same letter, Adams pondered whether "Mrs. Kelley knew Christ as her
Savior."
Previous slaying in Texas
Adams' letters to Gibson say he has found Jesus in prison, citing Bible
verses and religious poems and recommending religious literature to the
prosecutor.
Gibson calls Adams "an Honest, Honorable Child of the Living God" in one
missive.
But Adams has more than one slaying in his past. He stabbed his sleeping
father to death with a hunting knife in Houston 20 years ago, local media
reported at the time.
After the slaying, the 13-year-old loaded his belongings, including his
dog and two of his father Lendal Adams' pistols, into a pickup truck and
fled to Louisiana.
He was arrested at his sister's home but escaped jail time when
authorities sent him to a live-in mental institution in Tennessee, the
state where his mother still lives, news reports indicate.
At the time, Adams claimed his father hit him when he got in trouble at
school, according to the local newspaper.
Court files in Putnam County reflect Adams' long criminal history before
Kelley's murder, though his role in his father's slaying was not noted in
the file.
However, Gibson told The Tennessean on Saturday that he knew Adams had
killed his father.
Gibson wrote to the Board of Professional Responsibility, the state agency
that oversees lawyers' ethical conduct, that he only knew of Adams being
"in and out of jail and court a lot on smaller drug-related charges" with
addiction problems.
Adams, 34, is slated for release in 2037, according to a state Web site.
With credit for time he served in jail before his plea, he will be
required to serve 100 % of the 35 years to which he was sentenced, court
documents said.
Now in the prison in Pikeville, Tenn., Adams declined a telephone
interview last week, Correction Department spokeswoman Dorinda Carter
said.
His mother, Donetta Schmidt, still lives in Cookeville. She declined to
discuss her son or the Kelley murder last week.
"It's been hard. We've been through enough already," she said, wiping away
a tear and shutting her front door.
The letters show Gibson looked after Schmidt at Adams' request. In one
note, the prosecutor offered to give her a Mother's Day present.
"This morning I talked to your mother for a good while," he wrote. "She is
dealing with all of the emotional stuff as well as physical problems. . We
are going to stay in touch and I will help her any way I can."
In his letters to Gibson, Adams wrote that he was "very remorseful" for
what he had done, and he said he had been "strung out on crack" then.
Adams also complained about his lawyers not doing what he wanted. Gibson
wrote back with criticisms of Adams' lawyers, discouraged him from
pleading guilty to first-degree murder, and later encouraged Adams to
build his appeal around an argument that his lawyers had provided
ineffective counsel. He suggested the appeal could get Adams a reduced
sentence of just 15 years.
When Parsons came on as Adams' new lawyer in June 2006, the old lawyer
said Adams was refusing to cooperate with his own defense. When Parsons
asked his new client about this, Adams told Parsons about the letters.
Parsons obtained 11 in all and turned them over to state investigators.
Adams thought "they'd aid his case," Parsons said. He said he still can't
figure out why Gibson would write to Adams.
"What's really troubling is if one of those letters said 'Thanks for the
$25,000,' that's graft, that's the end of it," he said. "These are bizarre
letters."
'Suitable for everyone'
Gibson, a prosecutor since 1990 and an ex-cop, is probably best known for
prosecuting Byron "Low Tax" Looper in the slaying of state Sen. Tommy
Burks.
He also prosecuted a school superintendent, a Circuit Court clerk and a
city councilman. A previous sheriff of Overton County was indicted on 397
counts of official misconduct under Gibson's watch.
The voice in the letters to Adams is not the Bill Gibson that Greg
Phillips knew when he worked for Gibson and later as chief investigator
with the Overton County Sheriff's Department.
"That's so personal it's unbelievable," said Phillips, who today operates
a heavy-duty wrecker service in Putnam County. "I don't know why he would
be that personal with a convicted killer. I would be more caring about the
victim's family."
Gibson wrote 11 letters to Adams over a 2-year period and met twice with
him during plea negotiations. He told the newspaper that Adams began
writing him, "talking about how he found God in prison and what life was
like."
The prosecutor said he responded because Adams "didn't step away from his
crime. He didn't ask for anything, and the state of Tennessee had gotten
its measure of justice that was suitable for everyone."
However, Gibson would not discuss with The Tennessean how he met the
inmate. He wrote to the Board of Professional Responsibility that he'd
seen Adams around the courthouse, but that was all.
David Brady, who has been the public defender in Cookeville for 17 years,
was Adams' first lawyer and represented Adams during the negotiations over
his guilty plea. He said Gibson told him he met Adams at an annual soapbox
derby held by the police department, and when Adams was first questioned
by the TBI in Kelley's murder, Adams asked to speak to Gibson by name.
Brady had been worried, he said, that his client would face the death
penalty if the case went to trial. But the prosecution later agreed to let
Adams plead guilty to second-degree murder and take a total sentence of 35
years, which Brady called "an amazingly good result."
The plea to the lesser charge followed a rare jailhouse meeting between
Gibson, Adams and Brady in which the inmate and the prosecutor did most of
the talking, in "a conversation about God and the settlement of the case,"
Brady said.
Gibson wrote in an undated letter to Adams that God told him Adams should
not face the minimum 51-year sentence for first-degree murder.
"I felt He was speaking to me too, about it not being the right thing to
do," the prosecutor wrote.
Despite the appearance from the letters, Gibson said balancing his
religious beliefs and the tenets of Tennessee state law isn't a problem,
he told the newspaper.
"I was trying to come up with something to talk about and trying to sound
encouraging," Gibson said. "He had found God, and I believed God had
forgiven him. That's what he was hanging onto to go on with his life."
(source: The Tennessean)
judgment, Gibson says
News that District Attorney General Bill Gibson worked behind the scenes
to get a lighter sentence for a murderer has some of his Putnam County
neighbors mad, and others confused.
But the family of murder victim Lillian Kelley feels one thing: fear.
Letters between Gibson and convicted killer Christopher Adams have once
again thrown together Kelley's family, the murderer and the area's top
prosecutor - three years after the slaying and two years after the case
ended in a conviction.
In the letters, Gibson gave legal advice, encouragement and religious
counsel and talked to Adams like a friend, even though Gibson was
prosecuting Adams' case. He sent the letters to Adams without telling
Adams' own lawyer. He sent some while Adams was negotiating a plea
bargain; he sent others after the plea, while Adams was trying to win a
do-over of his case and an even shorter sentence.
The letters are unusual and could be ruled unethical and illegal.
Attorneys' ethical rules prevent lawyers from secretly talking to other
lawyers' clients. Gibson also undercut efforts by his own staff to get a
longer sentence, not a shorter one, for Adams.
"I had good intentions in all of this but did not exercise good judgment,"
Gibson wrote in a statement Saturday to The Tennessean. "I will face this
matter, myself trusting in God, and life will go on."
Fallout from the letters, published by the newspaper Saturday, could be
far-reaching.
Gibson could lose his license to practice law after 16 years as top
prosecutor for the rural Middle Tennessee area that includes Putnam and
other Upper Cumberland Plateau counties. He's also the subject of a
criminal probe by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
But the impact could go beyond that.
Some, such as Cookeville attorney Phil Parsons, fear similar
communications may have tainted other cases tried by Gibson. In the
letters, Gibson sought Adams' prayers for other defendants he was
prosecuting, including a man accused of murder and another of child
molestation.
"If he's done this in this case, as serious as it was, what's happened
elsewhere?" Parsons asked.
'Very hard meeting'
Carl Calfee's home is on a winding rural highway in the hills outside
Cookeville. It's also just 500 feet from where his mother-in law was
murdered.
He is tight-lipped about the killing. "We're gun-shy," said Calfee, who
described himself as a private man. He didn't want to discuss Gibson or
the case.
He worries Adams will use letters from the county's top prosecutor - sent
covertly while Adams' attorney was negotiating his plea agreement - to
overturn the conviction that puts Adams behind bars until 2037.
Carl Calfee doesn't want to be a target. He said he thinks he and his wife
might be in danger if Adams gets out of prison.
It also could mean more trauma for a family that agreed, with advice from
Gibson, to a plea bargain to avoid the emotional strain of a court battle.
During a string of robberies, court documents say, Adams entered Kelley's
home Sept. 9, 2003, and stole her checkbook before killing her.
According to an autopsy report, the 79-year-old woman was stabbed through
the heart, neck and shoulder. Adams later tried to use her checks at a
Bi-Lo store.
"The case against you is strong even without the confession," Gibson wrote
to Adams in an undated letter. "I understand that they have your
fingerprints on a B.C. (headache) powder in her purse at the scene and a
video of you cashing her check the next day."
The Calfees, who relied on Gibson and another prosecutor to guide them
through the legal process, did not know about the letters until The
Tennessean provided them copies.
They had a positive experience with Gibson for the week they were in
contact with him, according to Barbara Calfee, Kelley's daughter. She
described herself as "a simple person" who didn't know much about the
court system.
She read the letters stoically on her back porch Friday evening. Other
than a few soft exclamations - "That's sick" and "I can't believe he was
talking to all these people" - she was silent.
The Calfees were actually mentioned in one of the letters: Adams wrote to
Gibson that he would like to apologize to them face to face, though it
would "be a very hard meeting."
"It may help the healing process," Adams wrote. "What do you think Bill?"
In the same letter, Adams pondered whether "Mrs. Kelley knew Christ as her
Savior."
Previous slaying in Texas
Adams' letters to Gibson say he has found Jesus in prison, citing Bible
verses and religious poems and recommending religious literature to the
prosecutor.
Gibson calls Adams "an Honest, Honorable Child of the Living God" in one
missive.
But Adams has more than one slaying in his past. He stabbed his sleeping
father to death with a hunting knife in Houston 20 years ago, local media
reported at the time.
After the slaying, the 13-year-old loaded his belongings, including his
dog and two of his father Lendal Adams' pistols, into a pickup truck and
fled to Louisiana.
He was arrested at his sister's home but escaped jail time when
authorities sent him to a live-in mental institution in Tennessee, the
state where his mother still lives, news reports indicate.
At the time, Adams claimed his father hit him when he got in trouble at
school, according to the local newspaper.
Court files in Putnam County reflect Adams' long criminal history before
Kelley's murder, though his role in his father's slaying was not noted in
the file.
However, Gibson told The Tennessean on Saturday that he knew Adams had
killed his father.
Gibson wrote to the Board of Professional Responsibility, the state agency
that oversees lawyers' ethical conduct, that he only knew of Adams being
"in and out of jail and court a lot on smaller drug-related charges" with
addiction problems.
Adams, 34, is slated for release in 2037, according to a state Web site.
With credit for time he served in jail before his plea, he will be
required to serve 100 % of the 35 years to which he was sentenced, court
documents said.
Now in the prison in Pikeville, Tenn., Adams declined a telephone
interview last week, Correction Department spokeswoman Dorinda Carter
said.
His mother, Donetta Schmidt, still lives in Cookeville. She declined to
discuss her son or the Kelley murder last week.
"It's been hard. We've been through enough already," she said, wiping away
a tear and shutting her front door.
The letters show Gibson looked after Schmidt at Adams' request. In one
note, the prosecutor offered to give her a Mother's Day present.
"This morning I talked to your mother for a good while," he wrote. "She is
dealing with all of the emotional stuff as well as physical problems. . We
are going to stay in touch and I will help her any way I can."
In his letters to Gibson, Adams wrote that he was "very remorseful" for
what he had done, and he said he had been "strung out on crack" then.
Adams also complained about his lawyers not doing what he wanted. Gibson
wrote back with criticisms of Adams' lawyers, discouraged him from
pleading guilty to first-degree murder, and later encouraged Adams to
build his appeal around an argument that his lawyers had provided
ineffective counsel. He suggested the appeal could get Adams a reduced
sentence of just 15 years.
When Parsons came on as Adams' new lawyer in June 2006, the old lawyer
said Adams was refusing to cooperate with his own defense. When Parsons
asked his new client about this, Adams told Parsons about the letters.
Parsons obtained 11 in all and turned them over to state investigators.
Adams thought "they'd aid his case," Parsons said. He said he still can't
figure out why Gibson would write to Adams.
"What's really troubling is if one of those letters said 'Thanks for the
$25,000,' that's graft, that's the end of it," he said. "These are bizarre
letters."
'Suitable for everyone'
Gibson, a prosecutor since 1990 and an ex-cop, is probably best known for
prosecuting Byron "Low Tax" Looper in the slaying of state Sen. Tommy
Burks.
He also prosecuted a school superintendent, a Circuit Court clerk and a
city councilman. A previous sheriff of Overton County was indicted on 397
counts of official misconduct under Gibson's watch.
The voice in the letters to Adams is not the Bill Gibson that Greg
Phillips knew when he worked for Gibson and later as chief investigator
with the Overton County Sheriff's Department.
"That's so personal it's unbelievable," said Phillips, who today operates
a heavy-duty wrecker service in Putnam County. "I don't know why he would
be that personal with a convicted killer. I would be more caring about the
victim's family."
Gibson wrote 11 letters to Adams over a 2-year period and met twice with
him during plea negotiations. He told the newspaper that Adams began
writing him, "talking about how he found God in prison and what life was
like."
The prosecutor said he responded because Adams "didn't step away from his
crime. He didn't ask for anything, and the state of Tennessee had gotten
its measure of justice that was suitable for everyone."
However, Gibson would not discuss with The Tennessean how he met the
inmate. He wrote to the Board of Professional Responsibility that he'd
seen Adams around the courthouse, but that was all.
David Brady, who has been the public defender in Cookeville for 17 years,
was Adams' first lawyer and represented Adams during the negotiations over
his guilty plea. He said Gibson told him he met Adams at an annual soapbox
derby held by the police department, and when Adams was first questioned
by the TBI in Kelley's murder, Adams asked to speak to Gibson by name.
Brady had been worried, he said, that his client would face the death
penalty if the case went to trial. But the prosecution later agreed to let
Adams plead guilty to second-degree murder and take a total sentence of 35
years, which Brady called "an amazingly good result."
The plea to the lesser charge followed a rare jailhouse meeting between
Gibson, Adams and Brady in which the inmate and the prosecutor did most of
the talking, in "a conversation about God and the settlement of the case,"
Brady said.
Gibson wrote in an undated letter to Adams that God told him Adams should
not face the minimum 51-year sentence for first-degree murder.
"I felt He was speaking to me too, about it not being the right thing to
do," the prosecutor wrote.
Despite the appearance from the letters, Gibson said balancing his
religious beliefs and the tenets of Tennessee state law isn't a problem,
he told the newspaper.
"I was trying to come up with something to talk about and trying to sound
encouraging," Gibson said. "He had found God, and I believed God had
forgiven him. That's what he was hanging onto to go on with his life."
(source: The Tennessean)