Coda: Trial of the Beast

The story up to now: Five years ago this week, a 3-year old girl was attacked (Facing the Beast) with a tree saw on William Street by a troubled eccentric neighbor (Face of the Beast). Fortuitously, a passing bicyclist disrupted the assault, and the attacker entered “the system” (Caged Beast).

When we last looked in on Christopher Cornelius Farrell he had been shipped back to Key West from the South Florida Evaluation & Treatment Center on the mainland.  He’d been declared competent to stand trial, and his trial had been scheduled for just after his 50th birthday, during the week of May 27, 2013.  Did I mention he had dismissed his public defenders and was preparing to defend himself?  Seriously?  Yep.

I had been off the Rock during the “can we go to trial?” hearing so I had not witnessed it (the only hearing I missed over the 5 years). I’m told that Judge Wayne Miller tried hard to talk him out of defending himself, but to no avail.  Nevertheless, he did assign members of the Public Defender (PD) office to be readily available to answer questions of procedure and practice.  The defender was to be present for such consultation through the entire jury selection process and the trial itself, and would be prepared to step in at any time to take over the defense if Farrell requested it.

I returned to town to a summons from the State Attorney (SA) to testify for the prosecution.  This was not unexpected, being as I was one of the victims. I was requested to meet with Assistant SA Colleen Dunne, who had been assigned to prosecute the case.  Over the preceding years I had met with Assistant SA Val Winter, but the case had been handed off to Ms. Dunne, after she moved back into the Key West SA branch office (from up-the-keys) . Though she clearly had the chops to handle this case, my guess is that, with Christopher Farrell’s history of skewed interaction with women, she may have come into the picture partly as a strategic move.  Indeed it did end up making for some strange arguments in the courtroom.

At the evidentiary hearing just before the scheduled trial date I found that Farrell had yet again changed appearance.  His hair was now buzz-cut, and he’d lost more weight.  Indeed he was down to about 125 pounds on his close to 6 foot frame.  During the hearing each piece of evidence that the prosecution was going to use was presented. Each time Farrell told the judge “it doesn’t matter”.  Nothing was thrown out.  Photographs, bloody clothing from the tiny victim, the shirt that he’d discarded as he fled, the 911 call recordings (it was strange to hear my voice and heavy breathing as I followed him away from the scene of the crime).  And of course that tree saw.  Each was pulled out of the evidence boxes, each went back in to await the trial.

During that hearing once again Judge Miller suggested that Farrell let the PD represent him.  No dice.  The judge offered to buy a business suit for him to wear during the trial.  He brushed that off with the strange statement “No, I enjoy coming to court in my pajamas.” And that was that. I walked away from the Freeman Justice Center after the hearing with the feeling that this long-running case was finally getting close to judgment day.

Monday, May 27th was Memorial Day, so jury selection started on Tuesday.   Of course I couldn’t attend the selection hearings, but from the resulting jury of 6 women and 1 man (including an alternate) I believe that Farrell’s tendency to avoid serious interaction with men, and his assumption that he has power over (smaller) women led to that jury demographic (yeah, I can be an armchair psychologist). He probably didn’t have the sense to understand the mothering instinct that could come into play.

Jury selection was unexpectedly quick, so the trial proceeded to opening arguments that very afternoon. I wish I could have attended, but as a testifying witness I was not allowed to be present in the courtroom audience until after all testimony had completed.  It’s my understanding that once again Judge Miller gave Farrell the option to let the PD sitting at his table take over the defense, but once again he declined.

State Attorney Colleen Dunne laid out a clear sequence of steps that covered the continuum from his initial manhandling of the child, up to the point where the police ordering him to the ground at gunpoint.  Each step had multiple witnesses.  I’m told that Farrell’s defense opening basically just made the claim the prosecution’s case had all been made up.  He also threw some vaguely threatening comments in the direction of the State Attorney.  And he claimed she had “a storm raging inside her”.

On Wednesday testimony began and again I wasn’t allowed to be present other than my own time on the witness stand.  My wife Maria did sit in during the early testimony by police and by the child victim’s mother (who was also one of the victims herself).   Maria says that Farrell sat at the defense table like a stone statue and seemed to rarely do anything to help his case.  He’d focus his comments on a few minor details and toss out unfathomable questions.

When I was summoned during late morning, I immediately took the stand – the first time in my life that I’d been called to testify in criminal court.  Colleen’s questions walked me through the entire chain of events for about the hundredth time in the five years since living it (see the first story in this series).  She reminded me at least once that I should just answer the questions and not offer additional details not requested.  The testimony didn’t take more than a half hour or so.

Farrell’s cross-examination amounted to 3 or 4 questions, involving me wearing a hat, where his bright t-shirt (that he ADMITTED he discarded) was found, that kind of thing. He tried to claim that I had knocked him down, but – other than pulling him off and away from the girl I had made no other contact with him. That was about it, and I think my testimony wrapped up the prosecution.

I have no idea what defense Farrell had presented beyond what he’d stated in his opening arguments.  But it didn’t last long or go well, and Judge Miller adjourned the trial until the following morning, giving both sides the rest of the afternoon to prepare their closing statements.  I was glad that I could come back for those, since my testimony was over.

Thursday morning, for over an hour and a half, Colleen Dunne did a comprehensive and competent presentation right out of a TV law show.   She referenced Farrell’s opening remarks with “I submit the only storm raging was the one inside Mr. Farrell that day.”  One by one she picked up each piece of evidence at the appropriate point in her summation.  She played back the 911 recordings.  She put motion PowerPoint slides onto a big-screen TV that showed the scene of the crime, illustrated how the saw blade had moved, even showed the blood on the little girl. It would be HARD to refute that case even for a good lawyer.

But with a crackpot like Christopher Farrell, it was pretty much over before it began.   In his closing statements he again made some comments directed at Colleen Dunne that had to do with her place in the universe or something, again claimed that the evidence was all manufactured.  Even so, he commented how he had only planned to scratch the little girl and her mother.  And it was over.  Well before lunch.

The jury left the room after a half-hour of instructions.  Many of the observers and participants stretched their legs in the lobby areas.  The prosecution team told me that they could call me when the jury came in (I live less than a block away) but I decided to hang around.  Turned out it only took them 24 minutes to reach their verdict: Guilty on all charges.

Most serious cases that I’ve paid any attention to schedule the sentencing at a future date after the guilty verdict, to give the Judge time to review the case and consider extenuating factors.  So I expected we’d be out of there soon after the verdict.  When the judge asked the prosecution if they wanted to schedule a sentencing hearing at first they said, “Yes.”  But after a short discussion, they told Judge Miller that they would put in their sentencing recommendation right away if the Judge was ready to consider it.

He was, and they did.  And after another 15 minute break – where they huddled around sentencing guidelines — they gave the Judge their recommendations.  Judge Wayne Miller accepted them and pronounced the sentence:

• for attempted second-degree murder(of the girl): 30 years in prison
• for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon (on the mother): 10 years (on top of the 30)
• for aggravated battery with a deadly weapon (on me): 5 years (concurrent with the 10 years)

Net: 40 years in the State Pen.  And most of the rest of us headed off to find lunch.

To wrap this up, I must quote the strange final words Christopher Cornelius Farrell spoke at the trial:

“If I had the choice of murdering,
Or being murdered,
I’d choose being murdered…
Life is short, eternity is forever.
But I’d hate for it to be with a saw blade.”