November 14, 2023 • 58 mins
South Carolina State Senator, and Jim’s co-counsel on many cases, Dick Harpootlian makes his debut appearance on the podcast. Sara chats with Dick and Jim about the history of their working relationship as well as their decades long friendship. Jim and Dick share some BTS moments that may have landed one of them in a hot tub! They share the latest in the Alex Murdaugh cases, and the overall twists and turns in the high profile case with Sara. Dick also explains how he got under President Clinton’s skin during the Obama Clinton primary in SC, and how this may have changed the trajectory of the race. The episode closes with Dick’s deep dive into the twisted story of Pee Wee Gaskins, and how the convicted killer threatened his family.
Art – Simon & Associates
Music – Caleb Fletcher
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Music – Caleb Fletcher
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:22):
Hello, and welcome to the Presumption. I'm Sarah, sorry, together with
Jim Griffin, my prestiged partner andcrime I Jim, Hey, Sarah,
how are you good? How areyou? Thanks? And Matt of course,
our wonderful producer. And they're avery very special guest today. Dick
Harputlian, Welcome, Dick. Thankyou, Sarah. It's good to be
(00:44):
here. I spend way too muchtime alone with Jim, so having y'all
here with me it's a welcome relief. I feel terrible for you. I
feel terrible for you. All right, Well, let's begin by Look,
everybody knows both you and Jim asAlec Murdoch's attorneys, but there's obviously so
much more to you in your career. Dick began his career as a prosecutor
(01:07):
for the Fifth Circuit Solicitor's Office,covering two counties in South Carolina. He
later became a deputy solicitor, supervisingdozens of attorneys and support staff. Now,
you know, for the rest ofus around the country, when we
hear solicitor, we think prostitution,but the solicitor actually means district attorney to
the rest of us, and Dickhas prosecuted hundreds of serious felony cases,
(01:33):
including twelve death penalty cases and dozensof other murder cases. In nineteen eighty
three, he co prosecuted Donald peeWee Gaskins, the largest mass murderer in
the history of the state, whocommitted a contract killing death on a death
row inmate. While housed on deathrow. Dick successfully obtained a conviction.
(01:53):
I love when prosecutors take credit forconvictions because her job is so incredibly difficult.
Gaskins was sentenced to death and laterexecuted. Just weeks prior to his
execution, Gaskins attempted to have Dick'syoung daughter kidnapped and held hostage. The
plot was thwarted by law enforcement whenthey received a tip from one of those
(02:14):
that Gaskins had recruited to do thejob. We'll be talking in depth about
Gaskins with Dick in this episode.Dick began his career in private practice in
nineteen eighty three later became the fifthCircuit Solicitor from nineteen ninety one to nineteen
ninety five. During that tenure,he prosecuted and obtained convictions in several high
profile cases, ranging from murder todrugs and public corruption. Dick's practice consists
(02:38):
of criminal defense and civil plaintiffs matters. He's defended to death penalty cases and
dozens of other serious penny cases inboth state and federal courts. Last,
but certainly not least, Dick waselected to the South Carolina Senate in November
twenty eighteen and continues to serve inthat role. So welcome, my friend.
Well, it's good, is goodto be here, see you against
(03:02):
Sarah. We spent some wonderful timeat crime con together. Yeah, and
at gourmet shop shop absolutely. Allright, So I'm going to start off
with the Dick and Jim show.Right, Uh, you guys work so
well together, and I know howvaluable it is to be able to collaborate
(03:24):
with a colleague on certain cases.But I think a lot of us have
questions, a lot of our viewerscertainly have questions about how you guys got
to know each other, how youstarted working together, how do you sort
of divide up the work? Youknow, I'm going to say this.
When I followed the murder case,since the murders happened, and at that
(03:51):
time, there was like one newspaperthat was covering it. I think it
was Greenville something, and I waslike subscribing so I could see what's new
in the case. And I wascurious about who you guys are. You
know, why these two guys,And in my mind when I looked up
your profiles, I thought, Okay, this makes sense. Jim Griffin is
(04:14):
a white collar lawyer, so he'sgoing to do all the financial stuff,
and Dick Carpulian is like the streetlawyer. He's going to do all the
murder stuff. As it turned out, your murder trial was a financial crime
trial for three weeks. So tellme about your relationship and how you guys
work together. So Jimmy, you'llprobably correct me on this if I'm wrong.
(04:35):
But when I was in practice privatepractice, after I left the DA's
office and before I ran for DA, I think Jim was at the US
Attorney's office at that time, andso he was prosecuting. We never really
cross paths. But when I leftthis in sort of as a backstory,
when I was in private practice,I got hired to defend a guy who
(04:59):
had been a key used of payingoff on a video poker machine, which
everybody assumed was against the law.I ended up arguing in front of the
judge that there was a statutory exemptionthat you had to sort of read things
together, and the judge agreed withme, and the Supreme Court affirmed legalizing
video poker in South Carolina, whichbecame quickly a probably a several hundred million
(05:23):
dollar, if not billion dollar ayear enterprise, and we made I made
several people huge fortunes just by that. By the way, I got paid
twenty five hundred dollars on that case, and so no percentage of the state's
winnings. No, I don't thinkI could take percentage. It was a
criminal case, I mean, andit was typically a kind of case that
(05:44):
you'd work out for a suspended sentenceof probation. But this guy apparently had
a history with the DA and itwasn't here, it was up in Lancaster
County. So the Supreme Court affirmedand video poke became legal. I went
into the I got elected DA innineteen ninety In ninety one, I began
(06:06):
my career there. My four yearelected term, ran for Attorney General that
is ninety four, not a goodyear for Democrats, lost and went out
into private practice. In January ofninety five, and in ninety four on
the ballot was a referendum on localoption on video poker in eleven counties voted
(06:28):
no. And these were pretty lucrativecounties for the video poker industry. So
they came to me and wanted toknow if I could litigate that twelve O
county ban. And you know,again, I'm just coming out of four
years of doing nothing with criminal Igotten an O gym a little bit,
and so we did the case together, and we won and struck down this
(06:56):
local option and again made the industrya whole bunch of money. And I
don't I don't remember what we chargedhim, but it was not enough,
but enough I think you guys,I don't know, like this is a
pattern for you. So so outof that, out of that came a
relationship that we began working on,you know, different kinds of cases together,
(07:18):
some criminals, some civil. Andyou know, that relationship's gone on
forever whatever that is, thirty years. And you know, he has his
practice, I have my practice,but we come together. When Paul Murdall
was being investigated and charged in theboat case, his father Alex, who
(07:41):
I didn't know, went to hisfather, Randolph Murdall, who was the
DA down there when I was theDA here, and we had a pretty
good relationship, and his father encouragedhim to hire me. I met with
him at Mozelle and immediately seeing whatwas going on, got Jim involved.
And to be frank with you,Jim and Paul hit it off a lot
(08:05):
more than he and I'm I'm notrenowned from my bedside manner. Yeah,
okay, So but Jim and andPaul hit it off. I mean I
got along with Maggie and Alec andall of them fine. But he developed
a relationship with Paul, and Ihad Paul and Maggie in my office and
(08:28):
on a number of occasions during thatyear before they both got murdered. So
we worked together on getting that caseready for trial, and I thought,
uh, and I think Jim thoughtthat we had a pretty good shot of
getting an acquittal or at least ahung Jerry on the boat casey And obviously
then things went to the hell whenthe murders happened. So, but Jim
(08:52):
and I have done drug cases together, We've done civil cases together, class
actions, we've done actually together.Right, So I mean we we and
we work well together. Because Idon't. I can't remember a single time
that we've argued, you know,other than debating. But I'm talking about
a serious argument. Because my egois so small, I normally just to
(09:16):
defer to Jim. I'm just sucha humble, laid back kind of guy.
Now in all serious your your smallego and his big, big ego
kind of balance each other metal inall serious seriousness, No though, I
mean, I would can see thatJim's ability to analyze, manipulate, and
write the law is extraordinary. AndI will tell you that I've never seen
(09:41):
him not turning turn in the bestand just extraordinary product. He's he's kind
of he's kind of I mean,it's it's it's kind of incredible. Like
he'll I'll be like, oh,you know, maybe we need to read
this book before we interview this guest. Like two hours later, he's like,
I read it. I mean hereally, yeah, study, But
(10:09):
my I mean, having been aprosecutor in the mid seventies when no DNA,
no fingerprints, no video, noanything, I mean, back then
it was sort of a Wild Westkind of prosecution. No, by the
way, they didn't have to tellus about an alibi there was no reciprocal
discovery. It was. So myforte is the ability to not need all
(10:35):
of that and sort of react.Not that I don't understand the law.
I worked diligently to be able tomake a legal argument, but much more
fluid in a courtroom than many manylawyers are and are my sort of fly
(10:56):
by the seat of the pants approachand Jim's very focused legal approach, they
just sort of magically together. Andin terms of who does what, you
know, again, we divvy itup based on who wants to do what,
and I don't think we've ever disagreedabout that in any case we've ever
had. So it's just guns andpointing it to the prosecution's table. So
(11:18):
that, as I said, andfeel comfortable doing. But Jim, Jim,
Jim might not be, and ofcourse he would never say tempting as
I said, but it's uh,you know, we have strong feelings about
what happened in that trial. I'mnot going to comment on it because under
appeal, and we've got all kindsof motions pending. We are going to
(11:41):
have a hearing next a week fromFriday tomorrow. I don't when this will
run, but Friday the seventeenth onthe with the judge on the financial crimes
jury selection process, and Jim willbe following emotion today on that. But
but the fact of the matter iswe both have I think a deep seed
belief that Alec Murdau did not killMaggie and Paul. Yeah, me too.
(12:05):
Did he steal a bunch of money, absolutely, did he commit despicable
acts and how he treated his clients, yeah, absolutely, But did he
kill Maggie and Paul? I don'tthink he did. And I think the
forensic if we'd ever if we startedwith the murder case instead of the financial
case, I think the outcome wouldhave been a lot different. So before
(12:26):
we talk about some you know,the latest updates in Murdoch and you know,
speaking of you and Jim, whatare some fun I mean, I
know Jim has his own stories highlights, but tell us a good Jim story
doesn't have to be in the courtroom. Oh you don't really, don't you
(12:46):
really? Really? Jim is goingto have to have all that edited out.
He is. We we have traveledthe country together doing depositions. There's
the waitress in San Francisco story,which he's not gonna want me to tell
why yeah, or are they witnessingthe Harley Davidson uh class ash case?
(13:11):
You don't want me to tell.I mean, there's a number of stories
now, and we don't want totalk about the hot tub in Dallas.
We really don't know. We don'twant to talk. Okay, you know,
I'm sorry. This is a completetease. Wait a hot tub Harley
Davidson. No, no, no, no, no. You've got to
pick a couple of those these depositionso far as we go on, whether
(13:33):
it's to the West coast or Dallasor Houston, or where was Harley Cleveland?
Was that Cleveland? Indianapolis? Ithink right in Chicago, remember Chicago
in the steakhouse. Yeah, wewe Those are the most fun things,
and we can't talk about them,you know, publicly, because they are
so much fun. But the Sarah, one of my favorite Dick stories is
(14:00):
the Democratic primary was going on inSouth Carolina. Barack Obama was running against
Hillary Clinton and and gearing up forthe vote, and Bill Clinton was in
town. And I don't know whatwhat what has been said or heard,
and they can speak to it,but I hear, I hear on the
(14:20):
radios you know, Bill Clinton usingDick Rputli's name, and he's very angry
using Dick Arputli. And then Ipull over, pulled by Dick's office and
see what was going on. AndDick is like being bombarded by calls from
the Obama campaign. And you gotyour own chapter called Fear and Loathing Lizards
(14:41):
ticket in a in a book aboutgame Changer, didn't you, Dick?
Yes, what was that about?Okay, so let me back up a
little bit. You got to startwith the late eighties early nineties? Well,
yeah, no, late when washe governored? Yeah, probably mid
(15:01):
eighties. Bill Clinton used to cometo South Carolina stay with our governor,
Dick Riley, and I met himthen he was not running for president,
and Hillary came up, had dinnerwith them a couple of times, and
I was, you know, veryimpressed with with with with Bill. And
(15:22):
so when he ran in ninety twofor president, I was signed on early,
went to New Hampshire, went doorto door with him. Uh,
you know, went through the wholeJennifer Flowers deal with him for kids.
Don't quite remember all that, butit was what about about Monica? Well
that's fast forward. But so Iwas very close to them, and when
(15:46):
you know, he served two termsand I was in the White House many
many times with him. And sofast forward to two thousand and seven,
h Hillary's talking about running for president, and I in two thousand and four,
i'd been at the Boston convention andseeing Barack Obama give that just extraordinary
(16:07):
speech and was galvanized by him.But anyway, fast forward to two thousand
and seven, I had a callfrom Rick Wade, who was a buddy
of mine who went later on workedin the Obama administration. African American guy
here, very very very talented,who called me and said, look,
Senator Obama's going to be in townon Saturday, to like to have a
(16:29):
cup of coffee with you. AndI said, well, you know,
i'm a Hillary person. I'm goingto be for Hillary. And he said,
now I have a cup of coffeewith him. So I went down
to the Marriott here and had ajust me and him cup of coffee,
talked, and I walked out andI endorsed Barack Obama. Now I had
been a former I've been state chairmanof this Democratic Party in ninety eight and
(16:52):
all the way through two thousand andthree, so I had some profile with
the Democratic statewide profile with the DemoCradit Party, and I was the earliest
guy in Dorsum and got involved inthe campaign pretty heavily in the fall of
seven. And then you know,Obama lost Iowa and New Hampshire and came
in here and this was do ordie, and we had, you know,
(17:15):
a whole crew come in from everybodyfrom Vowerie Jarrett to Samantha Power,
going door to door here and itbecame sort of a hand to hand combat.
And two days before the prior day, two days before the primary,
Bill Clinton gave us a press conferencein which he intimated the only reason that
(17:37):
Barack Obama had any cachet with anyvoter was because he was black. And
so I said, he said thatat a restaurant called Lizard's Thicket, which
well, no, no, hesaid that naked. He came up to
Lizard's Thicket after I said, youknow, he Bill Clinton's getting to remind
(18:00):
me of Lee Atwater and buying andinferring that, you know, there's a
racious Southern strategy thing going on here. Clinton was asked by CNN that somebody
shoved a microphone. What do yousay about what Dick Dick carpooling compared to
to Lee Atwater. And he turned, you can see him on camera,
turned and walked away and then stoppedand came back and just unloaded on my
(18:25):
ass. So you know that gaveme the ability to tickle him a little
bit more. And I mean hegot angry and anger and angrier, and
you know he beat this. Thisbecame the dominant story that he called basically
made racious comments about Barack Obama.Well, it took on a life of
its owns. And as Jim says, well, if you read that chapter
(18:48):
in Game Change, which was,as you know, New York Times bestseller,
they got a whole chapter on that. And that night there was a
rally here in Colombia and Barack wasthere. You know, all the folks
are there. I don't know howthey know this, how they got it
in the book, or who toldhim told him it, But no,
Jim didn't know. But it hadto be Fluff or actual Rod or Robert
(19:12):
Gibbs, one of those guys becausethey're the only guy backstage with me,
maybe or Jarrett Aryl Vowery. ButBrock came up gave me a big chest
Bump hugged me and said, youare one crazy son of a bitch,
and that's in the book. Butbut so that's the story. And by
(19:33):
the way, we cleaned everybody's clockthat night and the big win and it
propelled brought into the into the presidency. So you know, I'm proud of
of of the role I played inthat. I'm and of course, I
(19:55):
you know, I became for signan grata with the Clintons even when she
ran in sixty I mean, theynever asked me to support her. But
I'm not. I'm not never havebeen, from an electoral standpoint a big
Hillary fan. I think she wastoo polarizing and didn't didn't have whatever Barack
(20:18):
and Bill and and other folks havesupported that sort of connection, she didn't
have it. So so my perspectivefrom from that event, Sarah is,
first, the Obama campaign did notwant to make race an issue whatsoever,
and they went out of their waynot to make the issue in South Carolina.
(20:41):
And then and then you know,Dick could accuse Clinton of race baiting
and all hell broke lews. Dickis up in his office under strict instructions
not to talk to anybody about itand now because they didn't want to insert
race and into that election, andand here the race all of a sudden
(21:03):
is becoming a huge issue. Andthen it turns out it was the best
issue going forward, And in hindsightlooked like a genius. But at the
time it was not sure they were. They were, no, they were
very initially, very So I like, I like how Jim, you know,
put in his perspective. But whatabout a Jim story? You shrying
(21:30):
to get away with it? Youknow, Look, Jim and I have
done a number of trials together,and there are, you know, stories
about what happened during those trials,but he's he has not been politically active
in the sense of what I've whywhat I've done, And you know,
I just don't know that I cantell any of the stories without Jim asking
(21:56):
all to edit it out, noteven the hot time. Okay, well,
then, oh, Jim, canI tell him the hot cup story?
All right? Tell him the hottub? Tell him how we were
taking that positions in Dallas and wehad no Houston and then we got to
go to Dallas. Well, whenwe got to Dallas, Jim has this
horrible back pain and he dia selfdiagnosed pancreatic cancer. Okay, I mean
(22:23):
he's he's, he's I was convincedpancreatic cancer. So when was this?
When was this or kidney stones oneof the other. Well, but you
were convinced of pancreatic cancer. Thiswould have been when Jim ten years ago,
probably on twenty fifteen, maybe Idon't know like that, but so
(22:47):
I was concerned. But we bothhave a concierge doc that we use and
he can hook you up with adoctor anywhere in the country for specific things.
So Jim got hooked up with asomebody to do X rays or cat
scans or whatever, and so hehad one done. We'd go into Houston
(23:10):
the next day, and so hehad one done. His back was killing
him. He was taken. Ithink they gave him some sort of muscle
relaxer, paint pill, right,lots of pain pills, yes, not
the paint pills. So we flyto Houston, I mean Dallas the next
day from Houston, and while we'reI think, either when we land or
in the air, whatever, hegets the news. No pancreatic cancer,
no kidney stones, probably a pulledmuscle or something. So as we're checking
(23:36):
into the Four Seasons? Is thatwhat it was? In Dallas? We
were at I think it was theRitz Carlton Rits, some nice hotels.
So you were, you were,you were actually paid on that case.
That's good, Okay, go ahead, Yeah, no, no, we
were being paid. So when weget there, we check in, but
our room's not ready and Jim isjust still pretty much an agony. And
(23:57):
the doctor told him to, youknow, take a hot bath or get
in a saun or something so wecould go to the spa. Well,
they you know, ready in ourroom. And we went there and they
had a big old it's not ajacuzzie, but big enough. You know,
it's a like a hot tub,except you know, yeah, like
(24:18):
a big, big one. Andso but you couldn't wear clothes in so
so Jim, you know, youcould wear clothes, and we just didn't
have any clothes, because that's right, that's right, that's right, love,
We had no all our clothes.Yeah, And you said, I'm
sure they'll have some clothes for usin the spa, and they did not.
They did not. So Jim's inthe in the full naked and I
(24:41):
walk in naked. And today hewill tell you that was one of the
most traumatic experiences of his wife.Now I've told everybody I got in the
hot tub with him and massaged,massaged him until there was no more pain.
All I made that up Totallytoria.A couple of dranks, you know.
(25:02):
Oh God, we get we getthe picture. We got the big
the only story that's the cleanest storyI can tell you. Yeah, that's
I don't know about the visual,but I get it. I get it.
Okay. So on Murdoch, Dick, you know, were naked guy.
(25:23):
Great, So on Murdoch. Look, you know this, Jim's the
boss here. It's his case,your case, and so we have a
rule that we don't you know,really talk about Murdoch, uh, besides
what is already known, you know, so obviously your perspective is important,
(25:45):
but you know, we're lawyers first, and so we don't really talk about
our open cases here. So justso you're you know, comfortable with this
conversation. But you know, Ithink what's interesting for listeners viewers is that
there's a lot of movement now inthis case. You know, I,
like you guys and many other peopleout there, never believed that Murdoch committed
(26:10):
these murders, nor did I believethat there was sufficient evidence to convict them
on the murders. And yet herewe are, and so it seems like
there's now pathway to justice. Sothe first thing I want to ask is,
you know, I read your motionand I read the States response,
and they're like, it's like they'renot talking about the same thing. It's
(26:30):
like you're talking about jury influence andthey're talking about jury misconduct. They're two
different standards. What is the standardin terms of you know this motion?
I mean, we know what BeckyHill did. We know what your two
jurors are saying under oath, shesaid, And now there's three more jurors
that they're citing to in this prettylittle chart table. What's the standard?
(26:53):
I mean, what ultimately when yougo before the court, what is the
standard that the court needs to adopt? I mean, I may oversimplify this,
and Jim will correct me. I'msure if I do. But but
the big legal debate will be doyou have to show uh? Well,
first of all, it's got tobe uh clearly a court At most of
(27:17):
the cases bailiffs. I don't thinkwe ever found one involving a court of
court. Did that person say somethingthat would would indicate or instruct the jurors
what to think, what to do, A and B. You know,
did that did that? Basically didthat happen? We don't have to believe,
(27:37):
we don't have to show that thatchanged the outcome or influenced the jurm.
It's just that naked assertion by acourt attache. Uh, that would
be a bailiff, kirk of court, somebody in a police officer who whose
custody there in the jury? Thatis and we believe that that is the
(27:57):
state legal standard for us to getafter discovered Evans get a new trial.
Jim, you want to elaborate onthat, Yeah, I mean it is
essentially when the court official has impropercommunication with the jury, then it's a
different standard. The standard is wasthe subject matter of the communication material?
(28:17):
Material is measured by you know,could it have could it have made a
difference? Not did it make adifference? So you don't have to prove
you know that the states making itlook like you have to prove that it
actually made a difference. You don'thave to prove that, right, it's
just and that's the difference and that'sthe different standard when when a juror goes
home and gets some you know,biblical material brings in the jury room.
(28:41):
I mean, and so those aretype cases that are out there, and
so that's juror misconduct. Jurors bringstuff into the jury room that shouldn't be
there, information, what have you. And that standard is you know,
you have to show it it mostlikely made a difference, but once the
quarter you only have to show couldit have made a difference? Yeah,
(29:03):
because it's so much more impactful,you know, when it comes from a
court official. I think that thatthat it makes logical sense why the standard
would be less stringent than what thestate is suggesting. What about the fact
that Dick, they have two,I mean three additional jurors. I guess
(29:25):
led Uh spoke to you know,Sarah. I don't think we can discuss
the merit of what's going on totalk to you about the legal standard.
But in terms of weighing the evidence, that's something we're going to have to
got it. Are you understood?Understood? And then you know during the
trial I always give Jim a hardtime about being a bad boy and opening
(29:45):
doors allegedly, you know, theysaid, oh, you opened the door,
that's why this evidence came in andstuff. And you know, I
know and that not I watched thattrial from the beginning to the end.
But now I think the state sayingthere's two bad boys, Dick and Jim,
because you kind of knew what's happeningwith this, at least with the
(30:06):
Facebook issue, and you waived it. Essentially, That's what I'm seeing that
they're arguing you, did you knowat the time that these communications had occurred
or this is something that you literallylearned recently. No, and again,
as we've explained in our brief ourresponse to them, you know, I've
(30:30):
been doing this fifty fifty years nextyear. I have ever in those fifty
years seen a cork of court doanything on tour to a jury. It
was the most unexpected. I mean, I just assumed everybody was operating in
good faith. That would be thebailiff, the judge, the cork,
(30:51):
and so you know, I've basicallydeferred to them. I mean, I
always defer to the judge when it'syou know, some contempted facts unless I
have independent knowledge. And as we'vesaid in the in our in our pleating,
there was no way for us tohave any independent knowledge. And another
issue we've raised and will continue totalk about, is, you know,
(31:18):
the all the issues in the processof at least excluding one juror, Sled
was investigating Swed, the chief prosecuted. The only prosecuting agency in the murder
trial is out at night interviewing witnesseson the on the juror disqualification. Do
they have a vested interest? Yes, of course, And I remember you
(31:42):
didn't you try to initially when youfiled this I think for a stay in
the Court of Appeals. I thinkI recall seeking or asking that an investigation
be done, but that it notbe done by Sled for obviously in that
and that was part of our Imean, but but but I raised the
issue in chambers with the judge.You can see the transcript. Why is
(32:04):
Sweat interviewing these people? And youknow, and at least one of those
Sweat agents that interviewed the tenants ofthe witnesses was a named witness in the
murder trial. I mean, andcurrently the investigations in the statements obtained by
the Attorney General in their response toour motion, we're obtained by Sweat agents
(32:27):
now they're saying, well, therefore, you know they had nothing to do
with the murder trial. It's thesame agency, and that's an issue that
we were we outlined brief and marketing. Well, not only it's the same
agency, but you know that blockbustermoment in the trial Jim was cross examining
Owen's about you know, the trickerybefore the grand jury and all that.
(32:49):
I mean, you know, therewere a lot of issues with this agency,
and so it's all kinds of layersof conflict. In my opinion,
this is my opinion. I'm notWe're not say what I want to say.
I mean, Jim was extraordinarily effectivein crossing examining Owens. It's it's
in the transcript. You got Owensto admit that he lied to the grand
jury, got him to admit hefabricated evidence. Now that Owens was recently
(33:16):
recognized by the Chief of SLED asthe swed Law Enforcement Officer of the Year,
again, I just think that raiseshuge questions about the impartiality of that
agency to conduct the investigation. Theother thing I want to point out is
this, I've been doing this,as I say, almost half a century.
(33:38):
I started when I was ten.But by the way I was looking
at when you were admitted to thebar seventy four, Yep, yeah,
I was three. That made mefeel really good. Yeah, well,
okay, so it makes me feelreally old. But I have always early
(34:00):
on we had some judges whose racialattitudes were horrible, but they're along gone.
But since that era, I've beenvery proud of the quality of our
judiciary and the quality of the process. And until this trial, I really
had no questions about the integrity ofthe process. But this is something that
(34:22):
this hopefully our appellate courts will correctand not something that we're going to have
to litigate in federal court five yearsfrom now. I believe our court understands
the issues here and we'll do theright thing. I do too, you
know, I've spoken about this toJim at length, that your case is
(34:43):
it was not only fascinating in termsof, you know, the facts,
and so many people all over theglobe we're following this and at the trial
level, but it is now turnedout to be I mean, all these
endless, unprecedented twists and turns thatare coming up, like this whole Becky
Hill issue and all that I mean, I you know, I think it's
(35:05):
becoming something of you know, alot of published opinions potentially and hopefully some
changed laws down there that need tobe changed. I just see this as
far more monumental than just about justicefor your client, which is very interesting
because you know, all of thepre trial publicity that you got, the
misinformation was oh the corruption, thecorruption, you know, and it's like
(35:30):
it's sort of the tables ICEE arestarting to turn. But another motion that
you recently filed that everyone's just beenkicking and screaming about is what you did
call down their prohibition or disqualification ofJudge Newman simply because of bias. And
this is based on your motion thatI read bias personal and judicial and also
(35:55):
the idea that he's a witness tosome of the beck who conduct And there's
no ruling on that yet, andthere's no ruling on your motion to stay
the upcoming financial fraud trial on Novembertwenty seventh. First of all, when
do you expect a ruling? Ineed to know that for personal reasons,
(36:15):
but also what happens if you don'tget a ruling? Attempt to pick a
jury on November twenty seventh. Wethink that's going to be very difficult.
We'll be following emotion today on thatand we'll just go forward with the trial.
I mean it's look, you,how do you go forward with a
(36:36):
trial when you're claiming that the presidingjudge has all of these biases, which
it definitely will put a different,a different approach on it. And it's
going to be I don't want totalk about what our striate, but I
will tell you it will put ifAnd look, I've known Cliff Newman for
(36:58):
thirty years. We're not saying he'sa corrupt or bad guy. We're just
saying that he has opinions, andhe's expressed those opinions, and what he's
expressed we believe should on our emotionasked some other judge should hear this matter?
He could be a witness, andhe's expressed these opinions. Now,
(37:20):
having said that, we're going tohave to examine every ruling, every charge,
everything the judge does in that contextduring a trialge, it puts a
different, a different spin on itas opposed to somebody who hasn't expressed opinions
(37:40):
who or who hadn't And I'm notsaying I mean, I guess I would
say that procedurally, Dick. Butprocedurally for those who don't know, if
you were to be before a judgethat you have filed this sort of motion
about his recusal. And by theway, just as a reminder for those
people who have not read the motion, Dick and Jim make it very clear
(38:02):
that this is you know, JudgeNewman is a very fine judge, that
they respect him, that this isnot personal. We have to do this.
In fact, in California we getto recuse a judge. We get
one bite of the apple, essentiallyto paper a judge for no reason at
all, not even you know,no cause at all. So this is
very standard. So I've done it, you know, I've known, for
(38:23):
example, type of case not goingto be good before a specific judge and
we just paper the judge. Wedon't do it often because you know,
for obvious reasons and optics. Butbut it's not personal. So just want
to write, but if you werebefore a judge that you have essentially laid
out his biases and conflicts, likeprocedurally, what like the judge rules on
(38:46):
something during the course of your trial, do you go objection that's biased.
I mean, what how does Idon't think you objection biased, but I
think you may make an argument thatthat he's wrong and why right and protect
the record on the record, andthat that objection will be in the context
(39:09):
of our previous objection to him asthe judge. I mean, it was
an extra layer. That's why youknow, we believe that the he ought
to recuse himself, or that theSupreme Court ought to step in and give
us a different judge. But again, and you made that very clear.
I think Cliff Newman's a great judge. I think he it's just this case
(39:30):
in which he's expressed opinions and couldbe a witness, we would have him
recused from MH. Well, hopefullywe'll know soon, right, It's uh.
I know you guys are prepared,but it's kind of always. I
hate that limbo stage of like notknowing if you're going or not going.
And it's Monday after Thanksgiving, soI know you're going to Slovenia, aren't
(39:52):
you. No, No, she'scoming here. My wife, who's the
ambassador Slovenia, is coming home.Okay, right, good, So Jim
I probably beaten Turkey together a goodbit over that weekend. Oh good,
okay, so jim uh talking turkey, right right, that's right. You
(40:12):
see on switch switch Gears Gaskets.Yeah, you know, we talked about
Gaskins in the intro. And youyou're working on a book about your experiences
with pee Wee Gaskins. You know, for people who don't know, tell
us who pee Wee is and andhow you two became forever intertwined and well
(40:37):
and also Dick, why is henot a serial killer? You know?
We you know, people are followingthe gilg Beach killer and other stories that
we've spoken to Btk's daughter here,and you know, like you know,
on paper, this guy looks likea serial killer. But what's well a
serious and I understanding of a serialkiller is a killer who repeats killing based
(40:59):
on pacific criteria, perhaps with thevictim, perhaps of the timing, all
kinds of things that tie all ofthese murders together. Pee Wee Gascons killed
because pee Wee Gascon's motive to killwas in most instances, he felt some
(41:19):
moral reason to do it in histwisted world, or he was afraid somebody
was going to turn him in.I mean, these murders were murders of
convenience for him. I'll give youan example, the worst one he is.
He had a girlfriend who showed upwith a two year old child at
(41:40):
his house. She's pregnant and clearlyand she admitted to him she was pregnant
by a black man and the childwas of mixed race across the line for
pee wee, I mean he wasracist would be an understatement. So he
invited them down to the pond behindhis house. He drowned the mom and
then beat the child's head in witha shovel and buried in the swamp.
(42:00):
He had a niece and her friendthat showed up on drugs. He got
them clean. They did okay fora few months, came home one night
they were on drugs again. Hebeat them to death and got them to
tell them where they tell him wherethey bought the drugs. After he had
killed them and buried them, heinvited the drug dealer over, which was
(42:23):
who was a woman after a CocaCola and had put battery acid in it,
killed her and put her in theseptic tank out back. So I
mean, or there's two guys thathelped him steal some stuff and he thought
they were going to turn him in, so he shot both of them in
the back of the head. He'sfive feet tall, He's a little guy,
(42:45):
and everybody was bigger than him,so he had to be stealthy in
what he did. Or you know, he there was a sort of a
killing somebody as a favorite to awoman who he then became romantic involved with.
It killed her ex husband. Imean, every one of them is
a separate story, as you'll seein the book on its own. Not
(43:08):
taught any of the others, notthe same mo or you know, wait,
how did you meet him? Howdid you get involved with that?
Okay, So in the early tomid seventies a couple of these murders came
to light. He was prosecuted,given the death penalty. Furman versus Georgia
comes down. And you know,by way of example, I prosecuted my
(43:30):
first death pony case in nineteen seventyfive. We picked a jury on Monday
morning at ten. He was sentencedto death at two o'clock on Tuesday afternoon.
No bifurcation, no sentencing here.I mean, if the law was
murder was punishable by death unless thejury recommended mercy. Okay, Now Furman
versus Georgia shut that down and said, you know you gotta have bifurcated.
(43:52):
That's got trial with gild or innocenceand then sentencing. So his previous previous
convictions were reversed death sentences, andthe prosecutor convinced him and his lawyer that
he could still seek the death penaltyon the preferment cases. Obviously they couldn't,
(44:19):
but he was convinced of it,as lawyer was. So he fessed
up to eight other murders he committedand pled all those for life, and
that would have been in nineteen seventyfive, so he's doing ten life sentences
eligible at the time, eligible parolein ten years. He was made the
chief trustee of the CCI were atthe Central Correctional Institution where he was doing
(44:45):
his time. The first cell blockwas built in eighteen forty eight Sherman when
he invaded Columbia houses horses there,but it had been in prison since the
eighteen forties. The cell block inwhich which Pee Wee was in was built
I think around the turn of thecentury, the nineteenth and twentieth century,
(45:07):
and he was the building man.He was he was the head trustee and
death row was in that cell block. So he is approached by let me
sort of digress. Down on thecoast, there was an arm robbery and
murder of two people called Moon.They had a son, an adopted son
(45:28):
named Tony Simo, who was apoplecticand he was They were killed by an
African American from New York named RudolphTyner, who was probably borderline what the
word is today, we said backthen, retarded. Okay, I don't
know what the is it mentally,it's definitely not the word today. Mental
disabilities. I think mental disability.I don't know what it's called today.
(45:51):
Mental delay. Yeah, whatever.But anyway, so he was prosecuted,
sentenced to death because proscatorial exuberance andfinal arguments by the DA down there,
it was reversed, retried, sencethe death again. By this time,
Simo is fed up with the systemand he wants Tyner dead, so through
(46:12):
a third party, he approaches PeeWee. We have tell we have taped
phone calls between Simo and Peewee abouthow to kill this guy. Of course,
Tyner was black, so Pee Weewas all in, and so Pee
Wee befriended tyner, gave him drugs, gave him had food and the food
food delivery guy was a how canI say this sexual partner? I guess
(46:43):
of pee Wee's he's he's another storyaltogether anyway, So it was pee Wee
day or he just that. No, it's convenience. He was very hetero
when he was out, very youknow. But you gotta do what you
gotta do there. Yeah, right, So pee Wee tried to They smuggled
(47:04):
some poison in, gave it tohim. It just made him sick.
He's hearing it on the tape.So pee Wee says, get me a
stick of dynamite and a blasting cap. We'll there'll be no coming back from
that. Sima says, I can'tget you dynamite, but I can get
you some plastic that would be plasticexplosives. So somehow they smuggle in a
quarter pound to see four explosive anda blasting cap. And he makes up
(47:27):
this fake intercom because he's having theyell at pee Wee deal through the vents
in the back of the cell topee Wee to get food or get whatever
he wants. So he has thatdelivered to Tyner. He's run a wire
because he has access to everything fromhis cell to Pee Wee to Tyner's cell,
and he asks. It's a cupwith a speaker glute on top,
(47:50):
and he tells Tyner to hold itup his ear, can you hear me?
And then he pokes his end intothe one ten in the wall.
It explodes, and he's got nuts, bowls, uh nails, screws,
shrapnel behind that, behind that speaker, and it's an unbreakable Department of Corrections
(48:12):
cup about that tall drinking cup,and so it basically blue. Tyner's one
of his hands off his head.He lived about forty five minutes Pee Wee
had. If Pee we had nottaped the phone calls with Semo, which
we found a guy named Al Watersfound when they did a shakedown about a
week later, he would have gottenaway with it, but I think he
(48:34):
was getting ready to blackmail Semo.Pee Wee always thinking anyway, So that
that is the case, I prosecutedhim on the execution of a guy on
death row name named Tyner. Thetrial took six weeks, and in those
during those six weeks, I reallygot to sort of know Pee Wee because
when we take breaks, i'd bein the courtroom. I was working for
(48:57):
the d A at the time,so I'm doing the prep work and doing
some of the witnesses, many ofthe witnesses. And he's left alone with
without his lawyers, and so he'sgot guards and I'm there alone. And
we began discussions, not about thecase, but pee Wee for instance,
one day says he had a highpitch boy. It's five feet tall.
That's why it was called pee wee. He said, diag dick. I
(49:21):
said what pee Wee said, youknow, you're a lot like me.
What are you talking about? Hesaid, you like killing And I said,
what are you talking? I said, do you like killing me?
He said, I can see youreally like doing this. I said,
no, no, pee Wee.I'm here to see that justice is done.
And he said, you know,I've spent much of my life in
(49:43):
prison. And he said, youknow, in prison we think of justice
as like a hard dick. Hesaid, your view of it is whether
you're getting it or giving it?Okay, now, I mean is that
a philosophy a little bit or whatso? And we had many many conversations.
Of course, I really I meanI knew pee Wee was a homicidal
(50:06):
maniac, but you know, itdidn't affect me until, of course,
in ninety I ran for BA,got elected. He was to be executed
in the spring of ninety one.I'd just been sworn in and then we
get this call that pee Wee isa pee Wee had asked his son to
kidnap my four year old daughter andhold her hospital wow, and he had
(50:30):
gone to a friend of his recruitto help him do it. And that
kid went immediately to the sheriff,and then they locked up pee Wee's son,
Donnie, and the other kid,and we lived with sweat agents sort
of ironically for two weeks, makingsure there was nobody else trying to do
it. But the kid gave astatement that pee Wee had asked him to
(50:52):
do it two weeks before he wasscheduled be executed, and that he didn't
want to do it, but youknow, he wanted his dad, and
his dad had a plan where Iwould a kid would call me and tell
me to have me have pee webrought up to the courthouse to my office,
(51:12):
which which corrections in law enforcement wouldhave done if I'd ask for it.
And that he should he should bein my left in my office alone
with me, shackled whatever. Buthe knew I had a secret. But
I had a back entrance not manypeople knew about. And he could escape,
go out out that door. Itwouldn't be any wouldn't be any guards
(51:34):
out outside that door. Show andDick, he had a history of escaping
right before when he was in ajuvenile facility as a kid, fourteen year
old kid. I read a letterfrom the superintendent of that facility who's indicated
he'd escaped I think six or seventimes. In one of those times,
a little boy that tried to keephim from going pee we pulled out a
(51:57):
knife and cut his finger off.Cut the kid's finger off. So he
said, it's interesting. He says, this young man has homicidal tendencies.
This is at fourteen and certainly willkill. Nobody paid attention. Nobody paid
attention. So you stayed in touchwith him after you convicted him. Well,
(52:21):
he would call my house. Idon't know how he got access to
a phone. He was on deathrow. My mother was there visiting one
time, picked up the phone andsays, Dick is a guy named Pee
Wee on the phone, wants totalk to you. I'm like, Pee,
we don't call my house. Whatis wrong with you? And Jack
Swirling, who was his defense attorney, and I went into practice after that
trial, and he would call theoffice to talk to Jack and I and
(52:43):
so, yeah, I had anumber of conversations with it. I actually
saw him. I was visiting onan inmate, not on death row,
but they had him in safekeeping.And Jack had a client who was a
serial killer named Larry Jean Bell laterexecuted. It was kidnapping little blond girls,
(53:04):
torturing him, raping them, ducttaping until they suffocated. He did
four of them. But he wasn'tmy client, he was my partner Jack's.
Jack was out of town. Theguy was decompensating me, decompensating.
We wanted me to go down thereand videotape him so he could give it
to his shrink to look at.And I was leaving, the guard says,
Hey, the inmate that sell nextdoor wants to see you. And
(53:27):
I said really, And so Iwent over there. It was Pee wee
and Gaskins was, oh, Dick, how you doing. I said,
well, I'm doing Okpee, howabout you? And he said, well,
you know, I'm drawing, andhe had these little colored pencil drawing.
It was one of them like meand Jack, Jack and Dick or
whatever and scrowling. He still hasa bunch of them. But I said,
(53:50):
those are really good pee wee andhe said yeah. I said,
I said, yeah, they probablywere some. He said yeah, And
I said they're probably gonna be wortha lot more real soon and he got
pissed. I mean intimating that,you know, after an artist dies.
There and he immediately caught on andI'll never forget there were bars between me
and him, me calculating at thatmoment, if he threw that pencil really
(54:14):
hard and hit me in the eye, could he killed me? And so
I left immediately thereafter. That wasthe last conversation I had with him.
So this is a manuscript. Imean, this guy was obviously a big
part of your career and different,just how different he was, and you
have the manuscript for a book thatwell, it's almost I started probably twenty
(54:37):
years after the case with this caveatwhen he was after he was executed.
The Kirk, I was a daat the time. Kirk comes to me
and says, we got all thisevidence, some of it just marked for
evidence, some of it was introducedin the trial in evidence. And now
he's executed, we don't need toretain it anymore, and we're getting ready
(54:57):
to throw it out. Do youwant it? And I went down and
it was like all the background files, his confessions to the previous crimes,
all of that, plus a fullsale model of Cell Block two done by
the FBI, the shrapnel they tookout of Tyner's brain, the pieces of
equipment that pe we had, andall the tapes, thirty of them.
(55:20):
So I got those and then Isaid, oh, yeah, I had
to do a book. And soabout once a year I crank something.
I've had like probably thirty five pagesdone after ten years. So I reached
out probably two years ago, hadan agent, and they reached out to
get me a what we thought wasgoing to be a ghostwriter, a guy
(55:45):
named Sean Asel who has had aNew York Times bestseller on Sonny Listen,
and there was a documentary done byI guess Netflix on the base of the
book. And he and I havebeen working together for about two years and
he's no longer a ghost writer.He's my co author and He's done an
extraordinary job working with me trying todevelop this because not just the Pee Wee
(56:08):
story, it's my story too,so telling your story through a case,
but also I think given all thematerial that you have, I mean,
that's just it's so great for notjust a book, but also some sort
of a documentary or something, becauseI want to hear that audio. Man,
(56:30):
that sounds the audio is pretty chilling. But anyway, so we're about
done with it. It's going throughan editing process. Hopefully i'll have something
the next week or two. AndI have an agent, Sylvie Raveno with
a Millennium who is working on gettingit published. That's awesome. So I
(56:53):
mean, listen, Dick, Iwas telling Jim, I could listen to
you for hours. You're the beststoryteller and you have so much to impart
to all of us, and soobviously you're a friend of this platform.
It's Jim's platform, and we hopethat you come back and join us,
you know, on when your bookis out on other stories and you know,
(57:17):
hopefully the next conversation will be youknow, we'll be talking about justice
for mark things. Hopefully we'll we'llgo the way they should, so hopefully
we'll hear the waitress story as well. I know you need to save some
for your next appearance. By theway, my back is really hurting.
I'm thinking up or a pancreatic scanill something. He was he was dying.
(57:43):
I mean it was he was ready, he was he was suicidal.
He thought pancreatic cancer was going totake him the next four weeks. That's
funny, true story. Anyway,Dick, thank you so much for joining
us. I really really exciting.I am. You know, obviously I
talk to Jim every day. Idon't get to talk to you every day,
(58:06):
left, Sarah, So this isright, all right, thank you
so much, and we will beback with another great episode. But until
next week. Well, first ofall, Matt's got something to say.
We got to get subscribers listen.Oh yeah. If this is your first
time checking out the show, welcometo the Fold. Please subscribe. We're
on all the podcast platforms, we'reon all the social media platforms at the
(58:29):
presumption, and these episodes are onYouTube, so you can see Jim's face
while Dick was trying to tell thosestories. It's worth a watch. YouTube
dot Com slash at the presumption,so we thank you guys for support and
Jim until next week we rest,We rest.
Hello, and welcome to the Presumption. I'm Sarah, sorry, together with
Jim Griffin, my prestiged partner andcrime I Jim, Hey, Sarah,
how are you good? How areyou? Thanks? And Matt of course,
our wonderful producer. And they're avery very special guest today. Dick
Harputlian, Welcome, Dick. Thankyou, Sarah. It's good to be
(00:44):
here. I spend way too muchtime alone with Jim, so having y'all
here with me it's a welcome relief. I feel terrible for you. I
feel terrible for you. All right, Well, let's begin by Look,
everybody knows both you and Jim asAlec Murdoch's attorneys, but there's obviously so
much more to you in your career. Dick began his career as a prosecutor
(01:07):
for the Fifth Circuit Solicitor's Office,covering two counties in South Carolina. He
later became a deputy solicitor, supervisingdozens of attorneys and support staff. Now,
you know, for the rest ofus around the country, when we
hear solicitor, we think prostitution,but the solicitor actually means district attorney to
the rest of us, and Dickhas prosecuted hundreds of serious felony cases,
(01:33):
including twelve death penalty cases and dozensof other murder cases. In nineteen eighty
three, he co prosecuted Donald peeWee Gaskins, the largest mass murderer in
the history of the state, whocommitted a contract killing death on a death
row inmate. While housed on deathrow. Dick successfully obtained a conviction.
(01:53):
I love when prosecutors take credit forconvictions because her job is so incredibly difficult.
Gaskins was sentenced to death and laterexecuted. Just weeks prior to his
execution, Gaskins attempted to have Dick'syoung daughter kidnapped and held hostage. The
plot was thwarted by law enforcement whenthey received a tip from one of those
(02:14):
that Gaskins had recruited to do thejob. We'll be talking in depth about
Gaskins with Dick in this episode.Dick began his career in private practice in
nineteen eighty three later became the fifthCircuit Solicitor from nineteen ninety one to nineteen
ninety five. During that tenure,he prosecuted and obtained convictions in several high
profile cases, ranging from murder todrugs and public corruption. Dick's practice consists
(02:38):
of criminal defense and civil plaintiffs matters. He's defended to death penalty cases and
dozens of other serious penny cases inboth state and federal courts. Last,
but certainly not least, Dick waselected to the South Carolina Senate in November
twenty eighteen and continues to serve inthat role. So welcome, my friend.
Well, it's good, is goodto be here, see you against
(03:02):
Sarah. We spent some wonderful timeat crime con together. Yeah, and
at gourmet shop shop absolutely. Allright, So I'm going to start off
with the Dick and Jim show.Right, Uh, you guys work so
well together, and I know howvaluable it is to be able to collaborate
(03:24):
with a colleague on certain cases.But I think a lot of us have
questions, a lot of our viewerscertainly have questions about how you guys got
to know each other, how youstarted working together, how do you sort
of divide up the work? Youknow, I'm going to say this.
When I followed the murder case,since the murders happened, and at that
(03:51):
time, there was like one newspaperthat was covering it. I think it
was Greenville something, and I waslike subscribing so I could see what's new
in the case. And I wascurious about who you guys are. You
know, why these two guys,And in my mind when I looked up
your profiles, I thought, Okay, this makes sense. Jim Griffin is
(04:14):
a white collar lawyer, so he'sgoing to do all the financial stuff,
and Dick Carpulian is like the streetlawyer. He's going to do all the
murder stuff. As it turned out, your murder trial was a financial crime
trial for three weeks. So tellme about your relationship and how you guys
work together. So Jimmy, you'llprobably correct me on this if I'm wrong.
(04:35):
But when I was in practice privatepractice, after I left the DA's
office and before I ran for DA, I think Jim was at the US
Attorney's office at that time, andso he was prosecuting. We never really
cross paths. But when I leftthis in sort of as a backstory,
when I was in private practice,I got hired to defend a guy who
(04:59):
had been a key used of payingoff on a video poker machine, which
everybody assumed was against the law.I ended up arguing in front of the
judge that there was a statutory exemptionthat you had to sort of read things
together, and the judge agreed withme, and the Supreme Court affirmed legalizing
video poker in South Carolina, whichbecame quickly a probably a several hundred million
(05:23):
dollar, if not billion dollar ayear enterprise, and we made I made
several people huge fortunes just by that. By the way, I got paid
twenty five hundred dollars on that case, and so no percentage of the state's
winnings. No, I don't thinkI could take percentage. It was a
criminal case, I mean, andit was typically a kind of case that
(05:44):
you'd work out for a suspended sentenceof probation. But this guy apparently had
a history with the DA and itwasn't here, it was up in Lancaster
County. So the Supreme Court affirmedand video poke became legal. I went
into the I got elected DA innineteen ninety In ninety one, I began
(06:06):
my career there. My four yearelected term, ran for Attorney General that
is ninety four, not a goodyear for Democrats, lost and went out
into private practice. In January ofninety five, and in ninety four on
the ballot was a referendum on localoption on video poker in eleven counties voted
(06:28):
no. And these were pretty lucrativecounties for the video poker industry. So
they came to me and wanted toknow if I could litigate that twelve O
county ban. And you know,again, I'm just coming out of four
years of doing nothing with criminal Igotten an O gym a little bit,
and so we did the case together, and we won and struck down this
(06:56):
local option and again made the industrya whole bunch of money. And I
don't I don't remember what we chargedhim, but it was not enough,
but enough I think you guys,I don't know, like this is a
pattern for you. So so outof that, out of that came a
relationship that we began working on,you know, different kinds of cases together,
(07:18):
some criminals, some civil. Andyou know, that relationship's gone on
forever whatever that is, thirty years. And you know, he has his
practice, I have my practice,but we come together. When Paul Murdall
was being investigated and charged in theboat case, his father Alex, who
(07:41):
I didn't know, went to hisfather, Randolph Murdall, who was the
DA down there when I was theDA here, and we had a pretty
good relationship, and his father encouragedhim to hire me. I met with
him at Mozelle and immediately seeing whatwas going on, got Jim involved.
And to be frank with you,Jim and Paul hit it off a lot
(08:05):
more than he and I'm I'm notrenowned from my bedside manner. Yeah,
okay, So but Jim and andPaul hit it off. I mean I
got along with Maggie and Alec andall of them fine. But he developed
a relationship with Paul, and Ihad Paul and Maggie in my office and
(08:28):
on a number of occasions during thatyear before they both got murdered. So
we worked together on getting that caseready for trial, and I thought,
uh, and I think Jim thoughtthat we had a pretty good shot of
getting an acquittal or at least ahung Jerry on the boat casey And obviously
then things went to the hell whenthe murders happened. So, but Jim
(08:52):
and I have done drug cases together, We've done civil cases together, class
actions, we've done actually together.Right, So I mean we we and
we work well together. Because Idon't. I can't remember a single time
that we've argued, you know,other than debating. But I'm talking about
a serious argument. Because my egois so small, I normally just to
(09:16):
defer to Jim. I'm just sucha humble, laid back kind of guy.
Now in all serious your your smallego and his big, big ego
kind of balance each other metal inall serious seriousness, No though, I
mean, I would can see thatJim's ability to analyze, manipulate, and
write the law is extraordinary. AndI will tell you that I've never seen
(09:41):
him not turning turn in the bestand just extraordinary product. He's he's kind
of he's kind of I mean,it's it's it's kind of incredible. Like
he'll I'll be like, oh,you know, maybe we need to read
this book before we interview this guest. Like two hours later, he's like,
I read it. I mean hereally, yeah, study, But
(10:09):
my I mean, having been aprosecutor in the mid seventies when no DNA,
no fingerprints, no video, noanything, I mean, back then
it was sort of a Wild Westkind of prosecution. No, by the
way, they didn't have to tellus about an alibi there was no reciprocal
discovery. It was. So myforte is the ability to not need all
(10:35):
of that and sort of react.Not that I don't understand the law.
I worked diligently to be able tomake a legal argument, but much more
fluid in a courtroom than many manylawyers are and are my sort of fly
(10:56):
by the seat of the pants approachand Jim's very focused legal approach, they
just sort of magically together. Andin terms of who does what, you
know, again, we divvy itup based on who wants to do what,
and I don't think we've ever disagreedabout that in any case we've ever
had. So it's just guns andpointing it to the prosecution's table. So
(11:18):
that, as I said, andfeel comfortable doing. But Jim, Jim,
Jim might not be, and ofcourse he would never say tempting as
I said, but it's uh,you know, we have strong feelings about
what happened in that trial. I'mnot going to comment on it because under
appeal, and we've got all kindsof motions pending. We are going to
(11:41):
have a hearing next a week fromFriday tomorrow. I don't when this will
run, but Friday the seventeenth onthe with the judge on the financial crimes
jury selection process, and Jim willbe following emotion today on that. But
but the fact of the matter iswe both have I think a deep seed
belief that Alec Murdau did not killMaggie and Paul. Yeah, me too.
(12:05):
Did he steal a bunch of money, absolutely, did he commit despicable
acts and how he treated his clients, yeah, absolutely, But did he
kill Maggie and Paul? I don'tthink he did. And I think the
forensic if we'd ever if we startedwith the murder case instead of the financial
case, I think the outcome wouldhave been a lot different. So before
(12:26):
we talk about some you know,the latest updates in Murdoch and you know,
speaking of you and Jim, whatare some fun I mean, I
know Jim has his own stories highlights, but tell us a good Jim story
doesn't have to be in the courtroom. Oh you don't really, don't you
(12:46):
really? Really? Jim is goingto have to have all that edited out.
He is. We we have traveledthe country together doing depositions. There's
the waitress in San Francisco story,which he's not gonna want me to tell
why yeah, or are they witnessingthe Harley Davidson uh class ash case?
(13:11):
You don't want me to tell.I mean, there's a number of stories
now, and we don't want totalk about the hot tub in Dallas.
We really don't know. We don'twant to talk. Okay, you know,
I'm sorry. This is a completetease. Wait a hot tub Harley
Davidson. No, no, no, no, no. You've got to
pick a couple of those these depositionso far as we go on, whether
(13:33):
it's to the West coast or Dallasor Houston, or where was Harley Cleveland?
Was that Cleveland? Indianapolis? Ithink right in Chicago, remember Chicago
in the steakhouse. Yeah, wewe Those are the most fun things,
and we can't talk about them,you know, publicly, because they are
so much fun. But the Sarah, one of my favorite Dick stories is
(14:00):
the Democratic primary was going on inSouth Carolina. Barack Obama was running against
Hillary Clinton and and gearing up forthe vote, and Bill Clinton was in
town. And I don't know whatwhat what has been said or heard,
and they can speak to it,but I hear, I hear on the
(14:20):
radios you know, Bill Clinton usingDick Rputli's name, and he's very angry
using Dick Arputli. And then Ipull over, pulled by Dick's office and
see what was going on. AndDick is like being bombarded by calls from
the Obama campaign. And you gotyour own chapter called Fear and Loathing Lizards
(14:41):
ticket in a in a book aboutgame Changer, didn't you, Dick?
Yes, what was that about?Okay, so let me back up a
little bit. You got to startwith the late eighties early nineties? Well,
yeah, no, late when washe governored? Yeah, probably mid
(15:01):
eighties. Bill Clinton used to cometo South Carolina stay with our governor,
Dick Riley, and I met himthen he was not running for president,
and Hillary came up, had dinnerwith them a couple of times, and
I was, you know, veryimpressed with with with with Bill. And
(15:22):
so when he ran in ninety twofor president, I was signed on early,
went to New Hampshire, went doorto door with him. Uh,
you know, went through the wholeJennifer Flowers deal with him for kids.
Don't quite remember all that, butit was what about about Monica? Well
that's fast forward. But so Iwas very close to them, and when
(15:46):
you know, he served two termsand I was in the White House many
many times with him. And sofast forward to two thousand and seven,
h Hillary's talking about running for president, and I in two thousand and four,
i'd been at the Boston convention andseeing Barack Obama give that just extraordinary
(16:07):
speech and was galvanized by him.But anyway, fast forward to two thousand
and seven, I had a callfrom Rick Wade, who was a buddy
of mine who went later on workedin the Obama administration. African American guy
here, very very very talented,who called me and said, look,
Senator Obama's going to be in townon Saturday, to like to have a
(16:29):
cup of coffee with you. AndI said, well, you know,
i'm a Hillary person. I'm goingto be for Hillary. And he said,
now I have a cup of coffeewith him. So I went down
to the Marriott here and had ajust me and him cup of coffee,
talked, and I walked out andI endorsed Barack Obama. Now I had
been a former I've been state chairmanof this Democratic Party in ninety eight and
(16:52):
all the way through two thousand andthree, so I had some profile with
the Democratic statewide profile with the DemoCradit Party, and I was the earliest
guy in Dorsum and got involved inthe campaign pretty heavily in the fall of
seven. And then you know,Obama lost Iowa and New Hampshire and came
in here and this was do ordie, and we had, you know,
(17:15):
a whole crew come in from everybodyfrom Vowerie Jarrett to Samantha Power,
going door to door here and itbecame sort of a hand to hand combat.
And two days before the prior day, two days before the primary,
Bill Clinton gave us a press conferencein which he intimated the only reason that
(17:37):
Barack Obama had any cachet with anyvoter was because he was black. And
so I said, he said thatat a restaurant called Lizard's Thicket, which
well, no, no, hesaid that naked. He came up to
Lizard's Thicket after I said, youknow, he Bill Clinton's getting to remind
(18:00):
me of Lee Atwater and buying andinferring that, you know, there's a
racious Southern strategy thing going on here. Clinton was asked by CNN that somebody
shoved a microphone. What do yousay about what Dick Dick carpooling compared to
to Lee Atwater. And he turned, you can see him on camera,
turned and walked away and then stoppedand came back and just unloaded on my
(18:25):
ass. So you know that gaveme the ability to tickle him a little
bit more. And I mean hegot angry and anger and angrier, and
you know he beat this. Thisbecame the dominant story that he called basically
made racious comments about Barack Obama.Well, it took on a life of
its owns. And as Jim says, well, if you read that chapter
(18:48):
in Game Change, which was,as you know, New York Times bestseller,
they got a whole chapter on that. And that night there was a
rally here in Colombia and Barack wasthere. You know, all the folks
are there. I don't know howthey know this, how they got it
in the book, or who toldhim told him it, But no,
Jim didn't know. But it hadto be Fluff or actual Rod or Robert
(19:12):
Gibbs, one of those guys becausethey're the only guy backstage with me,
maybe or Jarrett Aryl Vowery. ButBrock came up gave me a big chest
Bump hugged me and said, youare one crazy son of a bitch,
and that's in the book. Butbut so that's the story. And by
(19:33):
the way, we cleaned everybody's clockthat night and the big win and it
propelled brought into the into the presidency. So you know, I'm proud of
of of the role I played inthat. I'm and of course, I
(19:55):
you know, I became for signan grata with the Clintons even when she
ran in sixty I mean, theynever asked me to support her. But
I'm not. I'm not never havebeen, from an electoral standpoint a big
Hillary fan. I think she wastoo polarizing and didn't didn't have whatever Barack
(20:18):
and Bill and and other folks havesupported that sort of connection, she didn't
have it. So so my perspectivefrom from that event, Sarah is,
first, the Obama campaign did notwant to make race an issue whatsoever,
and they went out of their waynot to make the issue in South Carolina.
(20:41):
And then and then you know,Dick could accuse Clinton of race baiting
and all hell broke lews. Dickis up in his office under strict instructions
not to talk to anybody about itand now because they didn't want to insert
race and into that election, andand here the race all of a sudden
(21:03):
is becoming a huge issue. Andthen it turns out it was the best
issue going forward, And in hindsightlooked like a genius. But at the
time it was not sure they were. They were, no, they were
very initially, very So I like, I like how Jim, you know,
put in his perspective. But whatabout a Jim story? You shrying
(21:30):
to get away with it? Youknow, Look, Jim and I have
done a number of trials together,and there are, you know, stories
about what happened during those trials,but he's he has not been politically active
in the sense of what I've whywhat I've done, And you know,
I just don't know that I cantell any of the stories without Jim asking
(21:56):
all to edit it out, noteven the hot time. Okay, well,
then, oh, Jim, canI tell him the hot cup story?
All right? Tell him the hottub? Tell him how we were
taking that positions in Dallas and wehad no Houston and then we got to
go to Dallas. Well, whenwe got to Dallas, Jim has this
horrible back pain and he dia selfdiagnosed pancreatic cancer. Okay, I mean
(22:23):
he's he's, he's I was convincedpancreatic cancer. So when was this?
When was this or kidney stones oneof the other. Well, but you
were convinced of pancreatic cancer. Thiswould have been when Jim ten years ago,
probably on twenty fifteen, maybe Idon't know like that, but so
(22:47):
I was concerned. But we bothhave a concierge doc that we use and
he can hook you up with adoctor anywhere in the country for specific things.
So Jim got hooked up with asomebody to do X rays or cat
scans or whatever, and so hehad one done. We'd go into Houston
(23:10):
the next day, and so hehad one done. His back was killing
him. He was taken. Ithink they gave him some sort of muscle
relaxer, paint pill, right,lots of pain pills, yes, not
the paint pills. So we flyto Houston, I mean Dallas the next
day from Houston, and while we'reI think, either when we land or
in the air, whatever, hegets the news. No pancreatic cancer,
no kidney stones, probably a pulledmuscle or something. So as we're checking
(23:36):
into the Four Seasons? Is thatwhat it was? In Dallas? We
were at I think it was theRitz Carlton Rits, some nice hotels.
So you were, you were,you were actually paid on that case.
That's good, Okay, go ahead, Yeah, no, no, we
were being paid. So when weget there, we check in, but
our room's not ready and Jim isjust still pretty much an agony. And
(23:57):
the doctor told him to, youknow, take a hot bath or get
in a saun or something so wecould go to the spa. Well,
they you know, ready in ourroom. And we went there and they
had a big old it's not ajacuzzie, but big enough. You know,
it's a like a hot tub,except you know, yeah, like
(24:18):
a big, big one. Andso but you couldn't wear clothes in so
so Jim, you know, youcould wear clothes, and we just didn't
have any clothes, because that's right, that's right, that's right, love,
We had no all our clothes.Yeah, And you said, I'm
sure they'll have some clothes for usin the spa, and they did not.
They did not. So Jim's inthe in the full naked and I
(24:41):
walk in naked. And today hewill tell you that was one of the
most traumatic experiences of his wife.Now I've told everybody I got in the
hot tub with him and massaged,massaged him until there was no more pain.
All I made that up Totallytoria.A couple of dranks, you know.
(25:02):
Oh God, we get we getthe picture. We got the big
the only story that's the cleanest storyI can tell you. Yeah, that's
I don't know about the visual,but I get it. I get it.
Okay. So on Murdoch, Dick, you know, were naked guy.
(25:23):
Great, So on Murdoch. Look, you know this, Jim's the
boss here. It's his case,your case, and so we have a
rule that we don't you know,really talk about Murdoch, uh, besides
what is already known, you know, so obviously your perspective is important,
(25:45):
but you know, we're lawyers first, and so we don't really talk about
our open cases here. So justso you're you know, comfortable with this
conversation. But you know, Ithink what's interesting for listeners viewers is that
there's a lot of movement now inthis case. You know, I,
like you guys and many other peopleout there, never believed that Murdoch committed
(26:10):
these murders, nor did I believethat there was sufficient evidence to convict them
on the murders. And yet herewe are, and so it seems like
there's now pathway to justice. Sothe first thing I want to ask is,
you know, I read your motionand I read the States response,
and they're like, it's like they'renot talking about the same thing. It's
(26:30):
like you're talking about jury influence andthey're talking about jury misconduct. They're two
different standards. What is the standardin terms of you know this motion?
I mean, we know what BeckyHill did. We know what your two
jurors are saying under oath, shesaid, And now there's three more jurors
that they're citing to in this prettylittle chart table. What's the standard?
(26:53):
I mean, what ultimately when yougo before the court, what is the
standard that the court needs to adopt? I mean, I may oversimplify this,
and Jim will correct me. I'msure if I do. But but
the big legal debate will be doyou have to show uh? Well,
first of all, it's got tobe uh clearly a court At most of
(27:17):
the cases bailiffs. I don't thinkwe ever found one involving a court of
court. Did that person say somethingthat would would indicate or instruct the jurors
what to think, what to do, A and B. You know,
did that did that? Basically didthat happen? We don't have to believe,
(27:37):
we don't have to show that thatchanged the outcome or influenced the jurm.
It's just that naked assertion by acourt attache. Uh, that would
be a bailiff, kirk of court, somebody in a police officer who whose
custody there in the jury? Thatis and we believe that that is the
(27:57):
state legal standard for us to getafter discovered Evans get a new trial.
Jim, you want to elaborate onthat, Yeah, I mean it is
essentially when the court official has impropercommunication with the jury, then it's a
different standard. The standard is wasthe subject matter of the communication material?
(28:17):
Material is measured by you know,could it have could it have made a
difference? Not did it make adifference? So you don't have to prove
you know that the states making itlook like you have to prove that it
actually made a difference. You don'thave to prove that, right, it's
just and that's the difference and that'sthe different standard when when a juror goes
home and gets some you know,biblical material brings in the jury room.
(28:41):
I mean, and so those aretype cases that are out there, and
so that's juror misconduct. Jurors bringstuff into the jury room that shouldn't be
there, information, what have you. And that standard is you know,
you have to show it it mostlikely made a difference, but once the
quarter you only have to show couldit have made a difference? Yeah,
(29:03):
because it's so much more impactful,you know, when it comes from a
court official. I think that thatthat it makes logical sense why the standard
would be less stringent than what thestate is suggesting. What about the fact
that Dick, they have two,I mean three additional jurors. I guess
(29:25):
led Uh spoke to you know,Sarah. I don't think we can discuss
the merit of what's going on totalk to you about the legal standard.
But in terms of weighing the evidence, that's something we're going to have to
got it. Are you understood?Understood? And then you know during the
trial I always give Jim a hardtime about being a bad boy and opening
(29:45):
doors allegedly, you know, theysaid, oh, you opened the door,
that's why this evidence came in andstuff. And you know, I
know and that not I watched thattrial from the beginning to the end.
But now I think the state sayingthere's two bad boys, Dick and Jim,
because you kind of knew what's happeningwith this, at least with the
(30:06):
Facebook issue, and you waived it. Essentially, That's what I'm seeing that
they're arguing you, did you knowat the time that these communications had occurred
or this is something that you literallylearned recently. No, and again,
as we've explained in our brief ourresponse to them, you know, I've
(30:30):
been doing this fifty fifty years nextyear. I have ever in those fifty
years seen a cork of court doanything on tour to a jury. It
was the most unexpected. I mean, I just assumed everybody was operating in
good faith. That would be thebailiff, the judge, the cork,
(30:51):
and so you know, I've basicallydeferred to them. I mean, I
always defer to the judge when it'syou know, some contempted facts unless I
have independent knowledge. And as we'vesaid in the in our in our pleating,
there was no way for us tohave any independent knowledge. And another
issue we've raised and will continue totalk about, is, you know,
(31:18):
the all the issues in the processof at least excluding one juror, Sled
was investigating Swed, the chief prosecuted. The only prosecuting agency in the murder
trial is out at night interviewing witnesseson the on the juror disqualification. Do
they have a vested interest? Yes, of course, And I remember you
(31:42):
didn't you try to initially when youfiled this I think for a stay in
the Court of Appeals. I thinkI recall seeking or asking that an investigation
be done, but that it notbe done by Sled for obviously in that
and that was part of our Imean, but but but I raised the
issue in chambers with the judge.You can see the transcript. Why is
(32:04):
Sweat interviewing these people? And youknow, and at least one of those
Sweat agents that interviewed the tenants ofthe witnesses was a named witness in the
murder trial. I mean, andcurrently the investigations in the statements obtained by
the Attorney General in their response toour motion, we're obtained by Sweat agents
(32:27):
now they're saying, well, therefore, you know they had nothing to do
with the murder trial. It's thesame agency, and that's an issue that
we were we outlined brief and marketing. Well, not only it's the same
agency, but you know that blockbustermoment in the trial Jim was cross examining
Owen's about you know, the trickerybefore the grand jury and all that.
(32:49):
I mean, you know, therewere a lot of issues with this agency,
and so it's all kinds of layersof conflict. In my opinion,
this is my opinion. I'm notWe're not say what I want to say.
I mean, Jim was extraordinarily effectivein crossing examining Owens. It's it's
in the transcript. You got Owensto admit that he lied to the grand
jury, got him to admit hefabricated evidence. Now that Owens was recently
(33:16):
recognized by the Chief of SLED asthe swed Law Enforcement Officer of the Year,
again, I just think that raiseshuge questions about the impartiality of that
agency to conduct the investigation. Theother thing I want to point out is
this, I've been doing this,as I say, almost half a century.
(33:38):
I started when I was ten.But by the way I was looking
at when you were admitted to thebar seventy four, Yep, yeah,
I was three. That made mefeel really good. Yeah, well,
okay, so it makes me feelreally old. But I have always early
(34:00):
on we had some judges whose racialattitudes were horrible, but they're along gone.
But since that era, I've beenvery proud of the quality of our
judiciary and the quality of the process. And until this trial, I really
had no questions about the integrity ofthe process. But this is something that
(34:22):
this hopefully our appellate courts will correctand not something that we're going to have
to litigate in federal court five yearsfrom now. I believe our court understands
the issues here and we'll do theright thing. I do too, you
know, I've spoken about this toJim at length, that your case is
(34:43):
it was not only fascinating in termsof, you know, the facts,
and so many people all over theglobe we're following this and at the trial
level, but it is now turnedout to be I mean, all these
endless, unprecedented twists and turns thatare coming up, like this whole Becky
Hill issue and all that I mean, I you know, I think it's
(35:05):
becoming something of you know, alot of published opinions potentially and hopefully some
changed laws down there that need tobe changed. I just see this as
far more monumental than just about justicefor your client, which is very interesting
because you know, all of thepre trial publicity that you got, the
misinformation was oh the corruption, thecorruption, you know, and it's like
(35:30):
it's sort of the tables ICEE arestarting to turn. But another motion that
you recently filed that everyone's just beenkicking and screaming about is what you did
call down their prohibition or disqualification ofJudge Newman simply because of bias. And
this is based on your motion thatI read bias personal and judicial and also
(35:55):
the idea that he's a witness tosome of the beck who conduct And there's
no ruling on that yet, andthere's no ruling on your motion to stay
the upcoming financial fraud trial on Novembertwenty seventh. First of all, when
do you expect a ruling? Ineed to know that for personal reasons,
(36:15):
but also what happens if you don'tget a ruling? Attempt to pick a
jury on November twenty seventh. Wethink that's going to be very difficult.
We'll be following emotion today on thatand we'll just go forward with the trial.
I mean it's look, you,how do you go forward with a
(36:36):
trial when you're claiming that the presidingjudge has all of these biases, which
it definitely will put a different,a different approach on it. And it's
going to be I don't want totalk about what our striate, but I
will tell you it will put ifAnd look, I've known Cliff Newman for
(36:58):
thirty years. We're not saying he'sa corrupt or bad guy. We're just
saying that he has opinions, andhe's expressed those opinions, and what he's
expressed we believe should on our emotionasked some other judge should hear this matter?
He could be a witness, andhe's expressed these opinions. Now,
(37:20):
having said that, we're going tohave to examine every ruling, every charge,
everything the judge does in that contextduring a trialge, it puts a
different, a different spin on itas opposed to somebody who hasn't expressed opinions
(37:40):
who or who hadn't And I'm notsaying I mean, I guess I would
say that procedurally, Dick. Butprocedurally for those who don't know, if
you were to be before a judgethat you have filed this sort of motion
about his recusal. And by theway, just as a reminder for those
people who have not read the motion, Dick and Jim make it very clear
(38:02):
that this is you know, JudgeNewman is a very fine judge, that
they respect him, that this isnot personal. We have to do this.
In fact, in California we getto recuse a judge. We get
one bite of the apple, essentiallyto paper a judge for no reason at
all, not even you know,no cause at all. So this is
very standard. So I've done it, you know, I've known, for
(38:23):
example, type of case not goingto be good before a specific judge and
we just paper the judge. Wedon't do it often because you know,
for obvious reasons and optics. Butbut it's not personal. So just want
to write, but if you werebefore a judge that you have essentially laid
out his biases and conflicts, likeprocedurally, what like the judge rules on
(38:46):
something during the course of your trial, do you go objection that's biased.
I mean, what how does Idon't think you objection biased, but I
think you may make an argument thatthat he's wrong and why right and protect
the record on the record, andthat that objection will be in the context
(39:09):
of our previous objection to him asthe judge. I mean, it was
an extra layer. That's why youknow, we believe that the he ought
to recuse himself, or that theSupreme Court ought to step in and give
us a different judge. But again, and you made that very clear.
I think Cliff Newman's a great judge. I think he it's just this case
(39:30):
in which he's expressed opinions and couldbe a witness, we would have him
recused from MH. Well, hopefullywe'll know soon, right, It's uh.
I know you guys are prepared,but it's kind of always. I
hate that limbo stage of like notknowing if you're going or not going.
And it's Monday after Thanksgiving, soI know you're going to Slovenia, aren't
(39:52):
you. No, No, she'scoming here. My wife, who's the
ambassador Slovenia, is coming home.Okay, right, good, So Jim
I probably beaten Turkey together a goodbit over that weekend. Oh good,
okay, so jim uh talking turkey, right right, that's right. You
(40:12):
see on switch switch Gears Gaskets.Yeah, you know, we talked about
Gaskins in the intro. And youyou're working on a book about your experiences
with pee Wee Gaskins. You know, for people who don't know, tell
us who pee Wee is and andhow you two became forever intertwined and well
(40:37):
and also Dick, why is henot a serial killer? You know?
We you know, people are followingthe gilg Beach killer and other stories that
we've spoken to Btk's daughter here,and you know, like you know,
on paper, this guy looks likea serial killer. But what's well a
serious and I understanding of a serialkiller is a killer who repeats killing based
(40:59):
on pacific criteria, perhaps with thevictim, perhaps of the timing, all
kinds of things that tie all ofthese murders together. Pee Wee Gascons killed
because pee Wee Gascon's motive to killwas in most instances, he felt some
(41:19):
moral reason to do it in histwisted world, or he was afraid somebody
was going to turn him in.I mean, these murders were murders of
convenience for him. I'll give youan example, the worst one he is.
He had a girlfriend who showed upwith a two year old child at
(41:40):
his house. She's pregnant and clearlyand she admitted to him she was pregnant
by a black man and the childwas of mixed race across the line for
pee wee, I mean he wasracist would be an understatement. So he
invited them down to the pond behindhis house. He drowned the mom and
then beat the child's head in witha shovel and buried in the swamp.
(42:00):
He had a niece and her friendthat showed up on drugs. He got
them clean. They did okay fora few months, came home one night
they were on drugs again. Hebeat them to death and got them to
tell them where they tell him wherethey bought the drugs. After he had
killed them and buried them, heinvited the drug dealer over, which was
(42:23):
who was a woman after a CocaCola and had put battery acid in it,
killed her and put her in theseptic tank out back. So I
mean, or there's two guys thathelped him steal some stuff and he thought
they were going to turn him in, so he shot both of them in
the back of the head. He'sfive feet tall, He's a little guy,
(42:45):
and everybody was bigger than him,so he had to be stealthy in
what he did. Or you know, he there was a sort of a
killing somebody as a favorite to awoman who he then became romantic involved with.
It killed her ex husband. Imean, every one of them is
a separate story, as you'll seein the book on its own. Not
(43:08):
taught any of the others, notthe same mo or you know, wait,
how did you meet him? Howdid you get involved with that?
Okay, So in the early tomid seventies a couple of these murders came
to light. He was prosecuted,given the death penalty. Furman versus Georgia
comes down. And you know,by way of example, I prosecuted my
(43:30):
first death pony case in nineteen seventyfive. We picked a jury on Monday
morning at ten. He was sentencedto death at two o'clock on Tuesday afternoon.
No bifurcation, no sentencing here.I mean, if the law was
murder was punishable by death unless thejury recommended mercy. Okay, Now Furman
versus Georgia shut that down and said, you know you gotta have bifurcated.
(43:52):
That's got trial with gild or innocenceand then sentencing. So his previous previous
convictions were reversed death sentences, andthe prosecutor convinced him and his lawyer that
he could still seek the death penaltyon the preferment cases. Obviously they couldn't,
(44:19):
but he was convinced of it,as lawyer was. So he fessed
up to eight other murders he committedand pled all those for life, and
that would have been in nineteen seventyfive, so he's doing ten life sentences
eligible at the time, eligible parolein ten years. He was made the
chief trustee of the CCI were atthe Central Correctional Institution where he was doing
(44:45):
his time. The first cell blockwas built in eighteen forty eight Sherman when
he invaded Columbia houses horses there,but it had been in prison since the
eighteen forties. The cell block inwhich which Pee Wee was in was built
I think around the turn of thecentury, the nineteenth and twentieth century,
(45:07):
and he was the building man.He was he was the head trustee and
death row was in that cell block. So he is approached by let me
sort of digress. Down on thecoast, there was an arm robbery and
murder of two people called Moon.They had a son, an adopted son
(45:28):
named Tony Simo, who was apoplecticand he was They were killed by an
African American from New York named RudolphTyner, who was probably borderline what the
word is today, we said backthen, retarded. Okay, I don't
know what the is it mentally,it's definitely not the word today. Mental
disabilities. I think mental disability.I don't know what it's called today.
(45:51):
Mental delay. Yeah, whatever.But anyway, so he was prosecuted,
sentenced to death because proscatorial exuberance andfinal arguments by the DA down there,
it was reversed, retried, sencethe death again. By this time,
Simo is fed up with the systemand he wants Tyner dead, so through
(46:12):
a third party, he approaches PeeWee. We have tell we have taped
phone calls between Simo and Peewee abouthow to kill this guy. Of course,
Tyner was black, so Pee Weewas all in, and so Pee
Wee befriended tyner, gave him drugs, gave him had food and the food
food delivery guy was a how canI say this sexual partner? I guess
(46:43):
of pee Wee's he's he's another storyaltogether anyway, So it was pee Wee
day or he just that. No, it's convenience. He was very hetero
when he was out, very youknow. But you gotta do what you
gotta do there. Yeah, right, So pee Wee tried to They smuggled
(47:04):
some poison in, gave it tohim. It just made him sick.
He's hearing it on the tape.So pee Wee says, get me a
stick of dynamite and a blasting cap. We'll there'll be no coming back from
that. Sima says, I can'tget you dynamite, but I can get
you some plastic that would be plasticexplosives. So somehow they smuggle in a
quarter pound to see four explosive anda blasting cap. And he makes up
(47:27):
this fake intercom because he's having theyell at pee Wee deal through the vents
in the back of the cell topee Wee to get food or get whatever
he wants. So he has thatdelivered to Tyner. He's run a wire
because he has access to everything fromhis cell to Pee Wee to Tyner's cell,
and he asks. It's a cupwith a speaker glute on top,
(47:50):
and he tells Tyner to hold itup his ear, can you hear me?
And then he pokes his end intothe one ten in the wall.
It explodes, and he's got nuts, bowls, uh nails, screws,
shrapnel behind that, behind that speaker, and it's an unbreakable Department of Corrections
(48:12):
cup about that tall drinking cup,and so it basically blue. Tyner's one
of his hands off his head.He lived about forty five minutes Pee Wee
had. If Pee we had nottaped the phone calls with Semo, which
we found a guy named Al Watersfound when they did a shakedown about a
week later, he would have gottenaway with it, but I think he
(48:34):
was getting ready to blackmail Semo.Pee Wee always thinking anyway, So that
that is the case, I prosecutedhim on the execution of a guy on
death row name named Tyner. Thetrial took six weeks, and in those
during those six weeks, I reallygot to sort of know Pee Wee because
when we take breaks, i'd bein the courtroom. I was working for
(48:57):
the d A at the time,so I'm doing the prep work and doing
some of the witnesses, many ofthe witnesses. And he's left alone with
without his lawyers, and so he'sgot guards and I'm there alone. And
we began discussions, not about thecase, but pee Wee for instance,
one day says he had a highpitch boy. It's five feet tall.
That's why it was called pee wee. He said, diag dick. I
(49:21):
said what pee Wee said, youknow, you're a lot like me.
What are you talking about? Hesaid, you like killing And I said,
what are you talking? I said, do you like killing me?
He said, I can see youreally like doing this. I said,
no, no, pee Wee.I'm here to see that justice is done.
And he said, you know,I've spent much of my life in
(49:43):
prison. And he said, youknow, in prison we think of justice
as like a hard dick. Hesaid, your view of it is whether
you're getting it or giving it?Okay, now, I mean is that
a philosophy a little bit or whatso? And we had many many conversations.
Of course, I really I meanI knew pee Wee was a homicidal
(50:06):
maniac, but you know, itdidn't affect me until, of course,
in ninety I ran for BA,got elected. He was to be executed
in the spring of ninety one.I'd just been sworn in and then we
get this call that pee Wee isa pee Wee had asked his son to
kidnap my four year old daughter andhold her hospital wow, and he had
(50:30):
gone to a friend of his recruitto help him do it. And that
kid went immediately to the sheriff,and then they locked up pee Wee's son,
Donnie, and the other kid,and we lived with sweat agents sort
of ironically for two weeks, makingsure there was nobody else trying to do
it. But the kid gave astatement that pee Wee had asked him to
(50:52):
do it two weeks before he wasscheduled be executed, and that he didn't
want to do it, but youknow, he wanted his dad, and
his dad had a plan where Iwould a kid would call me and tell
me to have me have pee webrought up to the courthouse to my office,
(51:12):
which which corrections in law enforcement wouldhave done if I'd ask for it.
And that he should he should bein my left in my office alone
with me, shackled whatever. Buthe knew I had a secret. But
I had a back entrance not manypeople knew about. And he could escape,
go out out that door. Itwouldn't be any wouldn't be any guards
(51:34):
out outside that door. Show andDick, he had a history of escaping
right before when he was in ajuvenile facility as a kid, fourteen year
old kid. I read a letterfrom the superintendent of that facility who's indicated
he'd escaped I think six or seventimes. In one of those times,
a little boy that tried to keephim from going pee we pulled out a
(51:57):
knife and cut his finger off.Cut the kid's finger off. So he
said, it's interesting. He says, this young man has homicidal tendencies.
This is at fourteen and certainly willkill. Nobody paid attention. Nobody paid
attention. So you stayed in touchwith him after you convicted him. Well,
(52:21):
he would call my house. Idon't know how he got access to
a phone. He was on deathrow. My mother was there visiting one
time, picked up the phone andsays, Dick is a guy named Pee
Wee on the phone, wants totalk to you. I'm like, Pee,
we don't call my house. Whatis wrong with you? And Jack
Swirling, who was his defense attorney, and I went into practice after that
trial, and he would call theoffice to talk to Jack and I and
(52:43):
so, yeah, I had anumber of conversations with it. I actually
saw him. I was visiting onan inmate, not on death row,
but they had him in safekeeping.And Jack had a client who was a
serial killer named Larry Jean Bell laterexecuted. It was kidnapping little blond girls,
(53:04):
torturing him, raping them, ducttaping until they suffocated. He did
four of them. But he wasn'tmy client, he was my partner Jack's.
Jack was out of town. Theguy was decompensating me, decompensating.
We wanted me to go down thereand videotape him so he could give it
to his shrink to look at.And I was leaving, the guard says,
Hey, the inmate that sell nextdoor wants to see you. And
(53:27):
I said really, And so Iwent over there. It was Pee wee
and Gaskins was, oh, Dick, how you doing. I said,
well, I'm doing Okpee, howabout you? And he said, well,
you know, I'm drawing, andhe had these little colored pencil drawing.
It was one of them like meand Jack, Jack and Dick or
whatever and scrowling. He still hasa bunch of them. But I said,
(53:50):
those are really good pee wee andhe said yeah. I said,
I said, yeah, they probablywere some. He said yeah, And
I said they're probably gonna be wortha lot more real soon and he got
pissed. I mean intimating that,you know, after an artist dies.
There and he immediately caught on andI'll never forget there were bars between me
and him, me calculating at thatmoment, if he threw that pencil really
(54:14):
hard and hit me in the eye, could he killed me? And so
I left immediately thereafter. That wasthe last conversation I had with him.
So this is a manuscript. Imean, this guy was obviously a big
part of your career and different,just how different he was, and you
have the manuscript for a book thatwell, it's almost I started probably twenty
(54:37):
years after the case with this caveatwhen he was after he was executed.
The Kirk, I was a daat the time. Kirk comes to me
and says, we got all thisevidence, some of it just marked for
evidence, some of it was introducedin the trial in evidence. And now
he's executed, we don't need toretain it anymore, and we're getting ready
(54:57):
to throw it out. Do youwant it? And I went down and
it was like all the background files, his confessions to the previous crimes,
all of that, plus a fullsale model of Cell Block two done by
the FBI, the shrapnel they tookout of Tyner's brain, the pieces of
equipment that pe we had, andall the tapes, thirty of them.
(55:20):
So I got those and then Isaid, oh, yeah, I had
to do a book. And soabout once a year I crank something.
I've had like probably thirty five pagesdone after ten years. So I reached
out probably two years ago, hadan agent, and they reached out to
get me a what we thought wasgoing to be a ghostwriter, a guy
(55:45):
named Sean Asel who has had aNew York Times bestseller on Sonny Listen,
and there was a documentary done byI guess Netflix on the base of the
book. And he and I havebeen working together for about two years and
he's no longer a ghost writer.He's my co author and He's done an
extraordinary job working with me trying todevelop this because not just the Pee Wee
(56:08):
story, it's my story too,so telling your story through a case,
but also I think given all thematerial that you have, I mean,
that's just it's so great for notjust a book, but also some sort
of a documentary or something, becauseI want to hear that audio. Man,
(56:30):
that sounds the audio is pretty chilling. But anyway, so we're about
done with it. It's going throughan editing process. Hopefully i'll have something
the next week or two. AndI have an agent, Sylvie Raveno with
a Millennium who is working on gettingit published. That's awesome. So I
(56:53):
mean, listen, Dick, Iwas telling Jim, I could listen to
you for hours. You're the beststoryteller and you have so much to impart
to all of us, and soobviously you're a friend of this platform.
It's Jim's platform, and we hopethat you come back and join us,
you know, on when your bookis out on other stories and you know,
(57:17):
hopefully the next conversation will be youknow, we'll be talking about justice
for mark things. Hopefully we'll we'llgo the way they should, so hopefully
we'll hear the waitress story as well. I know you need to save some
for your next appearance. By theway, my back is really hurting.
I'm thinking up or a pancreatic scanill something. He was he was dying.
(57:43):
I mean it was he was ready, he was he was suicidal.
He thought pancreatic cancer was going totake him the next four weeks. That's
funny, true story. Anyway,Dick, thank you so much for joining
us. I really really exciting.I am. You know, obviously I
talk to Jim every day. Idon't get to talk to you every day,
(58:06):
left, Sarah, So this isright, all right, thank you
so much, and we will beback with another great episode. But until
next week. Well, first ofall, Matt's got something to say.
We got to get subscribers listen.Oh yeah. If this is your first
time checking out the show, welcometo the Fold. Please subscribe. We're
on all the podcast platforms, we'reon all the social media platforms at the
(58:29):
presumption, and these episodes are onYouTube, so you can see Jim's face
while Dick was trying to tell thosestories. It's worth a watch. YouTube
dot Com slash at the presumption,so we thank you guys for support and
Jim until next week we rest,We rest.
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