6.Out-of-Jury Hearing on Defense-Collected Books
54 linesBOYD YOUNG: May we approach?
THE COURT: You may. (Whereupon, a bench conference was held in the presence of the jury but out of the hearing of the jury.)
THE COURT: All right. We'll take a lunch break. Go back to the jury room. Don't talk about the case. We'll get you all back in here. It's 12:25, come back at 1:45p.m. (Whereupon, the jury was excused from open court for a lunch break.)
THE COURT: We had a sidebar about a picture -- a photograph taken by this witness of, the books found in the house. The State did not collect them. Some time after that the Defense got an opportunity to go to the house and collect things they needed or thought were appropriate for court. And they did and they numbered the things they collected and provided the State with notice of what they collected. These books were among that numbered, correct?
SHAWN GRAHAM: Correct.
THE COURT: So aside from the Defense collecting these from the Jones' house, notifying the State of what they collected, they've not been analyzed by the State in any manner whatsoever. And so, the State hasn't determined as to what's contained therein. And so, Mr. Young, you had a proposal maybe of how to resolve this.
BOYD YOUNG: Your Honor, I mean, it was Mr. Secor and myself that went to the house. I'm happy for Mr. Secor to testify as to the collection of them and they've been maintained in my office which is locked since the time they were collected.
THE COURT: All right. Do you plan on utilizing and publishing parts of the book?
BOYD YOUNG: Yes, sir.
THE COURT: In portions of your case?
BOYD YOUNG: Yes, sir.
THE COURT: All right. Mr. Graham, what do you think?
SHAWN GRAHAM: Your Honor, I guess my concern is if I don't do -- we've never seen what's been highlighted, we've never seen what's been underlined, we've never seen what notations have been made in there.
THE COURT: Would you all like an opportunity to see that? I mean, I think Mr. Young said that.
SHAWN GRAHAM: I don't -- we've never seen a copy --
THE COURT: No, no. Would you like to?
SHAWN GRAHAM: I would like to know -- yes, I would like to see what's in there. But I would also like to know which experts are going to rely on what. If each book, are we talking about all six of those books, and apparently there's more down on the floor. Or are we talking about one of them and we're talking about a certain phrase. That's what I'd like to know, is how much of that's important so we can decide what our argument is going to be.
BOYD YOUNG: I think as far as contents of the book and what's highlighted and underlined, I believe it's mostly the Pursuit of the Godly Seed that is -- that one of our Historian's relied on with regard to how Tim and Amber, this is by the same author has the guy who did the 13 tape series.
THE COURT: Cassette.
BOYD YOUNG: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. So he did a cassette series that was called The Godly Home, and then he did, based on that he wrote a book called The Godly Seed. Tim listened to the tape set and got the book. The book tells you how to raise kids. How to, the rod is love. How to discipline kids. What it means for you if the kids aren't disciplined as to what Denny Kenaston says is appropriate. The rest of the books were sort of more along the lines of aggregate where DSS noticed a large number of religious items in the home during one of the home visits. These would sort of go to that. And then there will be testimony regarding that people with -- in particular people who have schizophrenia tend to gravitate toward hyper-religiosity. So most of them are aggregate. I believe this, the Torah, the Hebrew-English Torah does contain a note from Amber that was given to him from 6/29/08, "Happy anniversary. I love you." But that's the only writings.
THE COURT: So, notes annotating the books themselves.
BOYD YOUNG: Right.
THE COURT: Okay. Mr. Graham, do you understand?
BOYD YOUNG: There are annotations in The Pursuit of the Godly Seed, yes, and we're going to talk about those. This, other than saying Amber gave it to him on his happy anniversary.
THE COURT: Right.
BOYD YOUNG: But those are the only ones that --
THE COURT: The Godly Seed has annotations in it that are follow-up to the cassette set that was in that aluminum and black box that you produced earlier.
BOYD YOUNG: And for the record, Your Honor -- I mean, we talked about this earlier. But we sent the State a list of all items that we took out of the home, when we took them out, and we said these are available. Please let us know if you want to see any of them. We brought that up again at the start of the trial.
THE COURT: I agree with that. They just haven't, didn't know what was in there. Y'all have done that.
BOYD YOUNG: Okay.
THE COURT: They didn't know. Mr. Graham, I understand that the one, The Godly Seed, has some annotations and it will be the one that perhaps will be used. Do you all want to examine that book over the break or this afternoon? They're not coming today, are they?
BOYD YOUNG: If I can't get them in through this witness today then no, they won't be coming in today.
SHAWN GRAHAM: I think our position is we would object to the introduction of the books. If they want to go buy clean copies of all those books and put them in, that's fine. If they want to have their experts testify about that they saw those books and they reviewed them, as long as they're not putting in the underlined passages and notes on the side, then we don't have an objection to that either.
THE COURT: I don't believe this witness can identify those books other than she photographed a collection of books that had to be the same six or seven books. I don't believe she is the proper witness to get them into evidence. I think it has to be someone else. Now, does the State -- you all can look through them. If there's no annotations are you all okay with them coming in later by another witness, so I can help speed up the process later? She's going to step down and we can finish her after lunch. Is there anything else about the books?
SHAWN GRAHAM: I agree with what Your Honor said, that doesn't know--
THE COURT: She took pictures of some books.
SHAWN GRAHAM: She took pictures of the books she saw. Their experts are going to testify to what their expert is going to testify. If the expert was provided those books, the expert is going to say what the expert is going to say about them.
THE COURT: The one book, the Strong Seed, has excerpts in there that I think they're going to try to utilize later in some fashion. I'm not going to inquire any further than that.
SHAWN GRAHAM: If they want to, I mean --
THE COURT: That is for y'all to inquire. And we'll take it up -- when we get back from lunch we'll take it up again. But let's go to lunch and you all figure out exactly what's going on.
(Whereupon, a lunch break was taken.)
THE COURT: Have y'all resolved any of the issues regarding the books?
SHAWN GRAHAM: No, sir.
BOYD YOUNG: No, sir.
THE COURT: All right. I think I ruled, she can't identify and get them into evidence. This lady, Ms. Derrick, she didn't collect them. She took a photograph of them, or what appears to be them. Y'all figure it out.
BOYD YOUNG: Yes, sir.
THE COURT: All right.
BOYD YOUNG: One other issue before we bring the jury back in, Your Honor. The State continues to make arguments regarding potential PCR and analysis and these are improper arguments to be made by the State to the Court, and in particularly disingenuous in light of the fact that they're seeking the execution of Mr. Jones. And our trial strategy, of course, is to have Mr. Jones found not guilty by reason of insanity. And the Defense has filed a memorandum, it will be number 104 in opposition to the State's arguments and motion and would ask that the State be instructed not to make arguments in that nature to the Court in the future.
THE COURT: I'm not going to restrict anybody from making whatever arguments they want. I mean, they've got, y'all can, y'all are in an advocacy role, argue what you want. And if I find it to be disingenuous, I'll stop it.
BOYD YOUNG: Your Honor, we would ask that Defense pleading number 104 be made part of the pleading binder.
THE COURT: Will be glad to, it will be added to that as Court's exhibit or the pleadings summaries will be 104.
RICK HUBBARD: Just for the record, I'm just trying to do my job in the way I believe the High Court has told me to do it as well.
THE COURT: I'm doing the same, and I think Mr. Young is doing the same thing. Ms. Derrick, come on back up, and I remind you you're still under oath. Bring in the jury. (Whereupon, the jury came into open court at approximately 1:50 p.m.)
THE COURT: All right. All accounted for. We're ready to continue on. Mr. Young, still your witness. Ms. Derrick, you're still under oath.