4.2.12 WC: 191694
I sat down, satisfied that I had made the best possible argument for my clients. Now it was the State of Arizona’s time to argue. The Attorney General was hardly interrupted as he delivered his argument. After a while, he too was asked a hypothetical, but one much closer to the facts of this case:
... supposing right after they stopped the car with the family in it, the two boys instead of following along as they did, had just gone on a hike, walked away half a mile, and then the father... .killed the family?
The Attorney General acknowledged that this “would be different,” and that the brothers “presence at the scene” is “essential,” but he insisted that they were “present,” even if not right next to the car in which the shootings occurred. He also conceded that “I can’t stand here today and tell you that [the brothers] knew. ..that at that time that the trigger would be pulled.”
I had just a few minutes for my rebuttal. In light of the Attorney General’s concessions, I decided to point the Court to the record evidence that the brothers were not at the scene of the crime and did not foresee that their father and Randy would kill the Lyons’ family:
First, there is a specific finding on page 336 that it was not essential to the defendants’ continued evasion of arrest that these persons be murdered.
Second, ...there is not a single statement in this record by Ricky in which he does not consistently say that the boys, all three of them, were sent away to get water.
The state concedes that it is essential to this case that they be present at the scene of the crime.
Why is presence essential?
Generally, presence is essential because it is evidentially relevant to the intent of the defendants.
I then pointed out that the evidence in this case led overwhelmingly to the conclusion that they were not present and that they had deliberately been sent away to get water—been tricked into believing they would be kept alive—precisely because their father knew that they did not want anyone to die.
I was satisfied that I had done the best I could with the facts and the law. If the court were to reaffirm the principles of Enmund, we would win. The justices seemed to acknowledge that if there was no evidence that Ricky and Raymond had the “specific intent” to kill the Lyons’ family “that’s the end of the case.” I was confident that when the justices reviewed the entire record of the case, they would find that there was no such evidence.
And I was right—at least about that!
173
HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017262