Tonight’s Memphis Brooks Museum of Art First Wednesdays is another great chance to see those wonderful quilts, along with dinner at the Brushmark, music by the Dime Store Outfit, and Southern-inspired cuisine by Chef Penny McCraw. Chris Scott is at the Buccaneer tonight. And now I’ve got to make haste. Do whatever you like this week and just have a good time. But go see those quilts. — Tim Sampson
FORD STALLED
Will he or won’t he? Up until the last week or so, the question of a 2006 U.S. Senate race by 9th District U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr. had seemed a done deal, and a formal announcement had been expected by the end of February. But the ever fermenting controversy involving the congressman’s uncle, state Senator John Ford, has put the whole matter on hold, and pressures — some subtle, some not so subtle — have begun to mount against Ford’s making the race.
For one thing, sentiment has begun to change within the close-knit group of Ford family members and advisers. “They’ve gone from 60-40 in favor a month ago to 60-40 against,” said a source familiar with behind-the-scenes developments. In particular, former congressman Harold Ford Sr., now living in Florida and working as a business/government consultant, is said to have developed serious doubts about the wisdom of his son’s running — at least in the current environment. Strategy talks among family members have focused on possible spill-over from problems now swirling up around John Ford.
The state senator’s difficulties originally stemmed from embarrassing disclosures about his multiple households in child-support hearings. These got national media attention and were joked about by Tonight Show host Jay Leno. Subsequently, questions were raised about the legitimacy of John Ford’s legal address. But the state senator’s situation became most grave when IRS filings in the child-support matter became public and revealed that a major component of his unexpectedly high income came from a financial relationship with a TennCare provider. The facts that Ford is a member of the General Assembly’s TennCare oversight committee and chairman of another committee which handles TennCare legislation quickly raised conflict-of-interest issues.
The Senate Ethics Committee, chaired by senate majority leader Ron Ramsey, a Republican, has stepped up its investigation of the various Ford matters — though public and media attention have figured larger than partisan motives. If anything, Ford’s senate colleagues, both Democratic and Republican, have signaled that they will not be rushed to judgment and intend to give their colleague every due consideration. Legislative leaders in both parties confide that talk of criminal prosecution may be off the mark, considering that the statutes governing the TennCare matter are more likely to provide penalties for the company which hired Ford than for the senator himself.
None of that serves to reassure the camp of Rep. Ford, which foresees the John Ford controversy as likely to garner serious media attention for some time to come. Accordingly, members of the congressman’s political circle — possibly without Rep. Ford’s direct knowledge — have sounded out John Ford about the prospect of his cutting bait, even to the point of his resigning from the senate or, if necessary, pursuing plea-bargaining arrangements with legal authorities. By nature, the highly independent-minded senator is inclined to resist such counsel — especially if he feels fortified by his senate colleagues.
Hence, the nightmare prospect for Rep. Ford that a U.S. Senate race by him would be endlessly connected in the public mind to open-ended media attention, lasting for months or even years, concerning his uncle’s notoriety.
The same thought has occurred to other Tennessee Democrats — notably Governor Phil Bredesen, who was quoted over the weekend as saying the puboicity given state Sen. Ford’s problems “can’t possibly be helping” the congressman’s Senate ambitions. Said Bredesen, according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press: “I feel very sorry for him because it is something that is beyond his control and not something he has had a part inÉ. I think the publicity against John Ford is hurting Harold and frankly that bothers me.”
What may bother the governor, in particular, is the fact that, as a Democratic candidate for reelection, he will share the state ballot with his party’s Senate nominee. The only other declared Democratic candidate for the Senate, thus far, is state Senator Rosalind Kurita of Clarksville. Nashville mayor Bill Purcell had at one time considered a race and, some say, may again.
Even those corners of the media that have thus far taken a Ford Senate candidacy for granted are suddenly expressing doubts. The Lebanon Democrat’s Clint Brewer, something of a Ford confidante, noted this week that “rank and file” Democrats had begun to wonder about a Ford candidacy and added, “Of course, Ford has never actually solidified his intentions to run.” And the Washington insiders’ publication The Hill recently wondered if “the growing controversy” over Joihn Ford may have affected “the resonance of the Ford name statewide.”
The congressman himself was elaborating to the media on previous affirmations distinguishing (and distancing) himself from his uncle and insisting that he still intended to run. But Rep. Ford told the Jackson Sun over the weekend that the race was “still a year away” and that, prior indications notwithstanding, he was in no hurry to announce.
Successors-in-waiting: Meanwhile, if Rep. Ford does in fact make the Senate race, who’s in line to succeed him as the 9th District’s congressman? Two potential candidates have recently expressed interest: Shelby County Commissioner Joe Ford, the incumbent congressman’s uncle; and public relations man Ron Redwing, a former aide to Mayor Willie Herenton.
Commissioner Ford said Monday, “I’d be very interested in doing that. I’m 51, the right age to be considering it, and my experience, as both city councilman and commissioner, has prepared me for it.” Ford said his interest in public service had been whetted to the point that “I’d consider doing other jobs, too, like the school board.”
Redwing is being seriously touted by a number of friends in local Democratic and government circles. “I think I’ve shown a serious commitment to the community and want to use my kills and talent to extend my commitment to the people of the 9th District,” he said this week.
These two are but the harbingers of what could be quite a long list.
Chairs in transit: As of the weekend, the Shelby County chairpersons of the two major political parties were both on the move: Democratic chair Kathryn Bowers opened up the headquarters of her campaign for the state Senate on Saturday; and new Republican chair Bill Giannini got himself elected and installed on Sunday at the biennial Shelby County Republican convention.
Both Bowers and Giannini served notice as to the shape of their priorities.
State Rep. Bowers, speaking to supporters at her Elvis Presley Boulevard headquarters, promised to do everything in her power to forestall the TennCare cuts (323,000 from the current rolls) announced recently by Governor Bredesen but so far held up by judicial review. Two other candidates — Shelby County Commissioner Michael Hooks and James Harvey –are competing in the forthcoming Democratic primary for the seat recently vacated by Roscoe Dixon, now an aide to county mayor A C Wharton. Four Republicans — Mary Lynn Flood, Jason Hernandez, Mary Ann McNeil, and Barry Sterling –also seek the seat.
Giannini, elected by acclamation at White Station High School, looked ahead to the 2006 countywide elections and even further — lamenting the upward curve of latest property reassessment and thereby targeting county assessor Rita Clark, a Democrat reelected only last year and not up again until 2008.
The GOP backstory: Ironically, though the new Republican chairman, unlike his last several predecessors, avoided a direct challenge, it was a near thing. Giannini, a relative unknown in local Republican ranks, at one had opposition from both GOP conservatives — whose candidate, Terry Roland, finally accepted a place on Giannini’s ticket — and the party establishment, which tried unsuccessfully to recruit Germantown lawyer Kevin Snider to run against him.
Hooks back in: Though Bowers escaped one potential opponent when House colleague Joe Towns was declared ineligible for failure to pay past fines assessed by the state Election Registry, she saw another one, Shelby County Commission chairman Michael Hooks, reinstated.
After listening to testimony from lawyers for both Hooks and the state of Tennessee, Chancellor Arnold Goldin ruled in Hooks’ favor and ordered Hooks reinstated as a candidate in a forthcoming state Senate election. Goldin thereby struck down a prior adverse ruling against Hooks by the state Election Registry and state Election Commissioner Brook Thompson, who had declared the Shelby County Commission chairman ineligible to run for the seat because Hooks had not met financial-disclosure deadlines.
Reviewing a record that showed historic inconsistency between enforcement actions and deadline requirements of state and local election officials, Goldin said it would be “fundamentally unfair” and “difficult to justify” disallowing Hooks’ candidacy for the District 33 seat, vacated recently by longtime incumbent Roscoe Dixon, now an aide to Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton.
Expressing gratitude at the decision, Hooks said of the state officials who originally ruled against him: “They don’t have a hard on for Michael Hooks. They’re just interpreting the law and trying to do their job.” Further: “I think the judge did the right thing to let the people decide who they want to be their state senator. It won’t be determined by nit-picking or hag-nagging. It’ll be on the issues.”
“RIDICULOUS AND BEYOND”
Can a hung jury ever be the best outcome in a criminal trial?
The answer could be “yes” in the trial of former Shelby County Medical Examiner Dr. O. C. Smith. After deliberating for almost three days, the jury remained deadlocked Tuesday and U.S. District Judge Bernice Donald declared a mistrial. Prosecutors now must decide whether to retry the case.
To Smith, the benefits of a hung jury are obvious. If the government elects not to retry him with the same evidence in a case already three years old he goes free.
But not unscathed. Smith has endured the ordeal of indictment, trial by jury, unfavorable publicity, and the considerable cost of defending himself.
Federal prosecutors can only claim a tie, but they will get credit for having the courage to take on a respected member of the Memphis law enforcement community without fear or favor. There was always a possibility that the Smith case would simply go away after no attacker was found in the first few months and the publicity died down. Investigators and prosecutors could have simply rolled over and pointed out that it took more than 15 years to catch the Unabomber.
A conviction could have opened the door to appeals of other cases in which Smith gave critical testimony. Convicted cop killer Philip Workman, for example, probably gets a lifetime reprieve because of doubts that Smith’s case has raised. Smith gave important testimony against Workman in a clemency hearing.
If Smith had been acquitted, would a task force have been reconvened to look for the attacker? Would finding him be U.S. attorney Terry Harris’ “number-one priority,” as he declared on June 3, 2002, the day after Smith’s alleged attack?
Would Smith, who resigned under pressure, have gotten his old job back?
And what of the attacker? Would Smith have again been assigned round-the-clock police protection because the mad bomber is still out there, madder and more motivated than ever because of the trial and all the publicity? Does the bomber take it up a notch?
A mistrial lets both Smith and federal prosecutors save face. The bomber goes into the file with Nicole Simpson’s killer. People who think Smith did it will continue to think that. People who think Smith was attacked will continue to think that. With luck, we will hear no more of the bizarre bombing at the morgue.
“As far as a federal crime goes, it’s such a ridiculous point we’ve gotten to,” said U.S. attorney Pat Harris, special prosecutor from Arkansas in the Smith case, in the 2003 videotaped interview. Amen.
TO HARRIS AND CO-COUNSEL BUD Cummins, also from Little Rock, the Smith trial was the culmination of a two-year investigation by 17 law enforcement agencies following up 112 leads. To defense attorney Gerald Easter, it was “the ATF [Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives] and the boys from Little Rock up here persecutin’ O.C. Smith.”
Both sides were exaggerating.
The 17 agencies included the likes of the IRS, the Germantown Police Department, and the Secret Service. The heavy lifting was done by the ATF, federal prosecutors, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the Memphis Police Department, the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, and the FBI. The Shelby County District Attorney General’s Office was conspicuously absent.
Easter’s folksy suggestion that federal cowpokes from across the river were on a vendetta is absurd which is not to say it didn’t score points with the jury. As Cummins pointed out, federal prosecutors have broad powers to get assistance from other agencies. His Memphis colleague, Terry Harris, testified that Smith has been his personal friend and professional colleague for more than 14 years and is known as “our doc” to local cops. The poignant words of Harris made it clear that no one relished prosecuting “our doc.”
As the trial unfolded, it became clear that “the boys from Little Rock” were not getting unanimous cooperation from local law enforcement. A total of 23 witnesses came from various law enforcement agencies 14 of them from the ATF or the Memphis Police Department and four of them were called by the defense.
Lt. Richard Borgers of the MPD was the first cop on the scene.
“He [Smith] appeared scared to death and looked like he was about to pass out,” he testified. “No, I don’t believe he could have done it to himself.”
Lt. Marcus Worthy of the MPD was the first crime-scene investigator on the scene. He testified erroneously about the position of Smith’s hands on the window grate and erroneously again about whether Smith’s truck had been impounded and processed after a bomb-sniffing dog hit on it. The truck was never processed, apparently because Smith, according to MPD detective Connie Maness, was “upset” by the suggestion.
As one of the boys, Smith got special consideration from Memphis police. After spending a few hours in the hospital after the attack, he was allowed to return to the crime scene for much of the day.
“I was pretty upset that he had come back to the scene,” testified ATF agent Mike Rowland, who feared that the attacker might still be lurking nearby.
Rosemary Andrews, a prosecution witness who works as an attorney for the Shelby County district attorney general, gave more comfort to Smith than prosecutors.
“He looked like he had been in a fistfight,” she testified about her visit to Smith the day he was attacked to help him write his statement.
Mike Willis, the former commander of the MPD bomb squad who removed the bomb from Smith’s neck, testified, “Our job is to render safe, not to investigate.” He and two other bomb squad officers who testified offered no opinion about the attack.
Lt. Steve Scott of the University of Tennessee police force was the person who discovered Smith bound in the stairwell outside the morgue. Scott, who was friends with Smith and shared an interest in weapons, remained bravely at Smith’s side until he was rescued. His testimony reduced Smith to tears.
Sheriff’s deputies Dirk Beasley and Gary Hood testified about a possible suspect they encountered three days earlier, but it turned out the man was in jail the day of the attack
.Unlike Easter, prosecutors Harris and Cummins did not directly ask their witnesses the crucial question, “Do you think Dr. Smith could have done this to himself?”
Which, of course, was the only question jurors had to ask themselves.
Smith did not testify in his own defense. Before sending them off to deliberate, Judge Donald instructed jurors, “The fact that Dr. Smith did not testify cannot be used by you. Do not even discuss it in your deliberations.”
Schooled in combat, Smith employed a strategy of passive resistance from the moment he was “attacked” to the appearance of the last defense witness, his wife Marge, who five times refused to directly answer Cummins’ questions about whether her husband regularly carried a gun, as several witnesses testified.
“He was authorized to carry a gun,” she said repeatedly.
The brains-over-brawn strategy served Smith well. In his account, the attacker splashed an acid solution in his face two times and sucker-punched him in the gut. From that point on, Smith offered only token resistance because he was unsure if the attacker had a knife or gun. A Marine commander called as a defense witness said such a response would not be inappropriate in the circumstances.
While he did not testify, Smith played an active part in his defense. Under his tutelage, defense attorney Jim Garts, a self-described C student in chemistry, hammered for hours at the “12 percent solution of sodium hydroxide” the government said was in the bottle splashed in Smith’s face. His point seemed to be that there was such a small residue left in the bottle that nobody could tell for sure what percentage of acid was in the bottle.
What effect this had on the jury is not yet known. If chemistry is inherently confusing to laymen, then confusion could equal doubt in some minds.
Back in 2003, Harris confronted Smith in the interview, and Smith went into an explanation of sodium hydroxide. Harris quickly steered the interview in another direction.
“You’ll beat me on science,” Harris said.
Tonight’s Sisters in the Spirit gospel concert at The Orpheum features Yolanda Adams, Sheila E., and Kelly Price. And The Grizzlies play Golden State. — T.S.