TWICE REVERSED — EPISODE THREE The Machinery of Judgment · Stories Through the Static Final Review performed transcript. Original narration and approved 10:57 repair retained. Caption timing uses the existing checked alignment; final watch remains. [00:00] Last time, sister mine, we left off with a hard question. [00:04] What makes a statement reliable enough to use, and who gets to decide? [00:09] Tonight, we follow the people who had to decide. [00:12] Two juries, two trial judges, and the Louisiana Supreme Court, which sent her case back twice. [00:19] My stack of stories is thinner tonight. [00:22] Most of the old stories rush from her arrest straight to the electric chair, like nothing happened in between. [00:28] Two whole years happened in between, Vangie. [00:32] Most of what we know about them comes from the court opinions, so my folder does a lot of the talking tonight. [00:38] Then tonight, I'll do what I did for Joseph on that road. [00:42] I'll keep stopping us when it matters. [00:44] So, before anything else, I want you to hear three words that run through this whole episode, without capital punishment. [00:52] Then, tell me what those three words meant in a Louisiana courtroom in 1940. [00:59] Well, here goes. [01:00] The jury could find her guilty of murder and add those words to the verdict. [01:05] Under the law then, that meant life at hard labor instead of death. [01:09] So, even back then, a jury could believe she was responsible for Joseph's death and still choose to let her live. [01:17] That difficult choice belonged to them. [01:19] Keep it close, because nearly every fight in this episode comes back to it. [01:25] Joseph's family had already lost him before any of this began. [01:29] Whatever those juries decided, nothing was ever going to bring him home. [01:33] That's 100% true, and now the state was asking for a second life. [01:39] That's why every decision in that courtroom carried so much weight. [01:43] In our last episode, I promised we'd come back to her aunt's house. [01:47] Here's what Emma Holt told the court. [01:50] In some of the stories, it's a madam who calls the uncle. [01:53] You already showed me it was her aunt. [01:55] According to Holt's testimony on record, her niece arrived very nervous and said she had shot a man. [02:02] That first remark came before any promise of help. [02:05] Then what changed after that first remark? [02:09] Holt promised to do what she could to help her avoid hanging and said she would try to get her brother to help, too. [02:16] After that promise, Holt said Toni Jo told her the details. The aunt's brother was Captain George McQuistion. [02:24] The uncle in the state police. So, a frightened young woman ran to family, and family made her a promise. [02:31] Officers testified that they took her to that uncle, and he spoke with her alone. [02:37] Afterward, at his direction, she told the officers about the killing. So then, what did he say to her in that room? [02:44] Emmie, that's just where you find the gap. Her uncle never testified. [02:48] So no one told the jury what passed between them. So I won't fill that silence with a guess. [02:54] But I'll say this, dear heart: a promise from your own blood, when you're that scared, could weigh heavier than any badge. [03:02] That's exactly what the law asked about. Before a confession could go to a jury, the state had to show [03:09] it was given freely and voluntarily. [03:11] Then did the state manage to show that? The Louisiana Supreme Court said it didn't. The state hadn't shown that the promise's [03:20] influence had ended before she talked to the police. So those confessions shouldn't have gone to the jury on that foundation. [03:27] So that doesn't mean she never said those things, does it? No, sister, it doesn't. [03:33] Ruling on how a confession was obtained isn't the same as deciding it was false. [03:38] We'll hear her own later words in the final episode. Her first trial opened on March 27th, [03:45] 1940. She was 24 years old. [03:48] 24 years old. Folks have spent 80 years making her a monster or a pin-up. [03:54] I keep wanting to say she was just a young woman sitting in a chair, scared half to death. [04:00] By the 29th, the jury had found her guilty as charged, and she was sentenced to death. [04:06] Three days in that court. Paint me that room, sister, because every story I've read says it was packed. [04:15] This is one place the record backs the stories up. [04:19] The Supreme Court describes people standing in the aisles [04:22] and pressed around the lawyers’ tables so close to the jury box that defense [04:27] counsel sometimes couldn't see some of the jurors. [04:31] It also describes hanging gestures seen by jurors [04:34] and shouted demands that she be hanged. Some of this craziness happened while [04:39] the jury was walked through the street to their meals. [04:41] Lord have mercy and all the saints in heaven. [04:45] Imagine sitting in that jury box with the crowd already shouting the ending they wanted. [04:50] Several of the jurors testified it didn't influence them. [04:54] The trial judge said deputies kept reasonable order [04:57] and that he couldn't prevent every demonstration. [05:00] So what did the High Court make of the judge's answer? [05:04] In fact, it disagreed. [05:06] It said he had the power to punish that kind of conduct as contempt [05:10] and the conditions went on after requests to clear the crowd. [05:14] Then it was never only about whether those jurors were strong. [05:18] It was about what the court allowed to happen around them. [05:21] Every retelling of the stories in my stack opens with her hard childhood. [05:26] Her mama gone young, a cruel daddy. [05:29] People hold on to that part because it seems to explain her. [05:32] Some of that did reach the jury through her aunt. [05:35] Holt testified about the early loss of her mother [05:39] and a father she described as cruel. [05:42] Then what happened when Toni Jo took the stand herself? [05:45] Her own lawyers tried to have her tell her own history [05:48] and the surroundings she grew up in. [05:51] The prosecution objected and the judge kept that part out. [05:54] Remember those three words, Emmie? [05:57] That jury was deciding whether she lived [05:59] and they couldn't hear her life from her own mouth. [06:03] That's real close to what the Supreme Court said. [06:05] Her testimony about her hardships was relevant to punishment [06:09] and should have been admitted. [06:11] I don't need her childhood to excuse a single thing. [06:15] I just believe a jury choosing life or death ought to hear the life. [06:19] Now, sister mine, this part I need us to walk through gently [06:23] because it's about Joseph's family. [06:27] Joseph's widow, Lulu Pearl, came to the trial with their daughter, Lita. [06:32] The court describes Lita as 17. [06:35] She was 17. [06:37] Of course they came. [06:38] That was her daddy and Lulu Pearl's husband. [06:41] In its first opinion, the court describes them seated inside the rail with the prosecution [06:47] facing the jury. [06:48] Then, it also describes newspaper statements by the special prosecutor, J. P. Copeland, [06:54] about bringing them to court to arouse sympathy and counter any sympathy for Toni Jo. [07:00] Over the defense's objection, they stayed in those seats. [07:04] Later, Copeland pointed to them during his argument and spoke of their sorrow. [07:09] Neither of them had testified. [07:11] Their grief was real, every bit of it. [07:15] They didn't owe anybody forgiveness, and [07:17] they did nothing wrong by sitting in that courtroom. [07:20] That bit of criticism wasn't aimed at them. [07:23] It was aimed at how their presence was used and at the trial court for allowing it. [07:28] Then, we hold both, sister. [07:31] Their loss gets its full weight, and [07:33] so does the question of what a fair trial asks of everyone in that room. [07:38] Here's one I hear all the time. [07:40] Poor girl, no money, nobody fighting for her, so of course she lost. [07:46] Fully half of that is true. [07:48] She couldn't afford a lawyer, so the court appointed two. [07:52] Clement Moss and Norman Anderson. [07:54] Their practice had been mainly civil law, and [07:57] they asked for more time to prepare. [07:59] Then did they get the time they asked for? [08:02] In fact, they did not, and the Supreme Court said the roughly 25 days was enough. [08:07] But it also praised their industry and their intelligence. [08:11] So the other half of my story falls apart. [08:15] Somebody was fighting for her. [08:17] They truly fought hard, Vangie. [08:19] Nearly every problem we've talked about tonight reached the Supreme Court because [08:24] those two lawyers objected on the record. [08:26] Then, they're part of the reason we can tell this at all. [08:30] On November 4th, 1940, the court set aside her conviction and [08:35] her death sentence. [08:36] Toni Jo would be tried again. [08:38] Meanwhile, her case was on appeal. [08:41] The two men in her story were facing their own reckonings. [08:45] Let's start with Cowboy, since he's the one everybody wants to talk about. [08:51] So that February, a Texas court convicted him, and the prison ledger shows him received [08:57] on February 8, 1940, under a 50-year entry. [09:02] As far as the record shows, he was still in a Texas prison while she stood trial. [09:07] Here's the best and the worst of Cowboy, the way I see it. [09:11] If the officials had it right, he's the one who told her to tell the whole truth. [09:16] If the old story's right, the plan that put her in that courtroom started with getting him out. [09:22] That first part? [09:23] It comes from officials' accounts in the papers. [09:26] That second part is still the legend we haven't been able to confirm. [09:30] Don't I know it, sister? [09:32] So I'll only say this much. [09:35] Whatever he felt for her, he couldn't reach her where she was. [09:38] She faced those juries without him. [09:41] Then we have Finnon Burks, the man the papers called Arkansas. [09:46] He was tried separately, convicted, and sentenced to hang. [09:50] So I'll be completely honest. [09:53] I've never felt much of anything for Arkie. [09:55] But I want to know him better before I judge him. [09:59] Here's something that might help. [10:00] At his own trial, he didn't ask to be acquitted. [10:04] He told the jury Toni Jo fired the shot, and he asked them to spare his life with those same three words. [10:12] So he was fighting for the same thing she was, a little more life. [10:17] Then, during Arkie's trial, the assistant district attorney told the jury he would ask the judge to explain pardon and commutation, [10:25] and that the average prisoner sentenced to life served no more than 10 years. [10:30] Lord. [10:31] So that jury was told those three words might only mean 10 years. [10:36] The state of Louisiana's Supreme Court didn't treat it as a reversible error. [10:41] The trial judge said the defense had pictured life as the rest of his natural life, [10:46] and he told the jury pardon and parole weren't their concern. [10:50] So then what came of his appeal? [10:53] Arkie's conviction and death sentence were affirmed in late 1940. [10:57] The same court set aside her death sentence and let his stand. [11:03] a young man waiting on a death sentence while the woman he rode with got a second trial. [11:09] I still don't care for him much, Emmie, but that's a heavy thing for anybody to carry, [11:15] and his part in her story wasn't finished. When her second trial came, the state called [11:21] him as a witness against her. Her second trial came in 1941. Her lawyers argued that Burks [11:28] already convicted shouldn't be allowed to testify at all. [11:32] Did the court agree with them? [11:34] No, it didn't. Not at all. His conviction didn't make him incompetent to testify. [11:40] Whether the jury believed him was a separate question, and that question follows us into [11:45] the final episode. So, we have two people who had pointed at each other in a jail hallway, [11:51] and now one of them was on the witness stand. [11:54] This time, though, the trouble started before a single witness was heard. [11:59] Before any evidence at all reached the jury? Then show me where, ma douce sœur. Where did the trouble start? [12:06] If you can believe it, it started in jury selection. Here's part of a question put to a [12:11] prospective juror. Could you vote for the death verdict without hurting your conscience? [12:17] That seems fair enough to ask, whether somebody could ever bring themselves to do it. [12:22] Her lawyers didn't object to that one. Then the prosecutor went further. In short, he asked, [12:29] if you were convinced she was guilty and thought the circumstances didn't entitle her to mercy, [12:35] would you vote for death? So, could you and would you? Those sound alike, [12:40] but they aren't the same question at all. Louisiana Supreme Court saw it the same way. [12:46] It found the answers committed the jurors in advance, under those conditions, [12:50] before they had heard the case. But then, those three words never needed a special reason. [12:57] A jury could choose life whenever it saw fit. You got it. That's exactly what the court said. [13:03] Jurors could return a verdict without capital punishment, even if they thought the crime [13:07] atrocious. That choice was theirs, without conditions. Toni Jo's lawyers objected, [13:14] and the judge overruled them. The opinion says every juror who served was asked the same [13:19] questions and gave the same answers. [13:23] so every juror who sat had already told the court how they'd answer before the story was even told. [13:31] Yes, and there was one more problem. [13:34] A prospective juror had read about the case and talked about it, [13:38] and under questioning, he said he didn't know whether his opinion would affect his conclusion. [13:43] The judge ruled him qualified. [13:45] Oh, let me guess what the High Court thought of that ruling. [13:49] The court held he wasn't qualified because his answers didn't show his opinion would give way to the evidence. [13:56] On May 26, 1941, her second conviction and death sentence were set aside. [14:02] Toni Jo was 25 years old, and she would have to face a third jury. [14:07] Toni Jo, in her short life, has faced two trials, two death sentences, [14:13] and two times the highest court in Louisiana said it wasn't done the way the law required. [14:18] Sister, that right there? That's the part the old stories skip. [14:23] The machinery made mistakes, and it also caught some of them. [14:27] I'll admit that surprised me too, sis. I came in expecting a straight line to the chair. [14:32] Definitely wasn't a straight line. [14:35] Each correction meant a new jury, with those same three words open to them again. [14:40] I don't think she got a fair shake those first two times. [14:43] That's not only me talking either. [14:45] The Supreme Court said so twice in its own careful way. [14:50] The highest court in the state said those trials didn't follow the law. [14:54] Next time, we read whether the third one did. [14:57] She wasn't a monster, Emmie. She was a young woman with a hard life who did something terrible [15:03] or helped do it, and then a whole machine had to decide what to do with the rest of her life. [15:09] Toni Jo had three juries to hear her. Joseph asked for his life once. [15:14] No sister, he begged, on the side of a road, and no quarter or mercy was given. [15:21] That's why he stays at this table. Whatever we feel for her, we never set him down. [15:26] In the next episode, a third trial and a conviction that stood. [15:31] We'll see what the record keeps. [15:33] And you are right. Every step of the way, sister mine. [15:37] Joseph was there first, and he'll be there last. [15:42] If the signal found you, you are meant to be here. [15:46] Subscribe and join us at 104.7 The Between [15:49] for more Stories Through the Static. [15:51] We'd love to see you drop in at the Mansion: [15:54] storiesthroughthestatic.com.