My LVAD lifeat9200rpms: Two bumps in the road case (another in a series of recollections made possible by my HeartMate II, which keeps on pumping)

       In early 1983, I was assigned to prosecute Wilford Joseph Jackson in U.S. District Court in Grand Forks.  It was my first trial in North Dakota and it occurred soon after I transferred to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Fargo from the Chicago U.S. Attorney's Office.

     Jackson was accused of involuntary manslaughter in the death by motor vehicle of two women he had been drinking with. It became the "two bumps in the road case." For some unknown reason Jackson drove his car in his front yard in rural St. Michaels, North Dakota, on the Devils Lake Sioux Indian Reservation (now Spirit Lake).  He was doing "cookies," those pedal to the metal spins with the steering wheel cranked to the maximum.  

     In the course of doing "cookies" he ran over and killed his drinking companions, Victoria Alberts and Sylvia Brown. The group drank for a couple of days.  The victims had blood alcohol levels of 0.38 and 0.41.  

     When I got the case, the file consisted of a slender set of FBI FD 302s, the FBI's report of interview forms.  The case at the time hinged on Jackson's statements after being told he was deceptive on an FBI polygraph test.  In an effort to bolster the case, I asked FBI Special Agent Bobby Erwin to review the file with me and see if there were any stones left to turnover.  

     We found one.  A tribal policeman named Fred Longie had an account of the arrest of Jackson that was not in the file.  Longie left law enforcement within a month after Jackson's arrest in July, 1982, to take a better paying job driving a school bus. Without the file review with new eyes, we would not have known about Officer Longie.  I asked that Erwin locate him, interview him, and give him a subpoena to testify in Jackson's trial.

     On the Friday before the Monday start of the trial, Agent Erwin interviewed Longie, who said in essence that he went into the woods near Jackson's house and found Jackson on his knees peering back at the scene where the bodies were found.  Police cars had their lights flashing and Longie walked up behind Jackson, startling him.  Longie quoted Jackson as saying, "I did that. I'm sorry."

    Until Officer Longie's statement, the government's case depended on Jackson's admissions made after a polygraph showed him to be deceptive.  
    
    In the government's case, Agent Erwin testified that Jackson said he couldn't remember what happened or how he found the two dead women in his driveway.   After Jackson took the polygraph, he recalled driving in his driveway, doing cookies and felt a "bump in the road" and "then I felt another bump."

     Jackson said he got out of his car and "there was Victoria in the road and I looked around and there was Sylvia.  I'd run over them.  I was so drunk."
     
     During the trial, Jackson testified.  On direct, his lawyer, Karen Wills, danced around the question of the polygraph and her client's deceptive answers.  In fact, she made it sound like Jackson passed the test and told the truth.

     On cross examination I decided to straighten out the misstatements and misperception Wills left with the jury.  I asked Jackson if he remembered participating in a specialized test, without mentioning the polygraph. Polygraph results are inadmissible in most circumstances but this was different.  Wills invited some factual response.

    I said, "And you did not pass the test, did you?"

    He said he did not pass the test.  I moved on and about a question later in my cross, Wills objected.

     Judge Paul Benson saw the issue and called the lawyers to the bench.  When something serious was occurring, the judge had a habit of taking off his wire rimmed glasses before speaking.  In this instance, he whipped off his glasses and asked the government's position on the state of affairs. 

     I said Wills raised the polygraph issue, created the misimpression in the jurors minds that Jackson passed the polygraph, and under the invited response doctrine, I just straightened out the matter.  I suggested a curative instruction to the jury to disregard the mention of a polygraph.  Wills could not defend herself and the judge took my suggestion, overruling Wills' objection.

     The jury returned a guilty verdict.  Jackson was sentenced to the maximum of three years in prison.  Jackson's appeal at first persuaded the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that his post-polygraph confession was coerced.

      The U.S. Supreme Court took Jackson's case and a related case presenting the same issue and reversed the Eighth Circuit.  The Supreme Court said that post-polygraph admissions or statements were not coerced if the accused, was properly informed of his rights and waived them.  Jackson had been fully advised of his rights, said he understood them, and waived him.

     Based on the Supreme Court's decision, Jackson's conviction for the "two bumps" in the road case was reinstated.