Outside the Supreme Court building sits the statue, “Contemplation of Justice,” pictured above. The sculptor, James Earle Fraser, described the statue as “a realistic conception of what I consider a heroic type of person with a head and body expressive of the beauty and intelligence of justice.” “Justice” is represented by Lady Justice, the blindfolded woman in the figure’s right hand—blindfolded because justice is supposed to be impartial and applied equally to all.
But sometimes it is not. A recent book, The Shooter at Midnight: Murder, Corruption, and a Farming Town Divided, describes what happens when the justice system fails. The author, Sean Patrick Cooper, had been covering the story of a murder in rural Missouri for some years before stumbling upon the materials that led to his book. Those materials were the files of a lawyer, Bob Ramsey, who was Mark Woodworth’s third criminal defense attorney. Woodworth had three attorneys because, by the time Ramsey met him, Woodworth had already been convicted—twice—of murder.
The story unfolds in Chillicothe, Missouri, which is home to (I kid you not) the Sliced Bread Museum. Walt Disney lived in nearby Marceline during his childhood. From the descriptions in the book, Chillicothe seems as Americana and apple pie as you can get—almost like Blaine, Missouri in “Waiting for Guffman.” Because Chillicothe was so quiet, the murder of a housewife and mother of five was a shock it had never experienced.
The shock was so intense that it has divided the town. On the one side are people supporting Cathy Robertson (the deceased) and her family. On the other side are those seeking justice for Mark Woodworth, the then-16 year old neighbor and family friend of the Robertsons.
Woodworth’s first conviction was reversed on appeal. The judge in the first trial improperly excluded evidence that another person—a violent boyfriend of one of Robertson’s daughters—committed the murder. But in the second trial, a lawyer who seemed more interested in seeing his face on a billboard than trying cases essentially sleepwalked through the trial, failing to admit much of the evidence that was omitted from the first trial. Even with a lackluster performance from Mark’s attorney in the second trial, there were some jurors who later said they doubted the verdict and only agreed to find Mark guilty after being pressured by the others to make a decision and go home.
Ramsey, however, said he knew Woodworth was innocent from the first time he met him. But there was not an easy way to get a court to look at Woodworth’s case. It had been some time since the conviction and Woodworth was a twice-convicted murderer. Nevertheless, Ramsey believed in the justice system, and he believed that Mark Woodworth would find justice one day.
For Ramsey, what justice meant was simple—he wanted to get a wrongly convicted man out of jail. Spoiler alert, he did. And it’s a fascinating tale of how he went about it. What is more interesting to me, though, are the feelings in Chillicothe of what justice means.
Throughout the book, Cooper explains the pervasive corruption of the actors on the government side of the equation. A deputy sheriff, a prosecutor seeking higher office, a private investigator impersonating a law enforcement official. These three players had an end goal in mind, created a narrative, and made sure they found evidence to get to the preordained conclusion. All the while, they had good evidence that someone else—Rochelle Robertson’s boyfriend—had done it. Brandon Thomure, the boyfriend, had been violent with Rochelle. He had hit her several times before. And he had threatened her mother, Cathy, if she tried to get between them. Cathy did not know that Brandon had gotten Rochelle pregnant. Brandon went back and forth between suggesting he could marry Rochelle and support her on the one hand and pressuring her to get an abortion on the other.
Law enforcement willingly turned a blind eye to compelling evidence linking Brandon to the murder. Not the blindfolded eye of Lady Justice, but a willful failure to make logical conclusions based on the evidence. A witness saw a car linked to Brandon outside the Robertson house around the time of the murder. Brandon had access to a firearm that was the same caliber as that used in the shooting. Bullets were found near his duffel bag in the back of a friend’s car. And Cathy’s husband, Lyndel, who was also shot but survived, said that Brandon was the shooter.
The justice system failed because it was hijacked by a few men who had the power to direct it. Mark Woodworth was a quiet, 16-year old neighbor across the street. His father had a partnership with Lyndel Robertson and they shared land and farming equipment and revenue. The two families helped each other, the children grew up together like family, and when Cathy was shot, Mrs. Woodworth knew it fell on her to help raise the motherless Robertson children.
There was no reason to suspect Mark. He was a quiet kid, not violent, and only aspired to be a farmer like his father. He technically had access to a .22 caliber pistol, the same used in the murder, but it was on his father’s dresser and, at the time of the murder, was covered in dust. The private investigator dug and dug to find a motive, opportunity, and then to bully Mark into a confession. Mark never confessed, but his calm demeanor was used against him at trial with the prosecutor suggesting that a truly innocent person would be up in arms proclaiming his innocence.
The fact that three men on the government’s side had so much power harkens back to Aristotle’s Politics where he talks about justice in society. In another place, he talks about natural justice versus situational justice. Nichomachean Ethics, 1134a-1135a. In the first case, we can distinguish between things that are just or unjust because of the particular type of action they are—e.g., it is unjust to kill an innocent human being. In situational or conventional justice, the question “what is just?” may yield different results depending on the type of society in which you live or the demands of society. The example here is a particular type of government or social policy, which may be just based on the needs of that society at that time. Mark Woodworth’s accusers failed to achieve both types of justice.
But the town of Chillicothe seems to have missed the point as well. Those who support Cathy Robertson want justice for her, but they bought into the narrative that Mark was the killer rather than Brandon. Mark’s side received the justice they were after when Mark was released from jail (and when he received a sizable settlement from the government). For each side, justice remains a bit elusive.
And it also remains divisive. Cooper explained that the divisions present in the community beginning with the initial investigation are still present today. Woodworth is not the only victim of a hijacked justice system in Livingston County, Missouri, but he remains the most prominent. If justice delayed is justice denied, it’s not clear whether justice will ever be served in Chillicothe.
Remember to turn every page. Enjoy your weekend. Please let me know whether you need anything.
Best,
Aaron
*If you have any recommendations for summer reading, please leave them in the comments.