Opinion ID: 151087
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: State Court Hearing on Motion for New Trial

Text: On April 25, 2001, the state trial court conducted a hearing on the new trial motion. At the hearing, Goggans and attorney Elizabeth Addison represented Hall. Linda Taffett, an education expert, testified that she administered academic testing to Hall approximately a week prior to the hearing. Hall was seventeen years and five months old at that time. According to Taffett, Hall had a very difficult time following instructions. When he read independently, his reading comprehension was at the third grade, fifth month level. Reading with Taffett, his reading comprehension level was at the fourth grade, second month level. Hall scored at the lowest level possible on a picture vocabulary test, and his learning ability was at the level of an eight-year-and-seven-month-old child in the fourth grade. On an oral reading test, his reading rate was at the fifth grade, first month level, and his accuracy rate was at the fifth grade, fifth month level. Taffett opined that Hall did not have the intellectual ability to mastermind or be the leader of any type of crime or to even orchestrate this type of crime, any crime. Smedley, Hall's trial counsel, also testified. Smedley did not feel that she had enough experience to handle Hall's case. [30] Prior to trial, Smedley did not interview Chambers, Pamela Armstrong, or Gloria McElroy. Smedley believed that Ms. Cantrell had moved and she didn't have the opportunity to find her. During the third trial, Smedley put on all the witnesses she thought would help support her theory of the case, and she made those decisions based on her theory of the case and her discussions with Hall, his family, and the witnesses. Vickie Price, one of Hall's teachers, testified that she never had any serious problems with Hall, that he was not in a gang, and that he did not have any leadership qualities. Another witness, Tyrone Anderson, a probation officer with the Montgomery Youth Facility, worked with Hall in a predispositional capacity after Hall was arrested and prior to his trial. In gathering information for a predisposition report, Anderson talked to people in the community and at Hall's school. Anderson ultimately recommended to the juvenile court that Hall be allowed to go home because he was not a threat to anyone. Three alibi witnesses from the first trial, Gloria McElroy, Sunkeissa Cantrell, and Pamela Armstrong, testified that they would have given the same testimony in the third trial that they gave in the first trial if they had been called to testify. A juror from the third trial, Letricia Long, testified that there was quite a lot of confusion during deliberations about the evidence of telephone calls. Long testified that the evidence at trial made it look like it wasn't any phone calls going out or coming in on the day of the crime, implying that Hall was guilty. However, the juror also testified that nobody actually believed Chambers's testimony because he said there were not any incoming or outgoing calls at all that day: It was quite a lot of confusion about it, because it wasn't any incoming or outgoing calls, and it was a major issue in different homes with teenagers and that there weren't any phone calls made, and nobody actually believed it. Later, on cross-examination, the juror testified that the majority of jurors did not believe the testimony of Chambers, but still found Hall guilty. Kathleen Mahoney, the BellSouth supervisor of subpoena compliance at the BellSouth Subpoena Compliance Center, testified by telephone. Mahoney testified that in October of 1999, for a regular non-measured service customer, [31] outgoing long-distance calls would be billed to the customer and would appear on their bill, but records of incoming and outgoing local calls would be kept for only 60 days. After 60 days, the records of all of the local calls would be erased. Mahoney explained, We do not keep local calls because there is no billing on them for a regular non-measured customer. However, Mahoney testified that if a customer has local measured service and also asks to have their local measured service calls printed on their telephone bills, the records of incoming and outgoing local calls are kept for 18 months. Curtis Hall and Ann Cartas both testified that on the day of the crimes, they had only basic telephone service rather than measured service. Hall also filed a copy of one of the subpoenas served on BellSouth for phone records and BellSouth's response. The subpoena was issued May 10, 2000. The subpoena requested the production of the following documents: Any and all phone records, including incoming and outgoing calls for phone number (334) 281-1870 on the date of 10/15/99. The account holder's name is Anne Cartas of 360 Eagerton Rd., Montgomery, AL 36116. In response to the subpoena, the BellSouth Compliance Assistant, Patricia Tapp, returned an affidavit dated May 16, 2000 stating, No records as described in the legal document are available and signed a letter to the Circuit Court of Montgomery County, also dated May 16, 2000, stating in part: There were no calls found for the date that you provided. Incoming calls are only available for approximately sixty days prior to the current date. There were no outgoing calls found. BellSouth also submitted Chambers's and Spidle's affidavits, in which they stated it was their understanding at the time they testified at trial that BellSouth kept local outgoing call information for the subject accounts for a period of eighteen months. Both Chambers and Spidle had since learned that, in fact, records of outgoing local calls in connection with the involved accounts were kept for a period of only 60 days. BellSouth also submitted the affidavit of James L. Preau, the Director of Security at BellSouth. Preau reviewed the five subpoenas served upon BellSouth for Hall's trial and concluded that the accounts for which the subpoenas sought records were all flat rate accounts, meaning that the customers had not elected measured service and that there would have been no data on local incoming or outgoing calls at BellSouth when BellSouth received the subpoenas in June and July of 2000, before the second trial began in November of 2000.