Opinion ID: 2328989
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: The Defense Theory of the Case

Text: Assigned as the prisoner's counsel, lawyers for the Public Defender Service then investigated his background. They learned that while serving a term at Lorton Reformatorythe year before his wife's deathappellant saw a fellow inmate, William Hawthorne, stab another prisoner to death in one of the dormitories. When this homicide was investigated, appellant was questioned by an FBI agent. Despite Hawthorne's reputation at Lorton as a very dangerous criminal convicted of a prior murder, appellant agreed to testify against him and subsequently gave the FBI two written statements describing the deadly assault he had witnessed. Appellant was released from Lorton a few months later. Shortly afterwards, the United States Attorney for the eastern district of Virginia presented the Hawthorne case to a grand jury. This resulted in the return of first-degree murder indictments against Hawthorne and two accomplices. Appellant was a government witness in the grand jury proceedings. Appellant was subsequently interviewed by Assistant United States Attorney Lawrence Leiser in preparation for trial, and was later served with a subpoena requiring him to appear and testify. About a week before the scheduled trial Leiser filed a motion with a memorandum which stated that Freeland was missing and unlikely to appear and, therefore, requested admission of the grand jury transcripts of Freeland's testimony. The Leiser memorandum explained that Freeland's wife had been murdered, that he had disappeared after her body had been discovered, and that despite efforts of the police and the staff of the United States Marshal's office, no one had been able to find Freeland. The memorandum also stated that since his grand jury appearance Freeland met with the government in preparation for his testimony at which time he indicated a reluctance to testify due to possible retaliation by the defendants on his `people'. Defense counsel decided to present evidence that (1) Mrs. Freeland was alive and uninjured when appellant left her, (2) had probably been killed shortly thereafter by agents of Hawthorne, and (3) appellant had become so frightened before departing the city by threats of Hawthorne's men that he felt it necessary to flee the jurisdiction to preserve his life.