The Executive Graveyard
The verdict was in, but Judge Fulton Donovan Carney wasn’t ready to read it. He was too hung over, and the excessive chatter from the gallery wasn’t helping the pounding in his head. Judge Carney knew that, any minute now, he’d have to slam the gavel down several times to hush the standing-room-only crowd, and proceed with reading the verdict.
But he didn’t want to.
Yes, it would be painful for his temporal lobes. But more importantly, it would signal the end of Washington County’s most famous trial, which would also mean the end of his few precious moments in the spotlight. Tomorrow, life would return to normal. No more journalists sitting in the back composing daily reports, no more television cameras focused on his balding head, and no more reporters memorializing every word of what he believed to be brilliant rulings. No longer would the country’s top legal analysts contemplate those rulings and analyze what they meant to both the prosecution and the defense. Judge Carney had been drinking nightly since the jury began their arduous deliberations. The State of Utah v. Donald Leigh Richardson, a man accused of murdering his wife, was a small town judge’s dream come true. Unfortunately for him, the dream was about to end.
The defendant was a fifty-three-year-old entrepreneur from New Mexico who made millions off a string of strategically placed truck stops across the country. Now he was using a significant amount of that money to pay for his defense. He and his wife, Megan, had visited Southern Utah on a hiking trip but neither had returned. Megan ended up dead, while Donald landed in the county jail accused of her murder.
The prosecution argued that Donald planned the killing to perfection. He took his wife on a hike up several thousand feet, they claimed, and when no one was around, pushed her off the cliff. The defense maintained that, as is often the case, Donald hiked faster than his wife and found himself alone farther along the trail. She never caught up and the next thing he knew, she’d disappeared. Donald’s defense: she must have lost her footing and accidentally plunged to the canyon floor. His high-priced defense team had chosen to walk the ‘burden of proof’ tightrope and argue that there was insufficient evidence to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. It was a dicey proposition. While technically true—if the prosecution cannot satisfy their burden, the defendant must be acquitted—most defense lawyers know that juries want answers, and if you’re going to claim that the prosecution is wrong, you need to show the jury what’s right.
Risky? Yes.
But did they have a choice? Not without witnesses.
The Executive Graveyard on Amazon US
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