By Andria Simmons
andria.simmons@gwinnettdailypost.com
LAWRENCEVILLE,
GA — Three weeks into jury selection
in the Wesley
Harris death penalty case, a Gwinnett
Superior Court
judge declared a mistrial Monday based
on findings
that Harris’ attorney was not prepared for
trial.
It seems defense
attorney Herb Adams, who is running
for District
Attorney in DeKalb County, was neglecting
the Harris
case while he pursued other ambitions,
according to
Gwinnett District Attorney Danny Porter.
“We’ve invested
three weeks in jury selection in this
case, all the
while he knew he wasn’t prepared,” said
Porter.
“It defies
belief. He had a man’s life in his hands and he
did nothing
... he is a disgrace as an attorney.”
Numerous attempts
to reach Adams on Monday were
met with a
faxed response which read “I believe that, at
the end of
the day, Wesley Harris and anyone else
charged with
capital murder should be able to say ‘I am
satisfied with
my lawyer.’ Wesley Harris was not
satisfied.
So I joined in my co-counsel’s motion for a
mistrial. A
new lawyer will be appointed to represent
Mr. Harris.”
Adams was appointed
lead counsel in the case in June
2000, charged
with defending Harris against allegations
that he fatally
shot Whitney Land, 22, and her
2-year-old
daughter Jordan Land, placed their bodies in
the trunk of
a car and set the car on fire.
Land was last
seen alive at Panhandle Park in
Jonesboro on
Nov. 8, 1999, the day she and Jordan were
killed. Prosecutors
believe Harris kidnapped them from
the park with
the intent to rob them, brought the young
mother and
her toddler to Gwinnett County and then
slayed them
both.
While preparing
for the trial last week, Porter said he
discovered
that not one of the 40 witnesses prosecutors
were prepared
to call had been questioned by the
defense.“The
evidence became very clear that although
he (Adams)
had this case for four years, he had done
nothing to
prepare,” Porter said.
“I have talked
to witnesses in my trial preparation and
realized he
had not spoken to a single witness.”
On Friday with
only a few days left of jury selection,
Adams asked
Porter how to subpoena a witness from the
state prison
system, according to Porter. The process
takes two weeks,
and Adams should have known how to
do it, Porter
said. He also requested the name of the
state’s cell
phone expert (who will testify about 911 calls
made by Land),
but Porter said that information had
already been
provided to Adams two years ago.
Co-counsel
had “concerns”
Adams’ co-counsel,
Christine Koehler, began expressing
concerns last
month as the trial date for Harris neared.
As second chair,
Koehler is responsible for preparing
for the sentencing
phase of the trial, while Adams as
lead counsel
was supposed to argue the guilt or
innocence phase.
“I have had
my concerns, the concerns have grown as
I’ve watched
what’s been happening in court and as
things have
come to light in the last several weeks,”
Koehler said.
“As we sort
of put our two parts of the trial together, it
became apparent
to me that preparation levels were not
where they
should be.”
Koehler filed
three motions to have Adams disqualified
within the
past month after Adams announced his
intentions
to seek the office of district attorney in
DeKalb. In
the first motion, Koehler claimed Adams
could not represent
Harris because there was a conflict
of interest
in his desire to one day prosecute the same
kind of cases
which he now defends. That motion was
denied by Superior
Court Judge Richard Winegarden
one week prior
to the start of jury selection.
A second motion
to disqualify Adams was filed by
Koehler and
denied last Wednesday in an ex parte
hearing, which
prosecutors were barred from attending.
The third motion
for disqualification and a mistrial was
granted this
week. Koehler said she was prepared to try
the case after
putting aspects of her life on hold for the
past four years,
and added it was “unfortunate that it
came to that.”
She declined to offer an opinion on
Adams’ performance
as her co-counsel.
Porter plans
to file a complaint against Adams with the
Georgia Bar
Association and request Adams not be paid
for the last
three weeks of jury selection.
Porter has
also requested the bills Adams submitted to
the county
for hours spent working on the case to
investigate
whether any of the bills were false.
Another stall
The status
of the Harris case is now in limbo, since
another five
weeks will have to be carved out of a trial
calendar before
a new date can be set. Sheila Howell,
the mother
of Whitney Land, could not be reached for
comment Monday
at her home or office, but at earlier
hearings Howell
has expressed frustration with delays
obtaining justice
for her daughter and granddaughter.
This week’s
mistrial is one of many delays in getting the
case before
a jury since Harris was arrested in
November 1999.
He was scheduled to have a trial in
August of 2000,
until prosecutors announced their
intention to
seek the death penalty.
A new date
for trial was set on Jan. 14, 2002, but a
motion filed
by Harris’ attorneys caused the entire trial
calendar in
Gwinnett to be put on hold due to a
technicality
in the jury panel selection process. A
visiting judge
ruled that the wrong officials were
managing the
process and declared the jury pool
invalid.
The jury panel
composition process has since been
corrected and
a new jury pool certified in August 2002.
Harris was
indicted again in April 2002.
Most recently,
the trial was postponed for six months in
September 2003
because of “new and important”
information
obtained by the defense.
After this
week’s mistrial, prosecutors will recommend
a trial date
some time in September once a new lead
counsel is appointed, Porter said.