Randy Singer - The Justice Game

After lunch, Kelly cued up portions of the videotaped depositions of Melissa Davids. The MD Firearms CEO looked angry as Kelly grilled her about the redesign of the MD-9 after 833 of those guns had been converted by criminals into full automatics and later traced to crimes. She responded testily as Kelly quizzed her about the silencer parts MD Firearms sold and the company’s run-in with the ATF, including Davids’ agreement with the letter to the editor that compared the ATF to the regimes of Hitler and Stalin.

Jason watched despondently as Kelly asked in the first deposition whether Melissa Davids had ever considered whether she should stop selling guns to Peninsula Arms based on their three ATF violations and the number of their guns that had been traced to crimes.

“No,” Davids said. “If anybody had suggested such a thing to me, I would have told them I still believed in the Second Amendment and the free enterprise system.”

Kelly followed that response with excerpts from the second deposition, where she showed Case McAllister’s memo to Davids. This time, the witness became outright hostile. It was not hard for Jason to read the jurors’ body language; every one of them demonstrated a thinly veiled contempt for his client.

The last witness of the day, an ATF agent named Bill Treadwell, took the stand with an air of unmistakable confidence. He wore a buttoned blue blazer, a white shirt with a red tie, and khakis. He had short red hair and a freckled complexion-a young man’s face that invited trust.

When he settled into the stand, he removed a pair of reading glasses from his pocket and placed them on the rail in front of him. Kelly Starling led him through a series of artfully phrased questions-the choreographed waltz of direct examination.

Treadwell had been one of the agents who obtained the confession from Jarrod Beeson, and he described his investigation into the straw purchase. He also taught the jury about the paperwork and process required to purchase a firearm-the background check, the ATF Form 4473, and other aspects of the sale. He testified about the three other times Peninsula Arms had been cited for straw sales.

Treadwell spoke softly, listened carefully, and confined his answers to the precise questions before him. Through his testimony, Kelly managed to put a boy-next-door face on the ATF, making Davids’s statements about the ATF seem even more outrageous.

Kelly finished her direct examination of Treadwell at about 4 p.m., ending with the introduction of the gun into evidence.

Jason rose quickly to begin his cross. He was so caught up in the competition of the moment that he was hardly even nervous.

“Are you aware of any gun manufacturers in the entire country who refuse to sell guns to licensed firearm dealers because they don’t trust those dealers?”

Treadwell thought for a moment. “No. Not that I’m aware of.”

“As a point of fact, it’s the ATF’s job to police firearm dealers, is it not?

“We regulate dealers, yes.”

“The ATF can revoke licenses of gun dealers, true?”

“That’s correct.”

“And you have personally been involved in that process, isn’t that right?”

“Yes.”

“Are you aware that fifteen years ago there were about 250,000 licensed dealers in America, and today there are less than half that number-about 108,381?”

Treadwell shrugged. “I’m not aware of the precise numbers. But that sounds about right.”

“Do you recognize the name Red’s Trading Post of Twin Falls, Idaho?”

Treadwell’s face dropped a little. He had been transferred east a few years earlier. “Yes.”

“That store’s been in business for seventy-one years, correct?”

“I don’t know. Sounds about right.”

“You tried to revoke their license, right?”

“Objection,” Kelly said. “What’s this got to do with the Crawford case?”

“I’ll link it up,” Jason promised.

“Make it quick,” Garrison said.

Jason turned back to the witness. “You tried to revoke their license, right?”

“We did revoke their license. In 2006. For multiple violations over a series of years.”

“But the gun store appealed that case to federal court, didn’t they?”

“Yes.”

“And let me ask you if this is a statement that the federal judge made in that case: ‘The ATF speaks of violations found during the inspections of 2000 and 2005, but fails to reveal that additional investigations in 2001 and 2007 revealed no violations or problems.’”

“I don’t have the opinion memorized, but it was something like that.”

“So the court overturned the revocation, didn’t it?”

This brought Kelly to her feet again, palms out. “Judge, I still don’t see how this can possibly be relevant to this case.”

“I agree,” Garrison said. “Objection sustained.”

“Isn’t it true,” Jason said, checking his notes again, “that the number of gun dealers dropped by at least 50 percent in the ten years leading up to 2005 and that revocations of licenses increased nearly sixfold between 2001 and 2006?”

“I wouldn’t know if those statistics are accurate or not.”

“But you would agree that the ATF has stepped up its enforcement activities, aggressively going after gun stores that violate the law?”

“We’ve always done that, Mr. Noble.”

“Then what actions did you take to revoke the license of Peninsula Arms after its third straw purchase citation?”

“We issued a license revocation notice on September 18 of last year.”

“That’s after Mr. Jamison shot Rachel Crawford. I’m asking what you did before that-given the fact that Peninsula Arms had already been cited for three prior straw purchase transactions.”

Treadwell adjusted himself in the chair and tried to make eye contact with Kelly. Jason took a half step to the side, placing himself directly in the witness’s sight path.

“We didn’t deem those other citations-which were spread out over nearly ten years-sufficient to take revocation action,” Treadwell said.

“But you were also aware, were you not, that a number of guns from Peninsula Arms had been traced to crimes in cities in the northeast-cities like Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York, and Washington?”

“Yes. But without information that the sales of those guns somehow violated the law, we couldn’t take legal action against the dealer.”

“My point exactly,” Jason said.

“Objection!” Kelly said. “Move to strike.”

Judge Garrison cast Jason a castigating glance and then turned to the jury. “Please ignore that last statement by Mr. Noble,” the judge said. “I will strike it from the record. And Mr. Noble-please keep your editorial comments to yourself.”

“Yes, Your Honor.” Jason checked through his notes. “I do have one other question,” he said. “To your knowledge, has Ms. Starling filed any lawsuits against the ATF for its failure to take action against Peninsula Arms?”

“No, she has not.”

“No further questions.”

Before he sat down, Jason casually moved one more empty chair up to the defense counsel table. When he sat in his own seat, next to Case McAllister, all eyes were on him.

Case leaned over. “After this case, you need to raise your hourly rate.”

At the end of Agent Treadwell’s testimony, Kelly stood up and announced that she rested her case.

Inside, she was already second-guessing her strategy. She had started strong with the videotape of the shootings and the testimony of Blake Crawford. But she had wanted to finish strong too. She had toyed with the idea of ending on the videotaped testimony of Melissa Davids-a guaranteed high point for her side. Instead, she decided to end her case with Treadwell’s testimony, hoping to demonstrate in the flesh that ATF agents were the furthest thing from Hitler and Stalin.