Read Online After Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by Marilyn J Bardsley - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Marilyn J Bardsley
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lives in an elegant home, travels abroad twice a year. He has many powerful attractive and influential friends…”
“Danny Hansford was an immature, undereducated, unsophisticated, confused, temperamental young man, preoccupied with feelings of betrayal and rejection, even at the hands of his mother, says Jim Williams. I suggest to you that Danny Hansford was a young man who was a great deal more tragic than evil. Can you not imagine how easily impressed a young man like that would be, living in a house, being friends with a man of Jim Williams’ stature?
“Danny Hansford was never someone that Jim Williams really cared for. He was a pawn, nothing more or less than a pawn in a sick little game of manipulation and exploitation. Danny may have thought of himself as a bit of a hustler. Well, he was in way over his head. He was playing for keeps with a pro, and he turned out to be the ultimate loser. I don’t think he was a hustler. I think he was being hustled. I think he was what amounts to a prisoner in a comfortable concentration camp, where the torture was not physical but emotional and psychological …”
“What happened was an act of murder … The self defense was a cover-up. It did not occur. Thomas Hobbes is often quoted as saying that life is nasty, brutish, and short, and surely it must have seemed so to Danny Hansford during the last fifteen or twenty seconds of his life, while his life was oozing out onto Jim Williams’ Persian rug.”
Lawton went on to suggest that the April 3 incident almost a month before Danny was shot was a hoax intended to get a fabricated rampage on the police record, a plot to set up a premeditated murder to look like self-defense.
Bobby Lee Cook’s closing statement focused on Jim’s right to self-defense in the face of imminent danger. He urged the jury to acquit Jim of any offense.
The jury took about four hours to convict Jim, rejecting options of voluntary manslaughter, as well as the self-defense or acquittal as charged. He was sentenced to life in prison. Lead counsel Bobby Lee Cook announced that the verdict would be appealed.
Chapter 13: Trials and Tribulations
Reversal of Jim’s Conviction by the Georgia Supreme Court
After his first conviction, Jim was released from jail on $200,000 bond and went back to his antiques business. Great damage had been done to his reputation and standing in Savannah society, and Jim was very bitter about it. Not long after the trial was over, Bobby Lee Cook received an anonymous letter with a copy of the full unedited police report by Cpl. Anderson for the April 3, 1981, incident, which became part of the appeal that resulted in the Georgia Supreme Court reversing Jim’s conviction and ordering a new trial.
In “The Other Side of ‘Midnight,’” a fact sheet produced by Spencer Lawton Jr., he explains that he did provide the defense with everything it requested before the trial. Cpl. Anderson’s police report contained “portions of which had been whited out to exclude material to which the defense was not entitled under the law.”
In
The Williams Case: The History: A Summary
, Lawton addresses the whited-out portion of Cpl. Anderson’s note regarding the April incident: “Mr. Williams alleged that Hansford threatened him and discharged a gun in the house. Also damaging several expensive items in the house. Hansford denied it. We did find a fresh gunshot in the floor and the victim [sic: he was referring to Hansford] was becoming disorderly. I arrested him …” The complete unedited copy was provided to the court.
The copy received by the defense was redacted to show only the defendant’s statements to police, which is routine practice. Often police reports provided to defense counsel contain redacted information, such as commentary from officers and other witnesses whose privacy is protected.
During the trial, Cpl. Anderson testified about the April 3 bullet
“Danny Hansford was an immature, undereducated, unsophisticated, confused, temperamental young man, preoccupied with feelings of betrayal and rejection, even at the hands of his mother, says Jim Williams. I suggest to you that Danny Hansford was a young man who was a great deal more tragic than evil. Can you not imagine how easily impressed a young man like that would be, living in a house, being friends with a man of Jim Williams’ stature?
“Danny Hansford was never someone that Jim Williams really cared for. He was a pawn, nothing more or less than a pawn in a sick little game of manipulation and exploitation. Danny may have thought of himself as a bit of a hustler. Well, he was in way over his head. He was playing for keeps with a pro, and he turned out to be the ultimate loser. I don’t think he was a hustler. I think he was being hustled. I think he was what amounts to a prisoner in a comfortable concentration camp, where the torture was not physical but emotional and psychological …”
“What happened was an act of murder … The self defense was a cover-up. It did not occur. Thomas Hobbes is often quoted as saying that life is nasty, brutish, and short, and surely it must have seemed so to Danny Hansford during the last fifteen or twenty seconds of his life, while his life was oozing out onto Jim Williams’ Persian rug.”
Lawton went on to suggest that the April 3 incident almost a month before Danny was shot was a hoax intended to get a fabricated rampage on the police record, a plot to set up a premeditated murder to look like self-defense.
Bobby Lee Cook’s closing statement focused on Jim’s right to self-defense in the face of imminent danger. He urged the jury to acquit Jim of any offense.
The jury took about four hours to convict Jim, rejecting options of voluntary manslaughter, as well as the self-defense or acquittal as charged. He was sentenced to life in prison. Lead counsel Bobby Lee Cook announced that the verdict would be appealed.
Chapter 13: Trials and Tribulations
Reversal of Jim’s Conviction by the Georgia Supreme Court
After his first conviction, Jim was released from jail on $200,000 bond and went back to his antiques business. Great damage had been done to his reputation and standing in Savannah society, and Jim was very bitter about it. Not long after the trial was over, Bobby Lee Cook received an anonymous letter with a copy of the full unedited police report by Cpl. Anderson for the April 3, 1981, incident, which became part of the appeal that resulted in the Georgia Supreme Court reversing Jim’s conviction and ordering a new trial.
In “The Other Side of ‘Midnight,’” a fact sheet produced by Spencer Lawton Jr., he explains that he did provide the defense with everything it requested before the trial. Cpl. Anderson’s police report contained “portions of which had been whited out to exclude material to which the defense was not entitled under the law.”
In
The Williams Case: The History: A Summary
, Lawton addresses the whited-out portion of Cpl. Anderson’s note regarding the April incident: “Mr. Williams alleged that Hansford threatened him and discharged a gun in the house. Also damaging several expensive items in the house. Hansford denied it. We did find a fresh gunshot in the floor and the victim [sic: he was referring to Hansford] was becoming disorderly. I arrested him …” The complete unedited copy was provided to the court.
The copy received by the defense was redacted to show only the defendant’s statements to police, which is routine practice. Often police reports provided to defense counsel contain redacted information, such as commentary from officers and other witnesses whose privacy is protected.
During the trial, Cpl. Anderson testified about the April 3 bullet
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