MURDER IN THE FAMILY

Most mornings, the girl is up at dawn. She combs her black hair and brushes her teeth, then puts on the simple white dress that says “Stout” below the left shoulder.

The girl doesn’t have much time to think about where she is. She works part of the day in the prison store and goes to school the rest of the time. She’s studying to be a cosmetologist. She says that sometimes she forgets where she is, but not for very long.

She is still pretty, with large dark eyes and delicate hands. She sits primly behind the plexiglass screen in front of the vast cement wall. She seems more wary of the visitor who writes down her answers than of the uniformed woman near the door, the one who doesn’t smile.

She says she wasn’t ready for prison. “You’re not sure what to think. You’re scared to death.” Pretty soon, though, she got sort of used to it. “It’s not as bad as it looks on TV,” she says. Her job in the prison store pays her a little money, and she just bought a new watch. She’s proud of what she’s done with her room; its walls are covered with intricate crochet work. She gets to have her own radio, and sometimes she and a friend jog to keep fit.

The girl writes letters – to her friends, to her aunt and uncle, and, of course, to her brother. Sometimes she crochets pillows and other mementoes for them.

The girl is still confident. She knows her lawyers will get her a new trial; it will just take a little time. She says she still hasn’t pieced together the agony of two years ago because there are some things that take time to understand.

If there’s anything that bothers her now, she says, it’s being the only 18-year-old girl in the prison.



June 11, 1977. 9963 Chireno. Some time after midnight.

Not long after David Stout arrived, they carried out Sharon’s body in a blood-stained canvas bag. The scene at his brother’s house in northwest Dallas was like a grotesque carnival: Red patrol car lights swept the neighborhood; two-way radios squawked and sputtered; patrolmen prowled the yard while neighbors stared and whispered across the street.

Sharon was dead, stabbed with a butcher knife. David’s brother Bobby had been almost fatally wounded, and was in surgery to remove two .38 slugs. Lucinda, his favorite niece, sat handcuffed and wide-eyed in the back seat of a patrol car. She had confessed to the crimes.

David tried to talk to Lucinda, hoping she would tell him what had happened. But the police were adamant: No visitors; Lucinda Stout had been arrested on suspicion of murder.

Bobby had always told him if anything happened, David should take care of the surviving family members and the business. David suddenly realized he had funeral arrangements to make, hospital accommodations to check on. And he had to help Lucinda.

He had no reason to doubt the police’s story. He loved Lucinda, but supposed anything was possible, and if an apparently normal 16-year-old girl did all that, she obviously needed help.

David promised himself he would get her that help at any cost. After all, that was the way Bobby wanted it.

David Lancaster went back over the facts. He had responded quickly to David Stout’s request that he represent Lucinda; Stout was his barber, and he considered the young man his friend. And having been a criminal attorney for 20 years, David Lancaster knew David’s 16-year-old niece was in a lot of trouble.

Lancaster reviewed the facts: 36-year-old Harry Stout, known as “Bobby,” and his wife Sharon, 34, had been assaulted in their home around midnight, June 10. Sharon had been stabbed to death; Bobby had been shot with a .38. Police found the couple’s daughter, Lucinda, standing over her wounded father in the living room of a neighbor’s house. According to the police, Lucinda’s first words to them were, “I’m crazy. I did it. Take me away.

Lucinda had later sketched in the details of the crime. She and her mother had been carving meat in the kitchen. When”^” ° her mother took out a v bag of trash, Lucinda followed her, knife in hand. She stabbed her mother once in the back, but Mrs. Stout managed to pull out the knife and stumble to the back door. Her screams aroused her husband’s attention. When Mr. Stout came to his wife’s aid, Lucinda ran to the living room, got a pistol she’d planted there, returned to the kitchen and shot her father twice. She then called her friend Anna and said something she couldn’t remember.

Then she left the house to hide the pistol in her father’s car. When she came back, he was gone. She tracked him next door.

The only motive she offered the police was that her parents had grounded her for two weeks and she was angry because of it.

The confession, though it was oral and unsigned and taken under stress, was compelling. It had been taken in the presence of more than one officer and after the usual warnings that statements made under the circumstances could be used against Lucinda Stout in court.

There was not much he could do, Lancaster thought. The District Attorney’s office would undoubtedly attempt to certify Lucinda Stout as an adult and try her for murder, asking for life imprisonment. Lancaster would try to protect her rights, but at this point much depended on what Luanda’s father did.



David Stout read the paper just like everyone else that morning. It reported that Harry “Bobby” Stout intended to press first-degree murder charges against his daughter and to be the state’s chief witness at the trial. “I want her out of society,” he said from his hospital bed. ,”She deserves to pay for what she’s done.”



. The detention officer heard Lucinda’s protest: “I can’t believe he’s doing this to me,” she sobbed. “This isn’t fair. I’m not going to take the blame. I didn’t do it.” Hours later, David Lancaster listened to his young client’s “second confession.” Many of the details of the crime were the same, but this time she said she hadn’t stabbed her mother; her father had. The only reason she confessed was that her father told her to take the rap: “They won’t do anything to you because you’re a kid,” she said Bobby Stout told her. “I’ll get you help.”



Assistant District Attorney Hal Gaither found the Stout case a challenge to the imagination: Daughter stabs mother, shoots father. Father turns on daughter; daughter turns on father. But legally, it was simple. Gaither’s job was to get Lucinda Stout certified as an adult. In Texas, juvenile offenders as young as 15 can be certified to stand trial under the adult penal code if the prosecution can prove six things: That the crime is against person or property; that it was committed aggressively; that there is sufficient evidence to indict the defendant; that the crime reflects a previous pattern of lawlessness; that prospects for rehabilitation are slim; and that the child is relatively mature. The juvenile court judge has the final say, and the judges have a pretty subjective approach to certification. One judge may be satisfied that a child is beyond rehabilitation on the basis of one or two psychiatric reports; another may want ten.

Lucinda’s confession and Bobby Stout’s testimony would take care of the nature of the crime and the sufficiency of evidence. Proving a previous pattern of lawlessness might be harder, since Luanda Stout had no record of criminal or violent behavior; but the seriousness of the offense – matricide – would probably compensate for that deficiency. And Gaither had two psychiatrists who would take care of the rest: They would both testify that she was an intelligent, sophisticated girl who probably knew right from wrong when she killed her mother. One of them would add that she was an incurable sociopath, likely to commit further violent acts.

But there was one missing link. Luanda Stout had called her friend Anna Villasana after the crime, but neither Lucinda nor Anna could remember what Lucinda said on the telephone. In fact, Anna, Lucinda’s best friend, continued to say that she didn’t know anything about Lucinda’s role in the crimes, and that – despite rumors to the contrary – she hadn’t heard Lucinda mention the idea of killing her parents before the crime was committed.

If Anna didn’t want to testify against Lucinda, there was no way Gaither could force her. But it bothered him. Like all of Henry Wade’s men, Hal Gaither disliked missing links, because missing links could turn into surprises.



Juvenile court judge Craig Pen fold soon found out how seriously the District Attorney’s office was taking the case. Barely a week before the certification hearing, the DA’s office filed a motion to have him removed from the case. The only reason to do so would be a conflict of interest, and since that didn’t exist, Penfold could only assume the DA’s office was sending him a message. Penfold had a reputation as a prudent, persnickety judge. He had never before certified a juvenile. It looked like the DA’s men were pretty serious about certifying this one.

The motion for removal wasn’t granted, and Penfold gaveled the hearing to order on August 22, 1977. Lucinda Stout was represented by David Lancaster and a court-appointed guardian ad litem, Bill Alexander. The two were complementary: Lancaster was diminutive, a solid preparer and legal scholar. Alexander was tall and imposing, one of the best cross-examiners in the city. They would not present a case that Lucinda Stout didn’t commit the crimes of July 10, or that Bobby Stout did. They would try only to demolish the testimony of the state’s witnesses that Lucinda Stout should be tried as an adult.

The hearing began with testimony by Dr. James Grigson, a psychiatrist who regularly testifies for the state in such hearings. Grigson testified that Lucinda Stout was a sociopath capable of further violence if not incarcerated. The other court-appointed psychiatrist, Dr. Salem Ateek, said he believed Lucinda was disturbed, primarily by a hostile relationship with her father. But given adequate psychiatric care, he said, she should not pose a threat to the community. Lucinda’s probation officer testified that Lucinda had been cheerful, helpful, and hard-working during her stay at the juvenile detention center. All three said they thought Lucinda’s maturity and judgment were far beyond her years.

Lancaster and Alexander were not upset by the psychiatric portion of the testimony; it seemed to be a toss-up. Lucinda was said to be relatively mature, but only one witness felt she was a threat to society. Their real challenge was to discredit the testimony of Bobby Stout. They had to impugn his motives in testifying against his daughter.

Bobby Stout took the stand. Darkly handsome, he made an excellent witness for the prosecution. Stout testified confidently and precisely about the events of June 10 and 11. He and his daughter had gone to the grocery of his friend Rudy Villasana about 9 p.m. to buy some meat for a party they were planning for the next night. Lucinda visited with her friend, Rudy’s daughter Anna, while Bobby and Rudy had a couple of beers. They came home about 11 p.m. and began carving the meat. At some point, Stout said, he left Lucinda and Sharon in the kitchen and went to the living room to watch TV.

A bit later he heard a banging at the back door. Lucinda ran out of the kitchen into the living room. Stout ran to the back door where he saw his wife struggling to get in. He could see she was hurt. Then he was shot in the back and fell to the floor. He opened the door and his wife fell on top of him. He was lying on his right side, struggling to free himself, when Lucinda shot him again. “Look at her, Daddy,” Lucinda said. “She’s dying.” Stout testified that Lucinda refused his pleas for help and said he was going to die, too, even though he offered her money.

Lucinda went to call Anna, he said, and he struggled to his feet, went out the back door and stumbled to his neighbor’s house, where he fell to the floor again. Lucinda arrived a few minutes later, bent over him and said, “Daddy, I love you.”

Lucinda’s second version of the events could not be introduced in testimony to dispute Stout’s version, so the best Alexander could do in cross-examination was hint at motives Stout might have had for killing his wife and placing the blame on his daughter.

“Mr. Stout, how much insurance was on your wife’s life at the time she died?”

Gaither objected; Penfold overruled.

“She had about $31,000.”

“You are not wearing a wedding ring, are you?”

“Not at this time; I have never worn one.”

“Is it customary for married people who respect their marriage to wear a wedding ring?”

Penfold sustained Gaither’s objection.

“Who is Angela, Mr. Stout?”

Gaither’s objection was overruled.

“She is a customer, and her and her husband visited me at the hospital.”

“Was her husband there when she was feeding you ice cream?”

Objection sustained.

Lancaster took over and poked around a bit more in Stout’s private life. Bobby Stout said he and Sharon had been married in 1958, when she was 14, he 16. He had dropped out of school in the ninth grade and worked at various mechanic’s jobs. Three years ago, he had opened an auto repair business in Irving. His wife had worked as a secretary at First National Bank for 14 years. She helped him with the bookkeeping at his business after she got off work at the bank.

“What type of relationship did you have with Lucinda prior to this time?”

“In my opinion, I thought it was a pretty good relationship.”

“Did you ever sit down and discuss problems with her?”

“Yes, we sure did.”

“Do you know whether your wife did?”

“My wife discussed quite a few problems with Lucinda.”

“Was Lucinda allowed to date?”

“Yes.”

“How late could she stay out?”

“Midnight.”

“Had Lucinda come to you with any problems recently – prior to June 10?”

“No, not recently.”

“Would you classify yourself as a good father?”

“I would.”

The defense rested, not having made much headway. But Gaither couldn’t resist pounding home a few more points.

Did Lucinda tell him that night what she thought would happen to her as a result of the murder?

“Yes, sir,” Stout said. “She said that the law wouldn’t do anything to her. She said she would get six months and then she would be a free girl, and she could do and say as she wished.”

Did she tell him why she did it?

“… She told me she was going to profit by it and be proud of a home, car, business, and insurance money.”

Finally, what had she said to Anna on the phone that night?

“She said, ’Anna, my mother is dead, and my father refuses to die, and I am going to shoot him again as soon as I hang up.



The defense’s only hope against Bobby Stout’s testimony was to discredit him with some objective voice. They hoped that voice would be 18-year-old Robert Stout, Lucinda’s brother, but David Lancaster didn’t like the look on Robert’s face when he saw him coming out of the courthouse men’s room with his father. Obviously, father and son had had a heart-to-heart talk about his upcoming testimony. Lancaster could only hope the kid would hold up, though Robert had been a reluctant witness from the beginning. He wanted to help his sister, but he didn’t want to turn on his father. Like his uncle David, he was trying to stay neutral. On the other hand, Robert knew first-hand that his parents had argued about his father’s alleged philandering, and that his father had a short temper. And finally, he knew how much Lucinda had loved her mother.

Though Robert had looked stunned and ashen when he came out of the men’s room, Lancaster had to take a chance on him. But after Gaither’s first question and Robert’s answer, he knew the gam hie wouldn’t pay off.

“Robert,” Gaither asked, “did you ever know of any infidelity that your father committed?”

“No,” said Robert, looking down.

Under further questioning by the prosecutors, Robert went on to deny any knowledge of his father’s alleged extramarital affairs and the tension they had created in the household. After a couple of perfunctory questions, the defense attorneys released Robert from the stand.

The final witness in the certification hearing was Lucinda’s friend, Anna Villasana. Gaither’s manner as he went to question Anna told the defense attorneys what they already knew – that the prosecutors’ missing link wasn’t missing any more.

“Anna, did Lucinda ever tell you she was going to kill her parents?”

“Yes.”

The courtroom buzzed like a lynch mob. Alexander and Lancaster slumped in dismay. Late the night before, Mrs. Villasana had called Alexander as a courtesy: Only three weeks before, her daughter had assured Alexander face-to-face that she knew nothing about the crime. Now she had had a change of heart; she said she was tired of not telling the truth. The only hope the defense attorneys had was that Anna’s “truth” would hold out some extenuating circumstances.

“How many times did she tell you she was going to kill her parents? How many times did she say it?” Gaither continued.

“Several,” Anna said evenly.

David Lancaster knew it was all over. Anna’s testimony provided the one thing the prosecution hadn’t had in its arsenal: evidence of premeditation. This was all the excuse a judge needed to order Luanda Stout tried as an adult.

“Anna,” Gaither asked, “are you afraid of Lucinda?”

“Yes.”

“Since June 10 and 11, have you been afraid of what she might do if she was released?”

“Yes.”

Anna recounted several conversations she had had with Lucinda the week before the murder. For example, on the Tuesday before June 10, she and Lucinda went to a grocery store together. Lucinda told Anna she wanted “some turpentine to put in her mother’s lemonade at the party.”

“Did she tell you the purpose of putting the turpentine in her mother’s punch?” Gaither asked.

“To kill them,” Anna said. A couple of days later, she continued, Lucinda told her over the phone “that she had to kill them, that she couldn’t run away. She decided that she was going to kill them, and she said ’Anna, don’t you see that if I run away I would be poor and wouldn’t have anything. I wouldn’t have any money or anything.’ “

On the evening of June 10, Anna said, Lucinda and her father had come to the store about 10 o’clock to pick up some meat. Once again, Anna said, Lucinda mentioned killing her parents. “She said that she was going to kill them tonight. She wanted me to come home with her because she didn’t want to do it by herself.

“She said that she had to kill her mother because she was going to kill her father, and her mother couldn’t live without her father because her mother loved her father and her father loved her mother.”

When Alexander’s turn came to cross-examine, he found that for one of the few times in his career, he was genuinely angry with a witness.

“You first contacted me about three weeks ago, didn’t you?” he asked Anna.

“Yes.”

“Did 1 ask you if Lucinda told you that she was going to kill her parents – and you said no, didn’t you?”

“I think 1 did, yes.”

“And you told me that you didn’t remember enough about your conversation with Lucinda to truthfully say what you remembered’, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Were you lying to me?”

“Yes, sir. I was.”

Alexander had a suspicion he wanted to test out

“Anna, what time did your daddy Rudy come home last night?”

“I think he was home all of the time.”

“Did he hear Bobby Stout’s testimony?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Did y’all meet Harry Stout somewhere last night?”

“We met him at his house. We went over there.”

Anna admitted that she’d first told her mother about her new story; her mother had told her father and they’d all gone over to Bobby Stout’s house to inform him of the news.

Alexander decided to fish a bit.

“Did Stout tell you he was in danger of being indicted for this murder?”

“No.”

“What did your daddy tell you would happen to you if you didn’t testify the way you have?”

“He didn’t tell me anything.”

Knowing that he was getting nowhere, Alexander decided to remind the judge of the defense’s opinion of Anna Villasana’s testimony.

“Today is August what?”

“I don’t know,” Anna replied.

“It’s about August 24. So, from June 11 to August 24, you have lied to everyone that has talked to you about the case. But now you want us to believe what you testified to is the truth?”

“1 want you to believe the truth, yes,” Anna said meekly. Alexander hoped he’d made his point, but he knew it was too late. Lucinda Stout would be sent to the grand jury – and possibly to prison for life – by the testimony of her father and her best friend.

Lawyers in Dallas know that there are two kinds of homicides: Murder and The Big M. Big M’s make the front page, while murders wind up in the obits. Once a Big M hits the newsstands it keeps getting hotter: The headlines fuel the DA’s office; the DA’s office, in turn, fans the flames by slipping items to the press.

Big M’s tend to reflect the current prosecutorial emphasis of District Attorney Henry Wade’s office. In the early Seventies, sex crimes were making headlines, and Wade was prosecuting Big M’s by sex slayers. In the mid-Seventies, several people were killed by robbers of convenience stores; the Big M’s all seemed to be armed robbers. And in 1977, an FBI report revealed that nearly half of all violent crime was committed by juveniles between the ages of 10 and 17. To a politically astute prosecutor like Wade, the message was clear: Bring the hammer down on juveniles. That’s how the murder of Sharon Stout became a Big M.

Lucinda Stout is the first adolescent female to be certified to stand trial as an adult in the county’s history. She is also the only female juvenile in the history of the state to be indicted for murder.

From the beginning, publicity obscured the real issue in the Stout case. The shocking notion that a teen-age girl might have stabbed her mother to death and shot her father consumed the headlines. The real point, however, was that the case of the State of Texas versus Lucinda Stout challenged the basic assumption of the American legal system where juvenile offenders are concerned: that the age of an offender can mitigate against the offense.

Juvenile justice once rested on the premise that the law should treat children as children. Rehabilitation was favored over punishment; counseling over incarceration. Above all, the system sought to leave most decisions to the parents. Like public education, juvenile justice had to assume that learning began at home.

When juvenile crime became an issue in the mid-Seventies, many states, including Texas, began to toughen up on the handling of juvenile offenses. Some juvenile offenders, the thinking went, were just too dangerous to return to the streets. From its enactment in 1973, Texas’ procedures for certifying a juvenile offender as an adult were used sparingly and with little publicity. The Stout case was the first major test of these procedures, because the issues were complicated ones. Was possible life imprisonment the State’s best response to a case in which a girl had allegedly stabbed her mother to death and shot her father? Should the State assume that a 16-year-old who does such a terrible thing is hardened beyond rehabilitation? Is it possible for a psychiatrist to diagnose incurable sociopathological behavior in a youngster? Can a psychiatrist predict future violence in a person with no recorded incident of violent behavior? Should we assume that there are mitigating circumstances when a girl is moved to murder her own mother?

Some of these questions would be raised in the trial of Luanda Stout. But one question would not be raised or answered: What kind of woman will prison make of a girl?



Would-be spectators lined the corridors outside of District Judge John Mead’s courtroom each day as early as 7 a.m. for one of Dallas’ most publicized murder trials since Jack Ruby’s. The judge reserved a row near the front for his wife and friends, and granted photographers unprecedented access to the courtroom.

David Lancaster knew the trial would be a personal ordeal. A victim of a form of “Lou Gehrig’s Disease,” Lancaster suffered from periodic muscular atrophy. His mind was unaffected, but at times a walk around the block would tire him out. His young co-counsel, 27-year-old Steve Amis, was a great help, but, as the chief counsel, Lancaster would be called on for most of the trial work. He hoped that the current remission of his ailment would continue at least through the final arguments.

But his ailment worried him less than the opposing counsel and the judge who was hearing the case. Jim Burnham, a 10-year veteran of the DA’s staff, had been chosen to prosecute the case. Burn-ham was a wily, experienced trial lawyer with boyish good looks, a ready grin, and an “aw shucks” manner. The DA’s office felt it had the goods on Lucinda Stout, but it wasn’t sure how a jury would respond to the relentless prosecution of a 16-year-old girl. Burnham was a charmer, but he knew how to bring the hammer down as well as anyone in the courthouse.

Judge Mead was another charmer. The veteran jurist is the only judge at the courthouse who actually looks like one. His immaculately trimmed gray hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and grave countenance make him look like he’s straight from Central Casting. He is not, however, one of Henry Wade’s hanging judges; he is too politically astute for that. But in a high publicity case like this, he probably wouldn’t be giving the defense any breaks. David Lancaster hated to admit to himself how much he needed those breaks.

The case was in fact basically cut-and-dried. Either the jury believed Lucinda or they believed her father. Each story had a stabbing, a shooting, and a phone call. The major problem was Lucinda’s confession. If Lancaster and Amis could keep that out of the record, the jury could take an objective look at Lucinda’s story. If not, her performance on the stand had better be of Academy Award caliber.

Prosecutor Burnham knew the value of the confession, too. Henry Wade’s men play by the rules, and the first rule of all is “Put your best evidence on first.” So Burnham had scheduled the hearing on the admissibility of Lucinda’s confession first, and Bobby Stout’s testimony near the end. Stout’s testimony had been convincing at the certification hearing, but that was before a judge, not a jury. The defense, Burnham knew, was ready to throw everything at Bobby Stout, so Burnham needed some assurance that the jury would listen to Stout’s story receptively.

Police officers George Kleinmeir, Jeff Hinkle, and David Kunkle recreated the circumstances surrounding Lucinda’s confession. When they found Lucinda standing over her father in the neighbor’s living room, Kleinmeir said Lucinda said “I’m crazy. I did it. Take me away,” at least three times. She was very emotional and upset. On the way to the police car, where she was handcuffed and read her rights, Lucinda told them that a gun was in the white car down the street. In the police car, she confessed. Again she said the gun was in the white car and the knives were in her mother’s kitchen.

While Kunkle looked for the weapons, Hinkle got in the car and once again advised her of her rights. Lucinda continued to confess to the crime, including a statement that she had taken her parents out that night for their last meal together. By this time, the officers said, she appeared calm.

Lancaster questioned the officers, zeroing in on the question of whether Lucinda actually understood what her rights were. Did Kleinmeir take precautions to see that Lucinda understood that she could have a lawyer present during her confession?

“I read her the rights,” Kleinmeir replied.

“That’s not what I asked you, Officer. Did you ask her if she wanted an attorney with her when she answered your questions?”

“No, sir.”

“Did you ask her if she understood that she didn’t have to say anything to you?”

“No, sir.”

“You did understand that she was sixteen years of age …”

“Yes, sir.”

Lancaster mentally checked off point one: Some courts have held that juveniles in custody must have more explicit warnings of their legal rights.

On to point two: The police had held Lucinda for interrogation without first taking her to a juvenile center or allowing her to talk to friends or guardians. Did any relatives ask to come up and talk to Lucinda? Yes, the officer said, one did, but he didn’t allow him to talk to her.

Lancaster asked Kleinmeir if he knew what they were supposed to do with juveniles under arrest.

“Supposed to take them to juvenile,” the officer said.

“When?”

“Directly after arrest.”

Lancaster checked off point two: The officers had just admitted to a direct violation of the Texas Family Code governing juvenile custody and confession. The judge just couldn’t admit evidence obtained in that manner, Lancaster thought.

“All right, gentlemen,” said Judge Mead evenly. “I’m going to allow this evidence before the jury.” Lancaster slumped in his chair. Despite the slop-piness of police procedure, it would be hard to explain to the jury that federal courts have begun to question the validity of any confession made by a juvenile while in the custody of the police. A kid could easily make up a story just to appease an authority figure. That’s what Lucinda would say she did. It all came down to whether she would be believable when she said it.

The physical evidence was uneventful. No incriminating prints had been lifted. The blood on one of the knives matched Sharon Stout’s. Bobby Stout had been wounded twice, once in the abdomen, once through the back. The only point of dispute was where the blood was found and how it got there. Lancaster got investigating officers to admit that there was no evidence of blood in the back yard or on the back porch. He hoped the jury understood that, because it directly conflicted with Bobby Stout’s story; on the other hand, he hoped they didn’t notice it also conflicted with Lucinda’s story.

The state made much of the fact that blood matching Sharon Stout’s had been found on Lucinda’s shirt and jeans. It was the closest they could get to proving she was the one who held the knife that night. Lancaster asked how Lucinda’s clothes had been transferred from police headquarters to the forensic lab. “In a bag,” the police officer replied. Was it possible that the blood on her shoes, which was unavoidable under the circumstances, rubbed off on her other clothing? “It’s possible,” the officer admitted. It was a small victory, but David Lancaster needed all the encouragement he could get.

The next day, the state called their two best witnesses, Anna Villasana and Bobby Stout.

Anna was composed as Burnham guided her through conversations with Lucinda the week before the crime. The girls had become friends in late 1976. Anna dated Lucinda’s premeditation to the Tuesday before the crime. Lucinda had spent the night with her and had had an argument on the phone with her mother. She told Anna that she would be better off with her parents dead. The next day, Anna said, Lucinda said she would get off for the murders because she was so young. Lucinda said she was going to kill her parents to get their money and their car; she was going to cut them up, put them in a plastic bag, and burn them. On June 9, she told Anna that things had fallen through and she was going to have to wait to kill them.

What did Lucinda say to her the night of June 10, when she and her father came to the grocery store, Burnham asked.

“. . . She told me that she was going to kill them that night and that she had taken them out to dinner. And I … I got real angry with her because she kept on saying that. And I said I was real glad her and her parents were getting along and she took them to dinner. And she told me she took them out for their last supper and that she should be nice to the old folks for the last time.”

And what did Lucinda say later that night when she called?

“I said ’Hello,’ and she said, ’Anna, I did it. I got to my parents. I got to Mama with a knife. I had to drag her in the back yard. She wouldn’t die. I had to use the gun. 1 shot my father.’ “

Jim Burnham smiled.

Lancaster was ready for Anna. “Did you say on August 24, in response to a question by Mr. Gaither, ’I said that she [Lucinda] said “I had to shoot and I killed them – or him” ’?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Would that be in conflict in any way with what you believe to be the truth today?”

“I don’t understand.”

Lancaster moved on. He hoped the jury understood that the State’s key witness had just given her third version of the phone conversation of June 11, 1977.

“Did you have a meeting with your father and Harry Stout that night after you’d been in court that day?”

“Well, after I decided to tell the truth, we went over there because I wanted to tell Mr. Stout.”

“Are your dad and Harry Stout good friends?”

“They’re acquainted; they’re not real good friends.”

“Did you have a conversation with an individual and state to her that ’I have dreamed about this. I don’t know what the facts are. I don’t know what is true and what I have dreamed’?”

“I don’t know.”

“Could you have made that statement?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

Lancaster shifted gears.

“Assuming that August 24 was the day you testified, did you tell anybody prior to August the 24th the truth about these incidents?”

“My mother.”

“And that was the night before?”

“Yes.”

“That’s the only time?”

“I told my father and I told … I told Mary Bolch.”

“When?”

“The morning – June 11th, I think.”

“In that conversation did you tell everything you’ve told us today?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you’re telling us today that you weren’t influenced by your father or by Harry Stout on the 23rd to come down and testify?”

“Well, they didn’t say anything to me, but when I saw Mr. Stout and the things they were saying about him, then I decided within myself to tell the truth.”

Lancaster hoped he’d been able to raise doubts about Anna’s story. Her testimony, after all, was more important than Bobby Stout’s. She was the one person who could prove premeditation.

Bobby Stout took the stand and repeated his story of the night of June 10. He was once again an impressive witness; he appeared to be a simple, hardworking husband and father, a man who’d succeeded despite the handicaps of a teenage marriage and a lack of education. He would be tough to cross-examine.

Lancaster asked Stout if he had talked about Lucinda with his brother David a few days after the crime.

“I think I told David to leave matters alone.”

“What matters was he discussing with you at that time?”

“He didn’t discuss anything. He just said he was going to get an attorney for her.”

“And you told him to leave it alone?”

“Just leave it alone and I’d take care of it once I got back on my feet.”

“Did you ever try to get her an attorney?”

“No, sir.”

Lancaster then tried to get Stout to clear up a discrepancy in testimony. Stout had testified at the certification hearing that he was lying on his right side when he was shot; but in testimony during the trial, he told Burnham he was trying to stand up when he was hit by the second bullet. “Were you getting up or were you lying down?”

“I was getting up.”

“On the date of the certification hearing did you tell your son, Robert Stout, ’If they don’t certify Lucinda they’ll get me’?”

“No, sir. I did not.”

“You did not?”

After hammering away at Stout’s credibility, Lancaster moved to the witness’ extra-marital relationships. Burnham objected strenuously, so Judge Mead decided to hear testimony outside the presence of the jury to make a determination on its admissibility.

“Did you and your wife ever discuss a girl named Angela Creed?” Lancaster asked once the jury had left the room.

“No, sir.”

Lancaster asked Stout if he’d ever had any extramarital affairs. Stout admitted to some he’d had six to nine years earlier.

“So if someone took the witness stand and said that you had told them that you had been going with Angela Creed for the last year and a half prior to June of 1977, they wouldn’t be telling the truth, would they?”

“That’s true.”

Stout admitted to at least two affairs but maintained they had been six years ago.

“When was the last time you saw Elaine prior to June of 1977?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Was it within two weeks, three weeks?”

“It’s been two or three years. Or a year. It’s been quite a long time.”

The next morning, Stout changed his story somewhat.

Lancaster once again asked the witness if he’d had any girlfriends within the past year.

“I had gone out with maybe one or two girls,” Stout admitted.

“But you had no girlfriends?”

“No, sir.”

Lancaster asked again about Angela Creed. Stout admitted that he had taken her out within the past year. Lancaster wrapped up his cross-examination by asking Stout about Sharon’s work schedule that Friday. Stout said she’d gotten up around five; she’d worked at the bank until 4:30 and at his shop for a few more hours.

“And she was still going at approximately 12 that night, is that correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your motion is to offer that into testimony?” Mead asked.

“Yes.” Lancaster had to get Stout’s affairs before the jury now, when it would have the most effect.

“Overruled. Not at this time.”

It was all up to Lucinda.



Lucinda Stout took the stand to a packed house. She was dressed in a simple cotton dress; her hair was neatly combed. She was calm as she repeated her name to David Lancaster.

Lucinda testified that she had stayed overnight at Anna Villasana’s the Tuesday before the murder. She said she’d gotten in trouble with her parents because she didn’t get up the next morning and go to work. Her father had grounded her for two weeks.

She denied that she had talked to Anna on either Wednesday or Thursday of that week. She said the first time she talked to her was Friday night about 10 at the grocery store.

“Had you ever talked to Anna about killing your mother or father?” Lancaster asked.

“No, sir.”

“Did you have any reason to kill your mother or father on June 6, 1977?”

“No, sir.”

On Friday, June 10, she said, she watched television by herself. Her brother Robert came home about 6, then left with some relatives. Her parents came home about 8. A little later, they went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner.

After they left the restaurant, Lucinda and her father dropped Mrs. Stout off at home and went to the Villasana grocery store. Her father left the store for about an hour and a half. When he returned they left for home, where they unloaded the meat and began carving it.

“Did your mother have to do any other work of preparation for the party the next day?”

“Yes, she did.”

“What else did she have to do?”

“Make the things like potato salad and things like that.”

“She didn’t really want to do that, did she?”

“No, she didn’t.”

Lucinda said she then went to her room. When she came back to the kitchen, she picked up some scraps in the sink to take to the dog.

“I went around and I opened up the back door and 1 heard a scream and so I came around and got the gun out of my father’s nightstand and then I came back around into the living room – into the dining room and when I got back around my dad was coming in the door. He had the knife in his hand. After he saw me he kind of stopped for a minute and he saw the gun in my hand so he stopped and he kept telling me to put it down and I wouldn’t . . . and he had the knife and I had the gun and we just kind of stood there for a minute and then my mom came in the back door and he turned around and 1 saw her and she was real panic-stricken and everything and so I shot him twice.”

“Why did you shoot him?”

“Because he had a bloody knife in his hand and my mom looked real bad, you know, she looked like she’d been hurt.”

Lucinda said she then walked over and kicked the knife out of her father’s reach. At this point he told her to “take all the responsibility because nobody, you know, would hurt me or anything and that he wanted … he was going to take care of me and all that.”

“Did he mention anything about how long or what kind of trouble you could get into?”

“No, he did not. He just said nobody was going to hurt me or anything.”

“Did you know anything about the juvenile legal system at that time?”

“No, I didn’t.”

Lucinda said he told her to take the keys to the car, get some money and go hide. She called Anna Villasana and had a “five or six” word conversation, then got in the car and “drove around, by a couple friends’ house, but I didn’t stop.” She came back and found her father at the neighbor’s house.

“I told him that I was going to do what he said and that 1 loved him. And then the paramedic came back to the house and told me I’d have to get out of the way.”

The police came in with her neighbor, Lucinda said, and took her by the arm out to the patrol car. Did they read her her rights? Yes. Did she understand what they were talking about? No.

“What made you talk to those police officers?”

“They didn’t look like they wanted to play around with me too much, so they just kept asking questions.”

“And you just kept telling them?”

“Uh huh.”

“What made you decide to protect your father in this matter?”

“Well, because I love him very much, for one thing and 1 felt bad about shooting him, so when you’re in that state, you do things for people that you love.”

“We pass the witness.”

The defense had failed to get Bobby Stout on any count; he’d been believable. That, coupled with Lucinda’s confession, had all but cinched the case for the prosecution. But Burnham still felt he had to get tough with Lucinda Stout.

“Did you ever tell Anna or have a conversation with her about putting turpentine in your mother’s lemonade and turpentine in your dad’s beer?”

“No, sir, I didn’t.”

Lucinda had no criminal record; Burn-ham reached back for a minor incident of the year before.

“Who did you run away from home with?”

“Three other people. Donna Drake, David Bethel, and I don’t know the other guy’s name because I hadn’t met him before.”

“And your mother wouldn’t let you go out one night and you got mad and decided to run away, is that right?”

“If you want to put it that way.”

“Well, you put it any way you want. Why did you run away? Because she wouldn’t let you go out with the people late at night?”

“It wasn’t late at night.”

“You never told Donna Drake that you ought to kill your parents or something to that effect?”

“No, sir.”

“Never even said it in jest or jokingly.”

“Not that I can remember.”

“Well, could you have said it?”

“Possibly.”

Why had Lucinda not called the police?

“The police don’t come to my mind when things happen.”

How about an ambulance?

“My mother never said anything so as far as I knew she was dead.”

“You really hated your dad, didn’t you?”

“No, sir.”

“Huh?”

“I said no, sir.”

“You put two bullets in his back.”

“Well, I assumed he was going to try to hurt me.”

“Why did you call Anna Villasana?”

“I don’t know.”

“Just for reflex?”

“First number that came to my mind.”

Now Burnham prodded harder. David Lancaster could see that Lucinda, who until now had been cool, almost icy, was breaking under Burnham’s relentless questioning.

“But you weren’t worried about calling the police and getting them over there and getting your dad arrested so they could take him to jail for killing your mother?”

“I didn’t have any proof that he had touched her.”

“And you weren’t worrying about your mother going to the hospital, were you?”

“Sir, my mother, I assumed, was dead because she wasn’t breathing. Usually, when people don’t breathe, they’re not alive.”

“How could you tell she wasn’t breathing?”

“You can see someone, when they’re breathing, move.”

“Well, how?”

“Don’t you know how you breathe?”

“All right. You hate your dad so much that now you want to blame him for this crime, don’t you?”

“No, sir, my . . .”

“You’re not finished with them yet, are you? You’re not going to be satisfied …”

Steve Amis objected.

“Let her answer the question,” Judge Mead responded.

“You’re not going to be satisfied till you can put this on your dad, are you? That’s how much you hate your parents. You killed one and now you want to put it on your dad . . .”

“No . . .”

“. . . isn’t that the truth of it? Huh?”

“You finished?” Lucinda’s anger flashed forth.

“Yeah, I’m finished.”

“Okay, that’s incorrect.”

Lancaster tried to calm his witness: “You’re a bit nervous, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not your normal self right now, are you?”

“No.”

“If you’d wanted to kill your father could you have shot him again?”

“Yes, I could have.”

Lancaster scanned the jury as Lucinda stepped down. It was hard to tell; it was always hard to tell. Burnham had badgered her, but he hadn’t caught Lucinda in any lies. Except for her brief outburst, she had been a calm, deliberate, almost dispassionate witness.

That could cut two ways. Either her calm appearance had impressed the jurors that she was an intelligent, responsible girl, or it had given them evidence that she was a cold-hearted killer.

Lancaster then called Lucinda’s brother to the stand. Once again, Mead wanted to hear the testimony before allowing it before the jury; this time he ruled it admissible. Robert Stout came to the stand with the confidence of a man who had something to say. Robert had been working for his father at the time the crimes were committed. He said that on the afternoon of June 10, 1977, his father had left the shop about 3 o’clock. “Do you know who he left with?” Lancaster asked.

“A paint salesman.”

“Was this a man or a woman?”

“A woman.”

Robert further testified that his father had returned about 5:30. He said his mother had arrived to do the books about half an hour earlier. “When your father got back, did he have someone with him?”

“Yes, sir. The same lady.”

Robert said that his father and mother had subsequently gone into the office of the shop and talked. He couldn’t hear them. His father came out “upset.” His mother, he said, was also upset. Why?

“Because my dad wasn’t there when she got there.”

“Were they preparing for a party the next day?”

“Yes, sir.”

Lancaster guided the boy through his recollections of family quarrels. Robert said that his mother hadn’t allowed any members of his father’s side of the family into the house for at least four or five years.

“Did you know Angela Creed?”

“Yes.”

Robert said he’d seen Angela at his dad’s shop. He further said that about a month after he had gotten out of the hospital, his father had a picture of Angela Creed on the desk in his office.

“Had you seen the same Angela Creed at the hospital?”

“Yes, sir. It was about three days after they had moved him out of intensive care when they moved him into a private room.”

“And what was she doing?”

“Feeding him ice cream.”

Robert testified that his father had told him in the hospital that if Lucinda was found innocent, he would be the one found guilty.

“Did you have a conversation with your Dad after that?”

“Yes. He wanted to know whose side I was on. Told him I wasn’t on anyone’s side.”

“You love your father, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

“Do you love your sister?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you’re not going to lie for either one of them, are you?”

“No, sir.”

Burnham cross-examined aggressively. “Are you upset with your dad because he wants your sister prosecuted for this offense, wants her punished for what she’s done?”

“I don’t agree with his opinion. I don’t think the penitentiary would help her.”

Burnham asked if Robert had ever been at odds with his father before: “. . . you know, you can’t be a perfect son unless you have a perfect father.” He got Robert to admit his father had been upset about “a problem with drugs.” Burnham then pounded at the boy’s failure to testify to the same facts at the certification hearing: “You didn’t think it was important?”

“I don’t know what I thought. They didn’t ask me and I did not . . .”



David Stout was called to the stand. He didn’t want to take sides either. The past six months had shattered the Stout family: Cousins, uncles, aunts, grandmothers, and even friends had been asked to take sides either for Lucinda or for Bobby. It had even turned brother against brother. David Stout still didn’t know what had gone on out there that night. But he knew what he had to do.

David described how Bobby had told him about Angela Creed. His impression was that they were dating. He said he had talked to Bobby in the hospital and that all Bobby had said was “What did Lucinda say?”

“Did he ever mention any sorrow whatsoever that Sharon was dead?”

“He … he kind of broke down one time in the hospital and said something. He repeated Sharon’s name, but that was the only time I ever saw him.”

Burnham said he had a couple of questions. David said he was presently employed at his craft, hair styling. He said he worked out of his home and also made house calls.

Previously he had worked at the Quadrant Health Club as a barber, had owned part of a topless bar on Greenville, and had run a barber shop at the Fairmont Hotel. “After he [Bobby] got in the hospital, did you ever go down there and open up his business and try and run it?”

“No. I went down there and opened it up to help my nephew deliver a couple of trucks.”

“… you thought you were going to be in charge of his financial affairs at this time, didn’t you?”

“No, sir.”

“As far as you were concerned, did you think there were any family problems out there at the Stout home?”

“Not more than the average.”

Lancaster came back on redirect. David said he was disappointed in his brother because he thought he and his family were a lot tighter. “Did Bobby Stout pay any money on that donation that was taken up to retain me [as Lucinda’s lawyer]?” Lancaster asked.

“No.”

Anthony Karl, Sharon Stout’s brother, took the stand and testified that Bobby Stout had once told him he’d “had an affair with her [Angela] off and on, that he’d gotten caught because Angela had called Sharon and admitted it and said that she wasn’t going to see him anymore because she wouldn’t want it to happen to her.” That would be all Lancaster would get in before the jury. Mead ruled the following testimony hearsay: Karl said Bobby Stout had mentioned two girlfriends to him on several occasions: A “Gayle” and a “Cathy.” He said that Stout would take the girlfriends to the Jet Set International Club or the Pendulum Club.

“What kind of club is the Jet Set International?”

“Swingers club and swapping.”

Karl said the last time Bobby Stout had been there was a year and a half ago. Did Sharon know about Angela?

“Yes.”

“She’d . . . they’d argued from time to time about that, you know, and accusations would go back and forth; he’d accused her of infidelities also.”

Burnham was allowed to bring on three rebuttal witnesses: Lucinda’s friends, Donna Drake, Chris Burt, and Mary Bolch. Donna Drake testified that Luanda once told her she could kill her parents. Chris Burt said he’d talked to Lucinda a week before the crime. She had said she ought to kill her parents. Mary Bolch testified that the morning after the crimes, Anna confided the content of her phone conversation with Lucinda.

Lancaster objected to the last as hearsay and bolstering – supporting the statements of an unimpeached witness with second-hand knowledge. Mead overruled.

Lancaster was down to his last gambit. Earlier in the day he’d caused something of a stir by handwriting a subpoena for Angela Creed. Steve Amis had been trying to find her for a week. No one knew where she was. Though deputies couldn’t track her down, somehow the DA’s office had managed to find her. When Lancaster had seen her sitting in one of the prosecutors’ offices, he had known it would do no good to put her on the stand.

He called his last witness, Sharon’s mother, Nora Jo Karl.

Mrs. Karl said Bobby told her in the hospital he and Sharon had been “quarrelling bad over that girl lately.” At the time she thought he meant Lucinda. Bobby never expressed any sorrow over Sharon’s death to her, and never talked about Lucinda.

Bobby said he was upset with his brother David because “he wanted to hire the highest-priced lawyer in town for Lucinda and him pay the bill.” Mrs. Karl was sure she had noticed a swelling on the lower right of Sharon’s face when she saw the body that night. She added that all the business affairs of the Stout household were handled by Sharon, not Bobby.

Burnham found a feisty foe in Mrs. Karl. “You dislike him because he’s Mexican-American, don’t you?”

“No, sir. I do not.”

“I’m asking you if you called him a greaser or a spick and disliked him for that reason?”

“Keep your voice down.”

“No, I’ll do the talking, Mrs. Karl. I’m asking you that question.”

“No.”

Judge Mead had informally agreed before the trial began to end proceedings at five each day so that Lancaster could get a good night’s sleep. Lancaster was glad he didn’t have to make final arguments until the morning. The summation would be important; he could imply things that hadn’t been allowed in evidence. He could point out that Lucinda was a smart, well-liked little girl.

“We’ll take a break,” Mead said, “and then we’ll argue starting at about 6:30.” Suddenly David Lancaster was tired, very tired.



On March 7, 1978, a Dallas County jury made a footnote in legal history by convicting a 16-year-old girl of murder. Now, in the sentencing process, Lancaster knew that he had to appeal to the jury’s best instincts – to evoke sympathy for his client. He knew that wouldn’t be easy because his defense had been unmitigated. They hadn’t pled temporary insanity, justifiable manslaughter or self-defense in the stabbing of Sharon Stout; they’d simply asked the jury to believe the daughter instead of the father. Now Lancaster feared that the jury would look at punishment in the same simple way, and return the State’s requested 99-year sentence.

Lancaster called psychologist George Mount to the stand. He hoped that Mount’s test results could convince the jury that Lucinda Stout was not a threat to society. Mount said his opinion was that Lucinda suffered from marked anxiety, depression, and a poor self-concept. Intellectually, she was in the superior range. His prognosis for her was good.

But Burnham also got the doctor to admit that his test showed Lucinda to have a “psychopathic deviance.” It was, however, in the “normal” range for an adolescent. Lancaster redirected: “Did the testing indicate anything that would lead you to believe that she would be a sociopath?”

“No, sir.”

Lancaster recalled Mary Bolch. She said she considered herself one of Luanda’s “very best friends.” She said Lucinda was in Junior Achievement, played the violin, sang in the Texas Girls Choir and was a good student. She also said that sometimes Anna Villasana lied.

Burnham called Dr. James Grigson to the stand. As a long-time defense attorney, David Lancaster knew a thing or two about Grigson. He was the bane of any defense counsel’s existence. He was highly regarded in his profession, but he had a controversial theory of criminal behavior: He felt that in many cases a sociopathic personality could be determined by the basic range of psychological tests. There were several other highly regarded psychiatrists who disputed Grigson’s theory, and Lancaster planned to remind the jury of that.

Burnham: “Doctor, would you tell us what your diagnosis of the defendant is?”

“She has or is a sociopathic personality.” Grigson explained that sociopathol-ogy is not an illness. It is a term to describe individuals who have an absence of conscience, tend to blame others for their conduct, and have a high need for self-gratification.

“They are manipulators and con artists,” Grigson said.

He said Lucinda Stout’s future behavior would be based on her past behavior. “She’s as severe as you find,” Grigson said.

“You’ll stake your professional reputation on that, Doctor?” Lancaster queried.

“Yes, sir, I certainly would.”

Lancaster asked him if he knew about a study by a Massachusetts psychiatrist, Harry Kozol, considered by many to be the definitive assessment of sociopathol-ogy. It disputes Grigson’s methodology on just about every count. Can a simple hour-and-half exam provide the basis for categorizing an individual as a sociopath? Grigson said it depended, but in some cases it would. “Well, Doctor, if Kozol says that given the best of everything – studies, work-ups, prior history, and everything else, that only 38 percent of the time they [sociopaths] could be predicted, would that be wrong?”

“I think it would depend on the experience of the particular examiner.”

“How much money have you made from the State in the last year?”

“… I made $53,535.”

“It scares me that you would categorize this individual as a sociopath without any further examination. You’re definitely positive?”

“Well, this is like having a broken leg with two ends of the bone sticking out. It is a very straightforward, very classical case.”

Lancaster didn’t know how much damage he’d done. Psychiatric testimony was always tough: Jurors, confused by the facts and the evidence, often found psychiatric testimony like Grigson’s all the reason they needed to make a black-and-white decision.

Lucinda Stout was handed 99 years in prison for the murder of her mother. That means that at best, she could be paroled in some 10 years, when she’s 26. Because of her age, and the severity of the sentence, the appeal process captured almost as much attention as the trial.

When Houston super-lawyer Richard “Racehorse” Haynes agreed to take on the appeal of Lucinda Stout he had questioned David Lancaster about his ailment. David admitted it had affected him and signed an affidavit which stated he had “not been in top shape” during the trial, especially during final argument.

But Lancaster regretted signing the affidavit when he saw how it looked in the headlines. Haynes had gone to John Mead’s court the day before and moved for a new trial, principally on the grounds that Lancaster’s impairment was so great “the court should have exercised its authority to remove” him. David Lancaster had wanted to do what was right for Lucinda’s appellate chances, and it was a fact that he was dog tired the evening he had to argue Lucinda’s case.

But it sounded all wrong. It sounded like he’d been mentally affected, when he had only been physically exhausted at a couple of times. He’d put up the best defense he could think of for Lucinda Stout. The deck had been stacked against her from the beginning. Big M’s just don’t get acquitted without a little luck.

He hadn’t wanted all the publicity in the first place. A favor to a friend had turned into six months of the toughest criminal work he’d ever done, for a court-appointed attorney’s fee of $3,000.

Sometimes just thinking about it could make David Lancaster tired, very tired.



In early 1979, the murder conviction of Lucinda Stout was presented to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. The appeal, prepared and argued by Racehorse Haynes and Houston attorney Randy Schaffer, raised two large questions. One: Lucinda Stout’s confession on June 11 was inadmissible because it violated two sections of the Texas Family Code and two areas of federal warnings rights law. In laymen’s terms, the lawyers were claiming that juveniles’ rights in an arrest situation are special: They not only have to be read their rights, they must have the rights explained. They have the right to demand that an adult – a parent, guardian, lawyer, or juvenile officer – be present.

By implication, they were raising an even larger question: Can a juvenile be arrested under one set of privileges and then tried and convicted under another? In other words, could Lucinda Stout’s confession to the police, which would have been inadmissible in juvenile court, be used once she had been certified for trial as an adult? If so, doesn’t the very notion of certification amount to a Catch 22?

Second: They questioned the psychiatrie testimony at the trial. In their brief, Schaffer and Haynes claimed that the testimony of Dr. James Grigson was inadmissible because the psychological test was based on a compulsory examination order by the juvenile court. To use it at the punishment stage of an adult criminal trial was a violation of Luanda’s constitutional rights. Grigson had been appointed to test Lucinda Stout only “to assist the juvenile court to determine her competency, maturity, and sophistication.” When he subsequently was allowed to testify to her purported sociopathic personality and potential for future violence, the result was a 99-year sentence. Moreover, they claimed defense counsel had not been adequately warned that Grigson would testify, adversely affecting cross-examination.

This objection was based, in part, on a landmark decision by Dallas Federal District Judge Robert Porter last year. In Smith v. Estelle, an appeal involving an armed robber whose conviction was based on similar testimony by Grigson, Porter wrote: “Even a cursory review of the psychiatric literature reveals the psychiatrists differ widely in their diagnosis of the same patients. The testimony of psychiatric experts is receiving increased judicial scrutiny because of its unreliable and invalid nature.” Porter cited one study in which the doctors were wrong on two out of three patients they diagnosed for dangerousness or sociopathology.

The appeal of Lucinda Stout was turned down only two months later. The attorneys have requested a rehearing before the full court; if that fails, they will pursue possible means of federal appeal. The trial and punishment of Lucinda Stout is not likely to end any time soon.

Most nights, the young man is working. It’s not a great job, but he’s trying to save enough to go to flying school. He’d like to give it a whirl, he says. He’s got nothing to lose.

He is the image of his sister. The hair is thick and coal black, the mouth delicate but firm. He says it took him a long time to accept it all – the feuding, the recriminations. It was a bad dream that he just couldn’t shake.

But the young man visits his sister as often as he can, and he is glad to see she is holding up so well. He still doesn’t understand how somebody can send a kid to prison.

The young man really doesn’t have an explanation for it. He doesn’t really know what it all means. But he knows that everyone with the name of Stout is paying a price for whatever happened in June 1977.