Word: hartzler
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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From the moment he described the kind gesture of little Elijah Coverdale, Hartzler and his team have held the courtroom rapt, mixing sentiment with a crisp presentation of damning evidence. When he rests his case early this week, Hartzler will be able to look back on a prosecution that has performed almost without flaw. McVeigh's friend Michael Fortier, the government's key witness, testified convincingly that McVeigh planned the bombing; the witness who says he rented McVeigh the Ryder truck used in the bombing identified him without hesitation; the technical testimony has been pithy. There have also been some...
...Hartzler's skills were well displayed in his handling of Michael Fortier. All along Fortier was going to be a problematic witness. After McVeigh's arrest, he had lied repeatedly; he had bragged in telephone calls--taped by the FBI--about how he was going to make money off the case; and he was generally an unsavory character, unemployed and an admitted drug abuser. When he showed up in court, though, he looked very different from the way he did two years ago. His hair was cut; his face was clean-shaven; his ears were without earrings. He wore...
This kind of makeover of an unsympathetic witness is standard, but Fortier had been groomed in other ways. Hartzler spent 100 hours preparing him for his time on the stand. As a result, Fortier responded forthrightly to Hartzler's questions, and to Jones' too. He described how McVeigh served as best man at his wedding, held at a Las Vegas casino in July 1994. Soon afterward, Fortier said, McVeigh began to talk about taking "positive, offensive action" against the government. A plan began to take shape. By October, McVeigh and Terry Nichols had chosen a target: the federal building...
...Hartzler's questioning was so effective that Matsch instructed the jurors to keep an open mind during the cross-examination. When his turn came, Jones went after Fortier using transcripts of the telephone calls the FBI had taped. "[D]idn't you say, 'I want to wait until after the trial and do a book and movie rights...Something that's worth the Enquirer?'...You talked about a million dollars, and it just rolled off your tongue, didn't it?" Fortier quietly answered, "Yes." Sarcastic and sneering, Jones made cracks in Fortier's character, but he did not shake...
...What's the objection?" Matsch growled, when prosecutor Joseph Hartzler raised one amid the Oklahoma-bombing proceedings. At mid-sentence, Matsch cut him off: "There is no basis in that! Overruled!" Hartzler offered no challenge. Says Bob Miller, a Denver lawyer: "He doesn't allow the government to wear the white hat." While Matsch has allowed McVeigh's defense a number of procedural victories, the judge remains tough with Jones and his associates. During jury selection, he berated a defense lawyer, calling his questioning "incomprehensible." The judge, who lost a daughter in a freak accident in 1992, has not gone...