A Trout In The Milk
Profiles In Prosecution
by
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Cupid shoots mythological arrows with hearts for tips to inspire love. O shoots murderous bullets with lead tips to puncture a trusting heart. "Happy Valentine's Day, My Dearest -- with malice!" It seems like a marriage made in heaven. Friends think it is moonlight and roses and endless love. T believes the union will be a blissful happiness ever after. But the union of hand and heart must have two helping hands and two loving hearts. The union of O and T is two minus one. One loving trusting heart. One hateful suspicious heart. There is no union here. Only disunion! Not happpily bethrothed. Maliciously betrayed! Two days before Valentine's Day, O calls T at her workplace. He proposes over the land wire. Not marriage, they're already married. But there's been a spat, an emotional estrangement. He proposes a truce, says they need to warm the chill. Let's meet at our apartment off Eastern Avenue, and go out to dinner together. [His idea not hers.] It's to be a Pre-Valentine's Day affair. An evening of demure amour, says he. An opportunity to share some special time. A chance to renew our pledge of everlasting love. "Some wine as we dine and who knows? We'll let love's sweet flowering take us to whatever a night in the season of romance bequeaths." She's thrilled! He's not. He's thinking, "Being wed is like being dead!" It's a sharp contrast in mind-set. There's no connect here. The poposal is a pretext, but-the-date-is-made. T leaves work a little early. She hurries home, nevertheless, she must park in the dark. A cold wind is blowing, and it's a moonless evening. She braces herself, begins to walk, and approaches the corner of the building next to their apartment. There's a narrow alley here. She shivers as she reaches the opening, it's chilly -- but she's inexplicably apprehensive too. Intuitive? He's waiting in the darkness, and it's not to greet her with a hug and a lingering kiss. It isn't to wine and dine her on a dinner date. It isn't to renew their pledge of everlasting love. No, it isn't to let love's fragile flower bloom in the ambiance of tender courtship. He's brought a peculiar prop to the rendevous site. He's waiting with a gun.
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About the Book
"Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk." (Henry David Thoreau) There are two great branches of evidence in a Criminal Case. They are direct evidence and circumstantial evidence. The meaning of direct evidence is as plain as the nose on your face. A first grader can easily grasp the concept. Whatever a person perceives with any of his physical senses is direct evidence. If you see a crime happen that is direct evidence. And if you smell it or touch it or taste it or hear it as it happens -- that is also direct evidence. Everything else is circumstantial. Therefore, the meaning of circumstantial evidence is easily comprehended and just as easily categorized. If it isn't direct evidence it's circumstantial evidence. And if there's a trout in a can of milk, we know the farmer has dipped his can into a stream of water. We didn't see him do it, but we know the squiggly rainbow didn't come from a cow's udder. The finned scrapper getting his first taste of milk is irrefutable circumstantial evidence of dairy farmer duplicity!
About the Author
Mel Harmon is a retired Trial Lawyer. Employed by the Clark County District Attorney's Office in Las Vegas, Nevada for twenty nine years. Serving as Chief Deputy in charge of the Major Violator's Unit for sixteen years. During his career he handled nearly 300 felony trials, which includes 136 Murder Trials. Probably, no Prosecutor in the United States has exceeded this number. He is uniquely qualified to discuss the prosecution of murder cases. He is well known in the State of Nevada, particularly in the Las Vegas area. He has participated over the years in many high-profile cases that received extensive news coverage. The Governor proclaimed both March 1, 1989 and October 26, 1996 as Mel Harmon Days in recognition of his professional stature. He also recived the State Bar of Nevada Distinguished Public Lawyer Award for "expertise, dedication and extraordinary service to the people of Nevada as a Public Lawyer" in November, 1992. Moreover, he was awarded the William J. Raggio outstanding Prosecutor in the State Award on September 23, 2004. He has been married to his wife for 48 years, and they are the parents of four children and six grandchildren.