As a jury acquitted Ray Lewis' companions of double murder this week, Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard stared at the one spot in the courtroom where no one was looking back.

Three defendants had been accused of a brutal double homicide on a Buckhead street. One was headed back to the football field. His two companions, high-fiving it in the courtroom, were headed back to Buckhead, this time to the Gold Club where they would celebrate their freedom. 

As the defendants wept and laughed, Howard rested his chin on his fist and continued to stare at a spot midway between the judge's bench and the witness stand, as if it might tell him where his case had gone wrong. When he had persuaded a grand jury in February to indict Lewis along with his friends, Joseph L. Sweeting and Reginald Oakley, Howard was convinced he had the evidence to send all three to prison for the murders of Richard Lollar and Jacinth Baker. Instead, Howard would find he had built his case on the shifting sands of conflicting eyewitness testimony. 

It was a "rush to judgment" driven by the impatient glare of national media, says Bruce S. Harvey, Oakley's defense attorney. But the acquittals weren't inevitable. At several points along the way, prosecutors had the opportunity to make a different call that might have led to convictions for the Buckhead murders. 

The arrest of Ray Lewis 

Everything Ray Lewis said as a state's witness he would have said before his arrest. After initially misleading police in a statement riddled with evasions, he offers to come clean. But Lewis's bloody, bullet-riddled limousine, his bloody hotel room and lies to police convince Howard he has a solid case against a celebrity suspect. 

Howard: "They [police] had already been misled by him. Why should they believe him when he says, 'I'm going to make another statement'?" Lewis attorney Max C. Richardson Jr.: "He doesn't know who stabbed who but he can tell you everything else….We would have done anything to get Ray out of jail." 

Jacinth Baker and Richard Lollar had been dead just 14 hours when Atlanta Police Detective Ken Allen, a homicide investigator just three months, was summoned to brief his superiors. What he had was promising. And all of it pointed to Ray Lewis. Police had located a black Navigator limousine that had been spotted driving away from the fight scene on East Paces Ferry Road while Lollar and Baker lay dying in the street. Several bullets had struck the limousine. The driver, Duane Fassett, had been "evasive and untruthful" until police handcuffed him and told him two people were dead, according to a police report. Fassett reluctantly named Lewis as a participant in the brawl and told police of two other men, whose names he didn't know. 

By then, police had found a knife abandoned near the victims' bodies and blood throughout Lewis' limousine. A two-hour interview with Lewis at the Norcross home of his fiancee's aunt convinced police the football player was lying. Police commanders and the chief decided to get a warrant charging Lewis with murder. But Lewis was having second thoughts. At the same time a city magistrate judge was signing the warrants, Lewis paged a police detective from his attorney's Duluth home and left a message that he wanted to talk. Lewis decided "he wanted to come clean," Richardson says. "He wanted to tell them exactly what happened. He wanted to clean up any inconsistencies…. I had advised Ray to be totally cooperative with the police, to tell them everything he would have told them if he had to testify at trial." 

When police returned Lewis' page, he told them he was ready to talk. "Who stabbed who?" police asked, according to Richardson. "Ray never saw anybody with a knife," Richardson says. "They asked that one isolated question over the phone, 'Who did the stabbing?'. …They wanted us to give them names." A short time later, police showed up at the attorney's home and arrested Lewis. "Here we are trying to cooperate and tell them what happened," Richardson says. "I think they assumed that because Ray couldn't tell them who stabbed whom, he was lying." Richardson was right. "I don't think police had any right to believe he [Lewis] would cooperate," Howard says. "They had already been misled by him. Why should we waste more time talking to this guy?" 

The News Conference

Stung by an Atlanta Journal-Constitution column and national media criticism, Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell calls a news conference. The nation watches as Campbell declares that Lewis' celebrity will not allow him to escape justice in Atlanta. There will be no deal for the star Baltimore Ravens linebackeer or his friends who were, Campbell says, "literally dripping with blood." Defense attorneys proclaim Lewis' innocence. Howard: "The people in Baltimore and all around the country were criticizing the people in Atlanta…We were all racists, and we were all rednecks, and we all wore overalls." 

Defense lawyer Edward T.M. Garland: "Ray Lewis didn't see who committed the stabbings." Amid a storm of national publicity, police continued their investigation, struggling to identify the other members of Lewis' entourage and the two men that Fassett had identified only with a nickname. No one came forward. By week's end, police had secured Oakley's and Sweeting's names from the pair's hotel and travel reservations. Police detectives had confirmed that Sweeting had bought three knives-one of which was identical to the weapon found at the crime scene-the day before the murders. Detectives also had information not admissible in court that led them to believe that Sweeting and Oakley were capable of killing. A caller told police detectives that a friend had been at the Holiday Inn after the brawl. A man police later identified as Sweeting had "been fooling around with a butterfly knife." Members of Lewis' entourage had stuffed their bloody clothes in a duffel bag after the brawl, the friend said. 

Detectives had searched Lewis' home in Baltimore. One of the occupants at Lewis's home told police that a photo seized there included a picture of the killer. It was a photo of Lewis with Sweeting. "Unk' likes to play with knives, " the resident said, using one of Sweeting's nicknames. Florida police contacted by Atlanta authorities had also identified Sweeting as a suspected member of a drug gang. He had been a suspect, but was never charged, in several drug-related homicides. Sweeting was also a convicted auto thief and had spent time in a federal prison for possession of a gun as a convicted felon. 

By then Fassett, the limousine driver, had elaborated on his original story and was implicating Lewis, Sweeting and Oakley as the victims' assailants. According to Fassett, as the brawl ended, Lewis warned everyone, "Keep your [expletive] mouths shut. My football career ain't gonna end like this." It was clearly enough for probable cause. In the meantime, police were being criticized because they wouldn't discuss the investigation. Howard says he had never heard of Lewis before the murder and the national media interest surprised him. Howard says the mayor asked, "Don't we have some obligation to the public to let them know what is going on?" 

On Feb. 10, Campbell called a press conference. Howard went along. The mayor vows the investigation "will not be swayed by fame or status or wealth of the suspect. "We will not," Campbell insisted, "allow wealth or fame or celebrity to pervert justice." 

The Indictment

A grand jury indicts Lewis, Sweeting and Oakley, leapfrogging a scheduled preliminary hearing. Lewis remains in jail, and police in three states are still searching for his friends. Defense lawyers raise the stakes and demand a speedy trial, wagering that police don't have as strong a case as they say. Lewis defense lawyer Donald F. Samuel: "He didn't have to indict. There's no statute of limitation on murder." 

Howard: "This is what we always try to do is to move cases like this with dispatch. If the evidence shows that we ought to move against someone then we should do it." With only Lewis in custody, Howard persuaded a grand jury to indict the football player and his two friends. The day after Campbell's news conference, Howard called a news conference of his own to announce that Lewis, Sweeting and Oakley now face murder, felony murder and aggravated assault charges. 

Indicting the trio so quickly was a gamble that Howard didn't have to make, Lewis defense lawyer Donald F. Samuel says. Lewis, he says, wasn't going anywhere. What would a professional football player with a $27 million contract have to gain by running? Avoiding the preliminary hearing was an example of outdated thinking held over from the days when they were a defense lawyer's only shot at determining what evidence a prosecutor had against a client, Samuel says. "Under open discovery, who cares?," he says. The defense has access to witness statements and to all the evidence against their clients prior to trial. "He [Howard] would have lost nothing from the preliminary hearing." And he would have bought his investigators time. 

Even with a speedy trial motion, a two-week wait to indict would have bought him an additional six weeks to investigate the case. In Fulton County, once a speedy trial motion has been entered, prosecutors must try the case before the end of the next two-month term. By presenting Lewis' indictment to the grand jury in mid-February, Howard ensured that a speedy trial would have to occur before June 30. But because a new trial term began March 1, if Howard had waited two weeks, he could have delayed the trial, even with a speedy trial motion, until August. Howard says he didn't need it. Police had plenty on Ray Lewis, he says. By then, crime analysts had told prosecutors privately that Baker's blood had been found in the limousine and in Lewis's hotel room.

And investigators were still counting on Fassett, whose story improved each time he told it. "When you've got significant evidence, you move forward," Howard says. Lewis' lawyers continued to try to contact prosecutors with offers to identify the limousine's occupants the night of the brawl, Samuel says. But prosecutors never responded, he says. Instead, Howard told a police detective to call. Samuel says the detective tells Garland, "The D.A. won't be calling back." 

"Irate didn't begin to describe" Garland's reaction, Samuel says. "He was above the ceiling tiles…. The defendant is saying he wants to come clean, and the district attorney won't talk." Lewis' lawyers wanted a speedy trial, hoping to clear him before the football season began. Demanding a speedy trial once the indictment was handed down, "wasn't a gamble for us," he says. "We had the money. From the very beginning, we knew we had a good chance of winning. … We had four dedicated private investigators. We could get ready for trial as fast if not faster than they could." 

Turning Point: The Bond Hearing

Three days after he was indicted, Lewis asks a judge for bond. Prosecutors hope to keep Lewis behind bars, sure that the time in jail will pressure him to squeal and deal. Lewis wins bail. Meanwhile, defense lawyers discover the first signs of a crack in the prosecution's case-the limousine driver, Fassett. Sweeting defense lawyer Steven H. Sadow: "I figured the pressure would be on Ray to cut a deal. Under indictment for murder in conjunction with no hope of bond, they [prosecutors] figured he would turn in a heartbeat." Richardson: Fassett was "obviously a very insecure individual, very nervous, very weak. . . .I saw his statements, and all of them were inconsistent." Howard: "A good part of our problems started at the bond hearing." Three days after he was indicted, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Doris L. Downs set bail for Lewis and handed Howard his first defeat. "It was his [Howard's] hope and desire that Lewis would be detained or denied bond," says Sadow, who was negotiating Sweeting's surrender to law enforcement authorities. "Therefore, he [Lewis] would immediately have to work out a plea." Howard acknowledges, "We lost some leverage in terms of our negotiations" with Lewis after he posted bond. 

Lewis's release from jail-even on a $1 million bond, created a public perception that the judge was second-guessing prosecutors, Howard says. "Part of the perception of this guy is that he is not accountable….. I believe a lot of it started with the bond hearing." The first intimation that there might be weaknesses in the prosecution's case surfaced that day. Prosecutors never called Fassett- their star witness on whose statements they had based Lewis' arrest. And they bitterly fought defense lawyers' attempts to ask a police detective what Fassett had said. "I saw his statements," Richardson recalls, "and all of them were inconsistent. He was all over the state of Georgia."

The Suppression Hearing: Another Win for the Defense

A week before the murder trial is scheduled to begin, Howard decides he wants to talk to defense lawyers. Previously unapproachable, he's now offering deals. Howard: "I wanted to get one of them to start talking about the other two." Samuel: "He [Howard] said, 'I'm going to make a deal with Oakley.'" On May 1, prosecutors were handed their second pre-trial defeat. Fulton Superior Court Judge Alice Bonner refused to allow them to tell a jury about Lewis's prior scrapes with police-none of which had resulted in jail or a criminal conviction.

By now, defense lawyers-who had been interviewing Howard's witnesses -were convinced the state's case is weak. Samuel says the surfacing descriptions of the brawl were akin to having 22 drunk players on a field with no lights and no instant replay. "Now tell me where the tight end went." The limousine's occupants, who police were slowly identifying, were retaining lawyers and refusing to talk to prosecutors without immunity deals.  The GBI analysis of blood swabs from the limousine, the Holiday Inn, and Lewis' room pointed to others besides Lewis, Oakley and Sweeting, says Oakley's co-counsel, L. David Wolfe. Some of one victim's blood was mixed with the blood of at least one person who was never identified. Meanwhile, witnesses who had seen the men they thought were assaulting Baker and Lollar were describing knife-wielding suspects who were tall, heavy, muscular, and had dark complexions. Those descriptions fit Lewis. But Sweeting and Oakley have light skin and are slender. 

There was a distinct possibilty that other, unknown assailants were involved in the slayings. Samuel believes prosecutors should have taken notice. "They were too focused on Ray." But Howard insists that none of their witnesses, prior to the trial, ever fingered anyone other than Sweeting or Oakley as the possible killers. Howard says prosecutors had, by then, amassed 38 witnesses, 270 exhibits and 6,700 pages of discovery. Jurors in a mock trial had convicted Oakley and Sweeting. They had split 9-3 in favor of convicting Lewis. 

Nonetheless, Howard was ready to deal. He first mentioned the possibility of a deal to Tony L. Axam, who had joined Lewis' legal team after the bond hearing. Howard offered three years in return for a guilty plea for aggravated assault. Axam turned it down. With a felony conviction Lewis would be booted out of the National Football League. 

Howard says he also offered Oakley 20 years for manslaughter, a plea that Oakley's lawyers brushed aside. Howard never offered Sweeting a deal. "Because of his record, it was not appropriate to talk a plea bargain with him." The district attorney made the offer to Lewis's lawyers at his office, telling them he was already discussing a deal with Oakley and they needed to cut the deal before he met with Oakley's attorneys, who he said were waiting for him in his outer office. 

Samuel says when he and Garland rejected the deal, Howard escorted them out a side door so they wouldn't pass Oakley's lawyers. "Your colleagues are here," Samuel says Howard told them. "I have to meet with them." Samuel recalls being nervous. "We didn't know what Oakley would say." But when they got back to their office, they found Harvey trolling through discovery. When they asked him about the meeting, he told them there was no offer and there was no deal. Wolfe, Harvey's co-counsel, had been meeting with Howard on another, unrelated matter. 

Says Sadow, Sweeting's attorney: "There was never a case against Ray Lewis. Never. It wasn't even a close call. Within one day of receiving the discovery, a month after the bond hearing, there was no doubt that the state would be unable to convict Ray. It was just a question of how bad it would look." 

Editor's note: Direct quotations from the participants in Mayor Bill Campbell's Feb. 10 news conference and defense attorney Edward T.M. Garland's conference later that same day were taken from partial transcripts posted on the AccessAtlanta website. 

R.Robin McDonald's email address is [email protected].
Richmond Eustis' email address is [email protected].