McKenzie receives criminal defense award
The 11-woman, one-man jury in Oklahoma County decided that Mary Heath was a battered woman — a woman who’d put up with years of sexual abuse before she shot Donald Heath as he was bent under the hood of her car, making repairs on Interstate 35 in front of Frontier City. The 4′11″ woman then rolled her husband’s body, all 6′7″ of it, into a ditch beside the road and left. Three hours later she called police and told them that she’d found his body. She confessed the next day, telling authorities she had no cause to kill him. But four days later she changed her story, saying she and Heath had struggled at the scene. What’s more, a few days earlier she’d burglarized her relatives’ home and stolen the weapon used to kill her husband. McKenzie, who took the case pro bono, admits it looked grim for his client’s future. “She made a lot of judgment errors,” he says. Charging Heath with first-degree murder, the state refused to cut a deal, though McKenzie had offered 25 years. She’d never made any police reports about abuse and her two children living in the home said they’d never heard any evidence of abuse between the two adults. Still, she was acquitted of murder and convicted of first-degree manslaughter, receiving a sentence of only 10 years. McKenzie, who had never tried a murder case, says a combination of factors contributed to the outcome, but the jury’s animosity toward Donald Heath was the clincher. “I think they ended up not liking the victim,” he says. “I think they thought he should be killed.” The case also hinged on the fact that the evidence related to the burglary was not admitted. Too, the jury make-up was in Heath’s favor. “I just had the perfect jury,” McKenzie says. Some past recipients of the Oklahoma Criminal Defense Lawyers Association’s Clarence Darrow Defense Award include Mack Martin, Robert Ravitz and John Coyle. People John A. Gaberino Jr. will be sworn in Friday as the Oklahoma Bar Association’s 1998 president at 9:30 a.m. in the Oklahoma Supreme Court Courtroom at the State Capitol Building. Gaberino says his goals as OBA president this year are to emphasize service and education, both to the public and bar members. As a graduate of Georgetown University and a director with the Tulsa firm of Gable Gotwals Mock Schwabe Kihle Gaberino, the new president plans to expand the services provided by the OBA’s Management Assistance Program and to expand the Mentor Program. William Jay Manger has been sworn in as an Oklahoma City municipal judge. Manger, succeeding Judge Patrick Delaney who retired in September, received a Juris Doctor degree from Oklahoma City University School of Law in 1976. Business Parman & Associates has opened its fourth office in Hays, Kan., with Stacey Seibel as managing attorney. Parman & Associates is a 10- year firm that focuses on business and estate planning with offices in Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Kansas City and Hays. West Law will provide electronic access to court docket materials from more than 180 federal courts and 250 state courts with CourtLink, available in March. For more information about CourtLink and a demonstration, visit www.courtlink.com Leigh Jones welcomes your comments and contributions.