Advocacy

ABOUT JEFF’S ADVOCATE, LORI HOWARD

In 2008, I was wrongfully accused of a crime. By “crime,” I don’t mean murder or shoplifting or anything of that nature, but nonetheless, it was horrible. I never spent one minute in jail, but it took a full year for me to go to trial. I was all alone. I told no one. The prosecution presented their case, and then the judge sent the jury out of the room. The judge first acquitted me with prejudice, then looked at the prosecutor and said, “I’ve been in the judicial system a long time, and I’m a mean son of a bitch, but you are a bigger son of a bitch for charging this lady with a crime.” Those words are seared into my brain.

The judge called the jury back in and thanked them for their time but said that no crime had been committed and that they were free to go. But you know what that jury did instead? They started applauding and calling out blessings and well wishes to me. Tears streamed down my face. To be acquitted on a directed verdict is highly unusual, and I knew just how very fortunate I was. Walking out of that courtroom, I felt like I had just taken a shower. I am a rarity.

After my acquittal and moving away from Virginia, my home, a state that I had loved, it took me about two years to start paying attention to the fact that there were many others just like me who hadn’t been as fortunate. Deep inside, I had known since my trial that that had to be the case, but sometimes, you have to have a healing period before you can really wrap your head around certain things.

MY JOURNEY WITH JEFF

September 2002

I joined Facebook and started searching out groups about incarcerated people. At first, I just read the different feeds. I didn’t participate. Eventually, I started asking tentative questions. Then, Cheryl Havard Harrell, Jeffrey’s mom, asked me to read the case against her son, Jeffrey. I agreed and got access to his original trial transcripts.

To be brutally honest, when I found out what his convictions were for, I didn’t want to read them. But I had said I would, so I pushed forward. I started reading, and with every word, I became more horrified. Not because of what Mississippi accused Jeff of doing but because of what the state of Mississippi did to Jeff.

Jeff’s capital murder trial, from the start of jury selection to verdict, lasted two days. At the end of the first day, the judge remarked, “This is moving along nicely.”

Wait… what? I was not unfamiliar with death penalty trials, and usually, jury selection alone takes days, if not weeks.

It was late, and I had to put it down for the night, but sleep didn’t come for a long time, thinking about Jeffrey Havard.

TAKING A STAND

October 2002

I began to talk to Jeff’s sister, Tiffany. She could tell me about the inadequate defense but not the state’s case. Jeff’s mom was the same. Jeff’s MawMaw knew it all. Every bit. I realized over time that Jeff’s mom and other family members just could not stand to read what the state had to say. They said Jeff was incapable of this crime. Okay, then, I had to read it all. It seemed a daunting task then, but I could certainly do it.

One night, I was talking to Jeff’s sister, Tiffany, and he was talking to his mother. We both asked if the other would want to speak. So we did. Jeff was very nice and articulate, and I enjoyed our short conversation. I decided right then and there to help this young man.

As I was reading, Jeff called and told me he had been thinking. He would ask his attorneys to give me discovery and all forthcoming documents. Wow.

I started speaking out, and my voice was getting louder every day. I was added by Cheryl to the private group, and it was there that I met attorney Jen Fitzgerald, a criminal defense attorney and a strong advocate for Jeffrey.

I’ll never forget telling Jen I had documents I was sure she wanted to see. She said that she bet I didn’t. She had seen all they would let her. I sent her the discovery. Two minutes later, she returned and said, “Who are you? I’ve been trying to get this stuff for a year, and here you come with what I need. Out of nowhere!”

She signed off to read it, and I knew I had made valuable friends that day!

LEARNING TO ADVOCATE

November 2002

Being accepted into the private group was advantageous because most of the people in the group were already familiar with Jeffrey’s case. Jen Fitzgerald is an attorney on a mission. Her help to me was invaluable. She didn’t need me, but I surely needed her.

I knew the state of Mississippi had done Jeff terribly wrong, but I was not cognizant of just how wrong it was until I started working with Jen; rather, I wasn’t working with her; I did research for her.

For example, she asked me to read Steven Haynes’s testimony in other cases. I found that Hayne never spoke out of turn. He answered the questions and never elaborated except in two cases. One of the cases was Jeff’s.

There was so much. Jen blew the circumstantial case apart. It was all fabricated.

Jen and I did this work at night. We worked until we were blurry-eyed. We worked until we were snickering over the lengths the state went to convict Jeffrey, not that it was funny.

Jen also lost sleep over what the state did to Jeff. She rocked it, tearing that case apart. I was so proud to hav111111e been a part of that.

Jen and Bru1ce also helped me advocate. I was already in full swing, fighting to restore his name and dignity. Occasionally I would get a private message from one of them saying something like, “Lori, don’t call that guy an idiot, your job is to try to convince him of Jeff’s innocence.”

So, I took that advice and changed people’s minds about Jeff’s guilt. That’s a great feeling!

So there I was, off to fight for a man’s life.

THE “CRIME”

February 2002

It was evening time, close to the end of February 2002. Jeff Havard and Rebecca Britt decided to have some Rotel dip and watch a movie. Although Rebecca’s daughter, Chloe, was sick. Rebecca, in her statement to police later, said she decided she wanted to go to the store and get back. (Even knowing this, the State has always asserted at trial and throughout appeals that Jeff rushed Rebecca out the door.)

Jeff began cleaning up, and Chloe was in her swing when she vomited. To be helpful, he gave her a bath. Although he had never given her a bath by himself before, he had often been in the bathroom splashing her and playing with her bath toys while Rebecca bathed her.

As he removed Chloe from the baby bath and was standing up, she was wet and began to squirm. She pitched backward out of his arms, and her leg hit the toilet tank while her head hit the edge of the toilet seat.

Jeff grabbed her by the leg and pulled her back up. Chloe appeared to have lost her breath, so Jeff called her name and blew in her face while gently shaking her from side to side. (Although he did not know it, this is the American Heart Association’s first recommendation for infant CPR.)

Quickly, Chloe started to wail. Jeff comforted her and told her that she was alright, that he had her. That he was sorry she fell.

When she calmed down, he took her in, laid her on the bed, and started her nighttime routine. He put lotion on her, a diaper on, and started to put her pajamas on when she vomited again a little bit. He licked the sheet and wiped her mouth.

At this point, she was cooing and playful, thus reassuring him that she was alright. He finished putting her pajamas on and put her in her crib at her regular bedtime.

He removed the sheets from the bed, leaving them piled on top.

At this point, Rebecca returned because she had run out of money and still needed to return and pick up a movie at Blockbuster. Again, in her statement to police, she said she was in a rush, though she checked on Chloe, who opened her eyes and made a gurgling noise.

When Rebecca returned for the second time, Jeff was in the bathroom with the door closed (which equaled “barricaded,” according to the DA at trial.)

Then, according to Jeff, Rebecca let out a scream. He says it haunts him, that wail.

He ran out to her and found she hloe on the floor. Chloe’s lips were bluish. They had no working phone, so Rebecca asked him to run down the street and get his grandmother, who had no formal medical training or knowledge, but Jeff told her to put the baby in the car, and they would drive her to the hospital down the street.

Actually, there were two hospitals of equal distance down the street on the same property, Natchez Regional and Natchez Community (of which Natchez Regional was the larger hospital that Jeff and his family always used.)

Rebecca got Chloe into the car while Jeff put on a t-shirt. (Again, much was made at the time of trial that it was a delay tactic that he put a shirt on, but it was never mentioned that he ran barefoot on that February night.)

As they shot off into the night, Rebecca’s legs shook, causing Chloe’s head to hit the gearshift. Jeff placed his hand over the gearshift to prevent that.

As they reached the intersection at the end of the street, Jeff began to pull forward, heading towards Natchez Regional Hospital, again, the hospital his family used. Rebecca started slapping his arm and screaming at him to go right to Natchez Community. Jeff didn’t get through the intersection before he had the car turned around and headed to the hospital of Rebecca’s choice.

The State again asserted that Jeff was trying to take them away from the hospital when, in fact, the opposite is true.

Jeff pulled up to the ER doors to let Rebecca out of the car with Chloe, parked the car, and went in to join them.

TRAUMA ROOM

February 2002

On the same day as the “Crime…”

Rebecca ran into the ER, and Chloe was whisked away by a nurse.

The first thing they did was to remove her pajamas and her diaper.

It’s important to note that one of the nurses remarked that Chloe was “the cleanest baby she had ever seen,” including her diaper.

A doctor began intubation with an adult-size AMBU bag (a type of device known as a bag valve mask used to provide respiratory support to patients). However, she missed Chloe’s airway completely and spent 18 minutes pumping air into Chloe’s stomach until a pediatrician arrived and properly intubated her.

Think about that for a minute. Chloe’s lips were bluish at the house, and then for 18 minutes with no air due to a doctor’s error.

This was not mentioned at trial. It didn’t fit the narrative.

Once Chloe was intubated correctly, she began to “pink up,” but her face started to swell, and she ultimately and tragically lost her battle.

Before then, protocol in the trauma room had been thrown into the wind.

Rebecca’s mother worked as a nurse at the hospital, and once it was realized that the patient was Chloe, she was called and given access to the trauma room amid all that chaos.

ER staff is basically triage. Yes, they are heroes; they do save lives, but their job is to get the patient ready to move on to surgery or the next step, whatever that may be.

Without prior history or suspicions from the family or caretaker, diagnosing is not their job. But that’s exactly what they did.

Remember the pristine diaper Chloe came in with? After her death, one of the nurses went to put a diaper on her and said she noticed ripping, tearing, blood, fluid, and bowel movement.

Some of what they saw did not exist. Some were natural occurrences before and after death.

The protocol would be to call in a doctor with expertise in assault who would actually be able to give a diagnosis. Still, once again, they skipped that very important step altogether and took it upon themselves to call the police directly.

Note; This has been very hard to write about. In the next post, there is more, which I feel will fit better. Thank you.

The Travesty – Part 1

September 2022

In the beginning, the Writ for Second Amended Habeas Corpus Petition states, “…in violation of numerous Constitutional rights and protections…,” but in truth, Jeffrey Havard was stripped of every right he had, including human rights.

There was a total massive failure in the E.R. and a rush to judgment by E.R. staff that infected the entire case. That was not the only infection, but it was one amongst many.

In the E.R., regardless of how the trial transcript is or is not worded, Chloe’s diaper was changed THREE times. Nothing was noted except that she was “very clean,” not a suspicion of sexual battery.

During this time, a doctor on call there, who was not a pediatrician, attempted to clear Chloe’s airway using an adult-sized AMBU bag (again, this is a type of device known as a bag valve mask, which is used to provide respiratory support to patients). However, this doctor, who I am not going to name, missed her airway altogether and spent over 19 minutes pumping air into Chloe’s stomach and intestines before another doctor properly incubated Chloe.

Curiously, it was only after that that the nurses noticed something amiss and broke protocol by calling the police. The actual protocol would have been to have a doctor with more knowledge than they had come in and assess before jumping to conclusions like they did.

The police separated Jeff and Rebecca, and he has not been free for one moment since.

At every level, that initial rush to judgment took hold.

First: Hospital Staff

Then: Law Enforcement

Then: The District Attorney

They all disregarded (some blatantly) contrary evidence that didn’t support the conclusion they so quickly made.

Jeff also, as the state continuously erroneously purports, did not ask the police officer at the hospital if he could go home and shower. That was false testimony. Jeff did ask if he could be taken to get his shoes. He was refused.

Sheriff Farrell of Adams County gave an update to The Natchez Democrat, stating that they were going to only go so far as to call Havard a suspect because they were being “very careful” and wanted to be very sure before bringing charges, so were waiting for the autopsy.

Within two days of Chloe’s death, and before the autopsy was complete, Jeff was charged with Capital Murder.

THE “ESCAPE ATTEMPT”

September 2002

The Adams County Sheriff’s Department had 72 hours to charge Jeff or release him.

Miraculously, a jailhouse snitch came forward to jail staff, and Jeff was suddenly charged with attempted escape.

The irony here is that Jeff’s genius plan to escape the jail, according to the Sheriff’s Dept., was to crawl through a small AC ceiling duct, through a condemned cell, and make his breakout a golf ball-sized hole in the plexiglass window.

This is patently absurd, but it could have allowed Jeff to be held longer than the initial 72 hours.

The attempted escape charges were dropped very quickly and, in fact, would be laughable if it were not so unjust.

The Havard-Harrell family are hardworking people. They’ve earned everything they have, but they certainly did not have the ability in 2002 to pay for the type of defense Jeff would need to fight the severity of the charges against him.

The family was forced to request a court-appointed attorney.

Jeff’s parents and grandparents also asked for a meeting with the upcoming trial judge, Forrest ‘Al’ Johnson, which he granted (Judge Johnson was acquainted with Jeff’s grandparents.) They all met in Judge Johnson’s chambers.

The Havards and the Harrells told Judge Johnson of their (and many people’s) belief that Jeff was incapable of intentionally hurting a child, that they believed that there was a mistake, or that there was another cause. They asked Judge Johnson to prevent Jeff from being railroaded.

The Judge reassured them that no one would be railroaded in HIS courtroom and that he would appoint them the best of the best to represent Jeffrey.

Unfortunately, nothing Judge Johnson told the family turned out to be true, and horrifically, Gus Sermos enters the picture as Jeff’s Public “Defender.”

The background of Sermos is slightly cloudy to me. I know he worked for many years as an investigator for the CDC. He was based in Miami and was charged with keeping track of people who had contracted a rare, fatal disease, AIDS. He apparently either got close to the people he dealt with or was possibly disturbed by all the deaths. Only he knows, but he just didn’t show up for work one day.

He resurfaced years later in Mississippi with a license to practice law.

Jeff’s other Public “Defender” was Robert Clark. I don’t want to say too much about him. Suffice it to say that he had many problems and is deceased.

Gus Sermos and Robert Clark failed to conduct any investigation to prepare for Jeff’s Defense.

I think the “defense team’s” most outrageous failure was that they knew this was a case based on medical evidence that they were fully ignorant of. Zero-knowledge. They improperly asked the court for a medical expert to assist them in preparing a defense. The state objected, saying they had no medical knowledge either, so they relied on the Medical Examiner, Steven Hayne (who was in the State’s pocket.)

The Judge denied the defense request, telling them to resubmit it properly or talk to Hayne.

They did neither. Ever.

Jeff’s own attorneys infected this case tremendously with their incompetence.

Read the Petition. It gets worse.

Voir Dire (jury selection) violated Jeff’s Constitutional rights to a fair and impartial jury of his peers.

This is because, during the process, one potential juror spoke up and said she did not think she could be impartial because she had a niece “be raped.” This juror was told to take a seat, and they would get back to her. No one got back to her, and she was ultimately seated on the jury.

Another potential juror was not honest during voir dire. This person hid his true feelings that death should be repaid with death. He later disclosed that he intentionally tried to get himself seated on the jury to vote for the death penalty for Jeffrey Havard before hearing one iota of evidence.

Jeff didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell.

Infected jury.