Jens Söring Had 2 Experienced, Well-Paid, Competent Defense Lawyers.
And they fought for him tooth and nail. But lost. Because, as Richard Neaton said, they couldn't work miracles.
Here are just a few of the questions I’ve been asked — especially by Germans — about the Söring case:
Why was Elizabeth Haysom allowed to testify even though she was biased and also admitted to participating in the crime?
Why did the judge allow the bogus sock-print evidence?
Why didn’t anybody mention the hair found in the bathroom?
What about all the inconsistent statements Elizabeth made in her own 1987 trial as opposed to Söring’s trial in 1990?
Why was the evidence about Type O blood admitted even though 45% of the population had Type O blood?
Why was the judge allowed to try the case even though he knew members of the victims’ family?
Why didn’t anyone explore the possibility that Jens Söring’s confessions were false?
There’s one mistaken assumption behind all of these questions. Actually, there’s often more than one, but the most important one is this: American courtroom proceedings are run by judges. When I ask someone who was supposed to rule out all of this supposedly unreliable evidence, Germans usually pause (never having thought it through), and reply: “The judge, of course!”
This is a misconception. American courtroom proceedings are run first and foremost by the parties. There are two sides to every American courtroom trial. Two opposing sides which fight each other every step of the way. The defendant in an American courtroom has his own lawyers whose job it is to challenge the state’s case and exploit all of the weaknesses in it. The judge’s role is only to act as referee, not to disrupt the state of play. The judge will exclude evidence only if it’s obviously misleading or irrelevant. As long as it has some relevance, the judge will let the evidence in, and let the parties argue about how relevant it is.
This is called the adversarial model of criminal justice. It’s not perfect, but neither is any other system. In Jens Söring’s case, it worked well. The jury heard plenty of relevant evidence, and thorough arguments from both sides about just how important it was.
The problem with these naive questions, as with much commentary on the case, is that they don’t take into account that Jens Söring was represented by two experienced, well-paid criminal defense attorneys whose only job it was to present the case in the best possible light for Jens Söring.
Were those lawyers aware of all the questions listed above? Of course they were! It was their job to deal with all of these issues, and many more. Once you take into account that Jens Söring had good lawyers, the answers to all of these questions are obvious:
Why was Elizabeth Haysom allowed to testify even though she was biased and also admitted to participating in the crime?
Answer: Because she had evidence nobody else could provide. She wasn’t treated as a saint, she was attacked for hours by Söring’s lawyers (78 pages of trial transcript), who pointed out her bias and her deep involvement in the crime, and much more. In fact, the prosecution drew attention to many of her lies and inconsistencies, because they knew that the defense would do this anyway on cross-examination, and they wanted the jury to get the news about Elizabeth’s credibility problems first from the prosecution. This is known as “taking the sting out” in adversarial trial practice.Why did the judge allow the bogus sock-print evidence?
Answer: Söring’s lawyers successfully prevented the prosecution from introducing expert evidence on this issue, and pointed out to the jury that the sock-print fit any number of feet, and could have been made by Elizabeth Haysom. The prosecution said the sock-print fit Söring’s foot, which was true. The defense said it could have fit any number of feet, which was also true. The jury was then allowed to make up its own mind how important it was. That’s how the system is supposed to work.Why didn’t anybody mention the hair found in the bathroom?
Answer: Söring’s lawyers repeatedly drew the attention of the jury to this fact, and suggested that the police hadn’t performed a thorough enough investigation to see where it came from.What about all the inconsistent statements Elizabeth made in her own 1987 trial as opposed to Söring’s trial in 1990?
Answer: Söring’s defense lawyers had a certified copy of the transcript from her 1987 trial1 and pointed out many inconsistencies between her statements there and in her testimony at Söring’s trial. They forced her to admit that she had lied over and over to Jens Söring, the investigators, and quite likely the court during her 1987 trial.Why was the evidence about Type O blood admitted even though 45% of the population had Type O blood?
Answer: The defense incessantly reminded the jury that the presence of Type O blood was not conclusive proof Söring was there, because it’s the most common blood type and millions of people have it. The prosecution said it was consistent with Söring’s presence at the crime scene (true), the defense said it was hardly definitive proof (also true), the jury made up its mind.Why was the judge allowed to try the case even though he knew members of the victims’ family?
Answer: Jens Söring’s lawyers investigated this and raised this issue during a pretrial hearing, and made such a good case that the judge decided he needed time to do some research to determine whether he should continue to preside over the case. Eventually, he decided he could. Jens Söring’s defense lawyers then challenged the judge’s decision on appeal, but the appeals court read the trial record and decided the judge had been fair.Why didn’t anyone explore the possibility that Jens Söring’s confessions were false?
Answer: Because that wasn’t Söring’s own preferred trial strategy. During his testimony, he claimed that he had “falsely” confessed to the murders to protect Elizabeth. However, his theory during in June 1990 was that the confessions were accurate because Elizabeth had told him all the necessary details. The only “false” aspect of the confessions was that it was Elizabeth who did the killing, not Jens. Söring only started to suggest there were major errors in his confessions years after the trial, when he realized that his trial version wasn’t convincing.
But at trial, Söring did not claim the confessions were filled with factual errors. That was Söring’s own choice and his strategy, and his lawyers helped him pursue it. They pointed to inconsistencies and unanswered questions: the unidentified shoe-print, the unidentified fingerprints, the hair found in the bathroom, the cigarette butts from Elizabeth’s brand, the fact that she could have left the bloody sock-print, her fingerprints on the liquor bottle, etc. These were all meant to support Jens Söring’s own preferred strategy by suggesting Elizabeth was at the crime scene. They were doing exactly what Söring wanted them to do, and they did it well.
As you can see, all of these “questions” melt away when you take into account that Söring was represented by experienced, well-paid, competent lawyers. They highlighted to the jury almost every possible fact and argument which could have helped Jens Söring (unless there was a strategic reason for not doing so). The reason they lost the case was not because of incompetence — all appeals explicitly endorsed their performance as competent — but because Söring confessed to the crimes with much more detail than anyone could have obtained at second hand, and he lied to the jury.
That’s how American criminal trials work, and that’s how Söring’s trial worked. It was, and remains, a straightforward, open-and-shut case.
Here is a short excerpt of the cross-examination of Elizabeth Haysom by Richard Neaton proving Neaton had the transcript of Elizabeth’s 1987 trial:
“Q: And you're under oath here today, right?
A: Yes, I am, sir.
Q: And you were under oath on October 5th, 1987, weren't you?
A: Yes, I was, sir.
Q: I am going to show you Page 167 of your sworn testimony on October 5, 1987, and I'd ask you to read to yourself, read lines 6 through 12.
A: (Witness complies.) Yes, I have read them,
Q: Now Miss Haysom, you testified today that he dropped you off, and then you walked toward the theater, and then you went to the bar, came out and bought the two tickets for the movie, right, that's what happened, right?
A: That's correct, yes, sir.
Q: And you testified on October 5, 1987, no, so what eventually happened is that he took me to a movie up in, I'm not sure where it is, north of Georgetown, I believe, and he dropped me off at the movie, and as soon as he was gone — well he watched me go in and buy the tickets. As soon as he was gone I was out and I went to a bar next-door. So you testified on October 5th that you went to the movie first and not the bar first, right? Right?
A: Yes.
Q: Thank you.
Q: Now you said that you had discussed buying the movie tickets before Jens left to go to Lynchburg, right?…”
I disagree with you about the footprints. I recall that at least four and maybe more photos of relevant footprints were put into evidence for the jury to consider. I have some photocopies of these. You can also see photos of Elizabeth's and Jens's footprints on Murderpedia. They are different. If you consider the foot as having a triangular structure for its points of contact with a surface, the design of this triangle would be from the heel to the fifth metatarsal point (little toe) and over to the first metatarsal point of contact (big toe.) If you put water-based paint on the bottom of your feet and walk on some rolled out paper (done it) you will begin to see how the foot works. If a sock were dry that would not make a good impression, but IF a sock were saturated in paint--or blood--you will get a good impression of the points of contact on a hard-wood floor, which would clearly indicate what some might call the ' balls' of the feet. I can tell the difference, sometimes quite easily, between these photos submitted to the jury of the feet of persons who might have been considered at some point to have possibly been involved. (And who and provided their foot impressions voluntarily.) The closest match to Jens's foot was not Elizabeth's. It was of another male. But you could see that there was a difference in the arches, and this male's arch left a slight impression, a brush mark on the paper. That of a slightly flatter arch. In Elizabeth's case there was a difference which I can see on even the internet photos, if given a few moments to reflect. And this is that the first metartarsal of Jens Soering (big toe) is further away from the second metartarsal (second toe) --there is a noticeable gap. My examination of my own foot showed no such gap, which is good since every now and then I think I was there. Soering's foot might be considered to be a bit unusual. I am not sure about that though. But Elizabeth's big toe would definitely fit in the gap between Soering's first and second metartarsal. Also, Soering's entire metatarsal pad --the fleshy structure that hold the toes--is wider and in a sense stronger than Elizabeth's. I have concluded categorically, and without reservation, that Soering's foot is different from all the others submitted, and the jury thought so, too. That's twelve people who looked hard at the same photos, and who came to the conclusion that I have come to. And Soering's foot matches the footprint from a sock soaked in blood, with its points of contact, the balls of the foot, clearly showing that there is an unusual space between the first and second metatarsal. Not in the other photos and not probably in the ordinary run of footprints, or so I suspect. I just don't see any problem with the footprints. And by the way. Footprint science, like fingerprint science, came out of the Raj--such as the old Madras Constabulary. Indian police could examine a human footprint found in a bazaar and in four hours could solve the case. In one case, I think it was in the Punjab, a stolen racehorse with a cracked hoof was tracked for two weeks before being lost. But the neighborhood where the last hoofprint was seen was put under close surveillance and the horse was recovered. The interesting thing about the work of Robert Hallet that I noticed in some Virginia cases is that he actually determined which evidence could be considered to be irrelevant, that is to say, which handprint excludes which person. It was thus not merely a scientific process of inclusion, but also one of exclusion. Hallet's reputation has been savaged by half-baked zealots such as Harding.