Lynn Crooks
ALL INTERVIEWS HEREIN ARE WITHOUT THE INTERVIEWERS QUESTIONS INSERTED:THE REASON BEING, THESE TRANSCRIPTS WERE MADE FOR EDITING THE MOVIE "DEATH& TAXES" AND WE WERE NEVER PLANNING ON UTILIZING THE INTERVIEWERSVOICE IN THE MOVIE. ALL STATEMENTS HAD TO STAND ON THEIR OWN. BEGINNING OF LYNN CROOKS INTERVIEW 3pm Interview, Friday, 7/20/90---Lynn Crooks, Asst US Att (701) 239-5671FARGO Friday (check on audio tapes of the radio broadcasts/take tapeduplicator) 655-1st Ave. North, Fargo, "The Old Post Office" START INTERVIEWCROOKS#6 #6 Lynn Crooks 06:00:39:00 Crooks: ...probably one of the most realistic is, Stewartis making all these big fantastic points and he tells the guy later, well,I may be making a lot of nice points here, but you know, he's beating mybrains out. He said, you know I've got to come up with something better. And that's right, that's the way trials work, you do all these cute littlethings and they boost your ego, but they don't help your case much. JJ: We all set? Um, well let's go back to that, beside "Anatomyof a murder", who do you look back in your history and say, who doyou admire in your profession? ....1/25...Oh, I could be here all day talking about that. The manthat inspired me to really in answer to your question about being a lawyerwas a fellow by the name of Gene Crougar. And, Gene was State's Attorneyof Cass County at the time. And, he taught business law. And, I took businesslaw more or less because I didn't have any thing else that was convenientto take and I just fell in love with it. I never had a course in collegethat I enjoyed as much. And, I decided right then and there that I wasgoing to be a lawyer and I was in my second year of undergrad school. Priorto that I don't think I had the foggest notion in the world of being a lawyer,I just was never part of my life's ambition, as a matter of fact ...2/22...whenI told my father that I was going to be a lawyer, I think he would havebeen happier if I would have told him I was going to be a bank robber...2/30... My dad did not like lawyers and to his dying day I think he probably thoughtthat I was the only good honest lawyer in the country. And, I'm not sosure he always thought that of me....2/43... JJ: (to camera person) ...that's stuff we'll edit, so just keep it rollingbasically. Did we get all that, that we just? CAMERA PERSON: Yeah, yeah. JJ: (to Crooks) So going from your father, you went straight from yourfour years to law school? CROOKS: ...3/00...No, I went three years. At North Dakota, at the time,you could get into law school after three years of under graduate schooland finish in six years and that's what I did. And, probably half of mylaw class did. About two years after that they abolished that and you hadto have a degree to do it. So, I went through as a six year program aspart of one college. ...3/25... JJ: ...3/35... We were talking a little bit I guess about your backgroungand education. You basically came out of school and went to law school. Did you go into private practise? CROOKS: ...3/51...No, when I finished law school I started with the attorneyGenerals's office in Bismark and they had a clerkship type of program atthe time. And, essentially what I did was started there with the understandingthat I'd be there a year and then a job opened up in a trial position thatthey had for the what they call the Unsatisified Judgement Fund. And,I took that and stayed another 2 1/2 years. And, then this job opened upand I applied for it and I've been here eve since. So, that was in 1969....4/26... JJ: So, you've alwas liked being in, what end of the law would you callthis? CROOKS: ...4/40...Trial work. I basically always wanted--by the timeI got out of law school to be a trial lawyer as opposed to simply beingan office lawyer--writing wills, doing taxes and that sort of thing. So,I'm doing what I always wanted to do and still continue to want to do. I have no real desire right now to get out into private practice or anythingelse. I plan to finish my term out. I've got about ten --well about nineyears actually left with the U.S. Government and that's my existing plan....5/12... JJ: So, they put you on a long term? CROOKS: ...5/18...Well, it's pretty much standard federal employment--30years. You don't necessarily have to quit after thirty, but you are eligiblefor retirement. At that time I'll be 58 and I guess I'm going to considervery seriously whether I am just going to go do something else....5/39... JJ: Yea, is that tempting? CROOKS: ...5/42...Yeah, it's tempting. You--particularly in criminalproscution, I found that ....5/48...I am now proscuting the Grandson's of some of the people Iproscuted when I first started out 20 years ago and you wonder sometimesif you've accomplished anything. Some of the Indian reservation cases workedlike that. ...6/04... JJ: Before we get into the details of this case, what do you like bestabout your job? CROOKS: ...6/12...Ah, essentially the challenge of trials-the varietyof the experience you get. No trial is ever the same. No case is everthe same and you are constantly challenged bascally to excel I supose orperform, depending on how you define being a trial lawyer. See there'sa lot of theatrics involved in being a trial lawyer. And, you are constantlychallenged in trial work and it's something that I've always taken to. I've just enjoyed. ...6/51... JJ: Basically, that's what I like about what I do, is the variety. Thechallenge, every project is different. Let's go into when this occurred. If you could go back in your memory. I'd like to get what you rememberabout when you first heard of the incident happening? CROOKS: ...7/12...Well, it's one of those cases where everybody rememberswhere you were when Kennedy was shot and if you're old enough when PearlHarbor was bombed, and so forth. But, this is probably one of those casesthat, in effect for me because I was sitting there watching The Winds ofWar and I got a phone call. ...7/34... And, essentially the phone call justliterally stopped the action for me for the rest of the day. In the middleof this drama, I'm being told that two friends of mine have just died onthe highway. And, then basically for the rest of that evening was spentdoing things that were in mental preperation for knowing that I am probabygoing to be doing something on that case, not necessarily a senior attorney,but certainly someting....8/08... Because, ...8/08...every lawyer in ouroffice devoted a lot of time to that case. It wasn't just myself or DennisFisher, all of us basically would be consumed by that case for probablya couple of months, including Mr. Web, who is a U.S. Attorney, so I knewthe moment that this thing had occured that it was going to be somethingof substantial impact to the district. ....8/35... And, I knew it was goingto be a substantial impact to me and I bascially started doing the Kahlcase within moments after hearing--or hanging up the phone and tellingmy wife what had happened. I remember watching the ends of Winds of Warbut I have no recollection of the story at all. ...8/56... And, I didn'tthink about the story any more. And, the next morning I came down to theoffice and Mr. Web and Mr. Near and I met and it was decided that I wasgoing to be the senoir trial man and Rodney asked me who I wanted to help. And, I told him I wanted Dennis Fisher. And, so from then on Dennis andI basically worked full time on that case until it was over...9/27... JJ: Why did you pick Dennis? CROOKS...9/30...For several reasons. Uh, Dennis was fairly new to theoffice, but he was a hard worker. He was a very intense person, as I thinkyou've met him, ...9/43...Dennis is a very intense type guy. And, he wasthe kinda guy that I kinda wanted to go around and stir things up and dothings and the kind of guy that I could say "Dennis, I thnk we oughtto do it--this or that project" ...10/01...and Dennis would immediatelyrun off and start doing it. And, I tried--I'd seen Dennis in action beforeand I had faith in his ability as a trial lawyer. He was not nearly as experiencedin trial work as I was but I think uh was a very good trial lawyer, andproved himself in this case. ...10/22... And, I basically felt that thetwo of us would complement each other. And, we did. And, I think we didvey much. I, despite the description of me as the bulldog, in Jim Corcoran'sbook, I think I tend to try my cases a little more laid back than Dennisdoes. And, I think his temperament and mine work perfectly together. ...10/52... JJ: In the book, Corcoran talks about the pressure that kind of cameto you, it's like, almost like an audition, where the federal people camein. CROOKS: Oh, yes. JJ: Tell me about that? CROOKS: ...11/09...We hadn't finished talking that morning, Rodney andGarry and I, before we started getting calls from the department and itwas fairly obvious that this was not going to be the garden variety case. In most of our criminal cases in our district and in every district,Washingtondoesn't know what your doing, doesn't care what your doing, and they haveabsolutlely no interest in finding out....11/38... You basically handleyour criminal docket all by yourself and nobody pays much attention toit. And, that's the normal thing. The normal thing is basically "hands-off"OF criminal cases. But, that is not the case when you get something ofthis dimension...11/54... and we kinda knew that was coming. I'm not surewe realized it was going to be quite as intense as it was, in a way. And,as it turned out it was very untoward, in other words, things went verywell and very smoothly. But, ...12/13...we always knew that this case couldbe jerked out of our hands "just like that."....12/18... I meanthere was that potential. And, the man from the Justice Department informedRodney as the very first thing that he said to him--that he was the manthat had pulled the U.S. Attorney's office in Texas off the Judge Woodscase. And, Rodney was somewhat taken aback by that as an opening line....12/43...But, the point was made, I suppose very quickly to us that ...12/49...wehad better demonstrate that we had the general fortitude and ability tocarry a case that was going to get some national attention. And, obviouslywe did, beccase there was never any suggestion that we weren't going tohave the case. But, we always knew that we being watched and the potentialwas there. ...13/08... After Mr. Lippy came, he sent Mr. Reynolds, and Mr.Reynolds was just a superman, not--I should split that word--just a superfellow. He came out and just basically just gave us some general help--gaveus some logistical help with the department and as a laison with the department. And, we had kinda hoped that actually Reynolds would stay around for thetrial because we all liked him very well. ...13/38... He was a very talentedtrial man. He was born and raised in the District of Columbia, but he hadbeen in the D.C. U.S. Attorney's office and he had done a lot of trial work. And, so we did not regard his coming as interference, or really anytihingother than giving us assistance. But, when Mr. Lippy was here, that waspretty clearly an audition. ...14/07... And, there was no doubt that hewas not here just to see how things were going he was here to size us up. And, apparently we passed. 14/18... JJ: How about, it's mentioned in the book, the counts, the decisionon the charges to be made. Tell me a little about that process? CROOKS: 14/28...That was finally my decision as trial lawyer. And,I'm not sure I made the final choice quite in the way it may sound, but,any lawyer that's going into a trial setting and almost certainly goingto have a trial, you basically need an indictment that you feel comfortablewith. ...14/54... And, so it was kinda recognized from the start with JimReynolds, who was here when we planned it, myself, Dennis, Gary Anear, allof the people that basically were in on the decision--I don't think therewas a lot of disagreement among the legal staff as to the final decision....15/17...Basicallythe final decision was essentially I think mine. But, I wanted an indictmentthat basically did not overcharge to the point where we were going to riska jury starting out with a bunch of "knee-jerk" aquitals....15/34... And, then risking that there would be a run on the bank type of thing andsuddenly you're losing counts that you shouldn't lose. And, that's whatI was concerned about. When mainly in regars to Mrs. Kahl, and David Brower,if we continued murder charges on both of those people, I felt that ourtrust with the jury may very well be undermined. ....16/00... And, I wantedto make sure that we would up with charging them with something that atleast the jury was not going to dismiss out of hand. And, they didn't. From what I've heard later, Brower was acquited on some of the more seriousassault charges. But, that was hottly debated. ...16/17... And, it wasvery hottly debated about whether or not Mrs. Kahl was going to get off. As a matter of fact, one of the jurors that told me afterward, that themajority sentiment was that everyone wanted to convict her...16/31... butthey basically felt that "Well, given the court's instructions, thegovernments evidence just isn't strong enough." And, they finallywent on reasonable doubt, but with some reluctance. And, I don't know ifhe was telling me that simply to stroke me a little bit because he happenedto be a guy that I had known and probably most of my life, ...16/56...whichto this day I don't understand why they left on the jury. A guy named Pankowfrom Hankenson ...17/03... who had known my family, and I guess had knownme when I was just a little shaver. He was much older than I was. But,at any rate I had talked to Mr. Pankow and that's essentially what he hadtold me. Whether that was an accurate description, I have no way of knowing,but I simply say that there was no feeling among the jury, at least whatI got from him, that we had over charged...17/29... There was genuine disagreementas to whether or not they should be found guilty as charged of everything. So, I think my objective proved valid. I think ultimately I made the rightdecision. If we had charged them with murder, I'm very much afraid thatthat would have been treated as over charging and basically would underminemy credability and Dennis' credability and I think would have hurt our case....17/56...And, that's why we didn't. There was sentiment on law enforcement'spart that they should be charged with murder and we did not feel that wewanted to risk that and I'm glad we didn't. And, ultimately I think thelaw enforcement came around to agree with us. ...18/11 JJ: Yeah, was that also part of the factor, I guess you had to makea decision probably between first degree, and what you went for was seconddegree wasn't it? CROOKS: ...18/21...Not, no, it was charged out as first degree. Thatisn't really a decision because that's all--that's an automatic thing infederal criminal law you've automatically charged somebody with both firstand second degree when you charge them with murder. So, you can chargesecond degree murder but there's no particular reason to....18/40... Youalmost always charge first because it's almost automotic that's it's goingto go to a lesser second anyway. And, there's so litle difference betweenthem that I don't know many proscutors that start out with second degree. You almost always charge first. And, the sentence is identical. In theoryit isn't, but in actuality it is....19/03... JJ: right, so one's premeditation isn't it, versus... CROOKS: Yea...19/07...The only difference is premeditation. Theoritically,you can get the death sentence under the federal statutes, in actualityyou can't. So, you're talking life imprisonment with a maximum sentenceunder either.... The only difference is that if they got convicted of firstdegree you've got an automatic life sentence, where as on second the judgehas descretion. But, beyond that he gets the same sentence. ...19/30... JJ: What about the logic of separate trials versus as it turned outa group trial? What was your thinking and what's the strategy there? CROOKS: ...19/41...Well, I don't think my thinking was anything differentthan normal. Normally, a proscutor wants to tie everybody together becausenormally you've got the best chance of convicting everybody as a group. Simply, what you risk when you have separate trials, is pointing at theempty chairs--is "yes, we confess. Charlie did it." Charlieisn't here. Why didn't the government charge Charlie?...20/07... And,that's the usual defense when you're trying individually. If Charlie issitting there in a chair, it's not quite as easy to point to Charlie. And,from a defense standpoint they obviously would like to have the empty. From our prospective, as a proscutor, you rarely want the empty chair. ...20/26...And, we have that problem in this case with the empty chair with GordonKahl. But, there's nothing we can do about that. We would have loved tohave him there for trial also. ...20/37... But that's a tactical problemthat we have to be concerned about. Are they simply going to blame GordonKahl? The empty chair? And to a certain extent, they tried to do that. It didn't suceed, but it was an attempt. ...20/51... JJ: Let's go into I guess, the, you go into the preliminary, I'm forgettingthe term, but the issues that go before the pretrial issues. Which are,you had all these issues that you knew were going to come up. Which wasthe tax protesting beliefs of the defendants. All sorts of strange things. I think they were going to come up with. I noticed in your Voire Direthey had things about masons and like that. How did you deal with all ofthat? And what were your thoughts about that stuff? CROOKS: ...21/35...Yes, that was a concern. We filed a motion in limity,which was basically designed not really to do much other than to alert thejudge that we were concerned about that subject. ...21/47... Essentially what we asked the judge is to simply excludefrom trial a defense based on "The government's invalid." "The16th amendment is unconstitutional." "Paper money, the federalreserve system is invalid," ect. , the tax protest type of defense....22/10...We didn't want that getting into the court room and basically, even asa ploy trying to diffuse, or to distract the jury's attention for what weare here about. ...22/24...We are here about a murder. And, we particularlycare whether these people like taxes or don't like taxes. ...22/30... Asit turns out, if you would have took a vote among the proscution staff,you'd find that most of us don't like taxes very well either. But, thepoint was that we didn't want this case defended on the basis that taxesare evil so therefore they have a right to shoot marshalls. ...22/47...Now,legally obviously that is not a defense and obviously the court does nothave to permit that to try to make it a defense. And, that's what we triedto do. As it turned out, they tactically did not really take that bentanyway....23/03... Because, I think--well again getting back to the decisionthat I made, and Dennis made, was that ...23/10...we did everything in ourpower to make sure that they did not wind up having to get tax-protesterlawyers--that they had normal, hard-working, legitimate, defense lawyers....23/22... And, they did, they had some very good ones. Just by way ofillustration, I think Jonathon Garris is highly regarded as one of the besttechnical criminal defense lawyers in Fargo. Irvin Nodland is probablyat least, from a public standpoint, is regarded as the best--currently thebest criminal defense lawyer in the state...23/53... And, we did not wantthose people replaced with a bunch of tax-protest type lawyers. So, webasically did whatever we could to make sure that those people stayed inthe case. We started discovery very early on so that they would have somethingto point to their clients with competency in getting documents from thegovernments, and things of that nature. ...24/22... And, I don't know that,you know that we--we obvioulsy didn't have a lot of control over that but...24/27...we didn't want to do anything which would insight these peopleto fire these lawyers and and to hire a bunch of tax-protesters. And,that was important because that would somewhat control the kind of defensethat was going to be offered. Legitimate lawyers were going to offer classicalnormal type of defenses and that's the way it worked out....24/50... And,you look at the transcript you don't see any suggestion that they had theright to shoot marshalls. Or, that taxes justify any kind of action--thatyou want. These lawyers basically defended on the basis of their self defenseand this and that and it was very classical types of defense, which iswhat we wanted. ...25/18... JJ: Right, so, going into the trial what was your biggest fear of whatmight happen? I know that like every actor that has stage fright, as yougo in, what was your fear? CROOKS: ...25/32...Well, that's hard to answer that question Jeff aboutwhat my greatest fear was because obviously the greatest fear of a triallawyer is losing the case. By the time we got into trial, I'm not sureI saw a lot that was going to go wrong other that I think we were a littlebit concerned about whether or not they were going to be successful in blamingthe empty chair. ...26/04...That's the biggest concern we had probably in the case was that somehowor other Gordon Kahl gets the blame for everything and these guys are justkinda along for the ride. ...26/18... So, I suppose from a trial standpoint,that's what we were shooting at as much as anything. And, we took somesteps to deal with that. And, the way we presented evidence was designedto basically off-set that. ...26/33... JJ: Yeah, I guess that, what was your reaction, when they must haveat some point brought in what I call the brown bag confession of GordonKahl. When you looked at that what was your initial reaction? CROOKS: ...26/47... That had been circulating for quite a while andI knew it was cominng. The last thing I wanted was that in evidence. And,I didn't think the judge would put it in because it technically was notadmissible on any ground we could dream up. ...27/03...Judge Benson is a very good "follow the rules" type of judge. We felt very confident that he wouldn't accept it and he didn't. Essentiallyour argument was quite simple, this is a self-serving statement which certainlycannot be taken as in culpitory of himself because he's a fugitive. ...27/28...It isn't a matter of a guy speaking against his penal interest, for example,when getting up on the witness stand and saying "well, I did it. Charliehad nothing to do with it" which would then subject you to certainconviction--he's got no risk of conviction....27/46... He's nowhere around. And, that's what we argued. He has no incentive to tell the truth. He'sgone and he obviously intends never to get caught. So, there's absolutelyno underpinning of truthfullness about that statement. Therefore, there'sno guarantee of trust....28/06...We have no reason to accept that as adeparture from the hearsay rule. And, that's what the judge said. But,that wasn't a biggy in some respects because I had faith all along thatthe judge was not going to buy that--cause I didn't think he would. ...28/21...It was so clearly in violation of hearsay. It didn't suprise me that theytried it. But it would have surprised me if the judge would have let itinto evidence. ...28/30... JJ: What about as you did your investigation and started to see whatwent down out there. I'm sure, I'd like to hear a little bit about howmuch confusion there was on your part when you first looked at it as faras figuring out what really happened. Then of course we know how difficult... CROOKS: ...28/50...Surprisingly little. We had the eye witnesses thatwere in the house and within a day we found out that there were such eyewitnesses and they were interviewed. We wound up I think pretty well piecingtogether what had happened within not very long....29/10... The problemwas that we weren't quite sure what we had. The big problem was who cameover to the car and basically did the close range "coup de taut"of Bob Cheshire? ...29/27... The witnesses in the house said that that wasFaul. They stayed with that up through trial, no matter what I told them,or what the evidence told them, or anything else. The three of them thatsaw that shooting maintained adamently that it was Scott Fall that did it...29/48... Our evidence indicated that it couldn't have been, simply because the bulletsthat were found next to the car did not match the ones that were back bythe trailer house where he was firing from. They matched the little pilewhere Gordon Kahl was firing from. ...30/03... So, the only possibilitywould hav been that there was a change of weapons or something like that. But, we didn't know that till we got the ballistics back. And, eventuallywhen we got the ballistics that confirmed pretty well that indeed the witnesseswere wrong. ...30/21... Either that and we're all wrong and that there wasa change of clothing or something like that or a change of guns and indeedScott Fall did do it. That's a possiblity, but I don't think that's happened. I think what happened is because of the.... excitment, because of the movingpeople, they saw him moving toward the car and their vision was cut offby Gordon Kaul going over there, because that makes more sense to me. Idon't see that Scott Faul...30/54...indeed was the one that did the execution. But, the witnesses have neverbacked off from that...31/01...they have stuck with it thru it from crossexamination and basically a warning from myself and I said they're goingto hit you hard on this, and quite frankly, I don't believe it...31/12...but,I'm going to ask you and you tell what you saw...31/17... when they goton the witness stand, if you look at the transcript...(TAPE CUTS OFF ATEND OF #6 LYNN CROOKS) CROOKS#7 #7 LYNN CROOKS ...00/35...to continue with the answer that I was giving you on theeye witnesses. When CROK7Irv Nodland got up and cross examined, obviously, he was the one withthe motive to do it because he represented Faul, he basically confrontedthem with the bullistics. Those shells here were matching the ones thatare down by the body are not the ones up by your trailer house and thereforeit's impossible that Scott Faul would have done it. ...01/00... And, the reaction of the witnesses was "That's what you say Mr.Nodland, but he did it." Irv was so frustrated when he got throughwith it because these witnesses would not back off. They were absolutelyconvinced. And, I don't know the answer. All I know is that I presentedit like I did and as honestly as I could. I reccommended to the jury thatthe witnesses were probably wrong...1/27... I couldn't say any more than that, I wasn't there. But, that's theway we played it and it was one of those things as you started to get intoin looking at the investigative part of the case, going up through and totrial, it was very important for us to know, because it made a differencehow we treated Scot Faul. ...1/50... If he executed Bob Cheshire I am going to try his case different thanif he was the executioner. And, indeed when it was clear that he was not,I did change. CROK7Another question was what was Brower's part? Brower was there; he hada gun. There were shotgun shells found in the general area where he was. And, so the question was who fired those shells?...2/15... Bullistics told us it was not him. As as matter of fact they wereJim Hobson's shell. So, basically we were excluding him as a firer andwe treated him different. Essentially we were in a position and were willingand ready to give Brower the same deal we gave Mr. Wagner. Now he didn'tuse as good a judgement as Mr. Wagner. ....2/43... ...2/51...Essentially it was that we felt that given what actually occurred,what Wagner had plead to quantified fairly well what we judged their culpibilityto be, particularly if they were willing to come forward and say "Hey,we want no part of this. We don't support it, justify it. We're sorryit happened. ...3/18... And, that's what Wagner did. Wagner's sentencing was basically veryclassical. It was sympathy, regret, sympathy for the family, regret forhis part in it. It was basically representing to the judge genuine contritionthat he was drawn into this thing....3/40... Brower made a bad choice. I'm not sure that his overall culpabilitywas nessarily any worse than Wagner's, but at some point Brower decidedthat "Well, I'm going to support Scott and Yori and I'm going to doall that I can, including lying, to help them out, and he paid for it. It was his choice; he had the same choice that Wagner did. ...4/11... But, in making the choice that he did I think he made a grave, graveerror. But, you know, I'm not his lawyer. His lawyer advised him to takethe deal. There's no question about that; I know that to be the case. He did not follow his lawyer's advice and he got a worse deal from the juryand from the judge than he would have gotten from us. No question. ...4/35... ...4/45...Basically, he did time served which was three or four months,I suppose, something like that. And, that was it....4/51... ...5/00...I knew you were going to ask me that and I don't rememberit exactly what the deal was. It was harboring a witness I think or harboringa fugitive, I think. But, it was a lesser crime and I think probably thesame crime that Brower was ultimately convicted of. The difference in Brower,he also got convicted of conspiracy which was considerably worse. ...5/22 CROK7 ...5/50...The evidence, I think at trial, was fairly concise as to whathappened. When it all got reconstructed, I don't think there was a wholelot of question about who was where and had done what....6/07... What we basically had done is we had prepared from different compendiums,little piles of shells from eye witnesses and other things--where bodieswere, where blood was, a schematic and we kept filling it in. And, thatwas one of our trial exhibits. It turned out that, when we got it all done,that was about what the evidence suppported. And, essentially it was this....6/35... ...6/35... Muir had gone up the road and was supposed to have had theroad block set up about a mile down the road. Well, for some reason, knownonly to no one, he's sitting on top of the hill with the red light on. ...6/55... Well, what happened as Wagner said is they come over the hill and there'sthe flashing red light down the road about a mile and of course immideatelythe bad guys decide that they are not going to continue down to the roadblock. ...7/12... So, they pull in to the Reardon driveway. Well, now the Marshall isdown the road a mile farther than he is and here are these two guys followedby Cheshire. And, you got these two cars sitting in a driveway--and I'vegot a schematic I can show you later and you can take pictures of it ifyou want. But essestially what happens is those two cars are in the driveway....7/34... Cheshire pulled up diagonally across the road blocking them from thesouth and the Marshall is still a mile down the road. They call on theradio that "Get down here Ken." So, he comes down--he comes downto about to where the trees start, which is maybe a hundred yards, a littlemore than a hundred yards and stops there....7/56... He lets out Wigglesworth. Deputy Wigglesworth gets out. By thistime Mr. Faul has gotten out of one of the cars that he's in. He's runup by the trailer house...8/10... So, Wigglesworth is going out across the pasture, kinda gonna cuthim off and get around behind him. ...8/22...Then Muir pulls back down the highway a little further andnow he's in fairly close. ...8/26... Now unfortunately we're down whereeverybody is about 75 feet or so apart. CROK7We're basically at the kind of range where a good gunman, a good rifleman,can pick somebody off basically without aiming. ...8/43... And, we're now in a situation where if somebody starts shooting,it's almost certain that someone is going to die. We're not talking anymore about people ducking for cover, because who ever gets shot at firstis probably gonna get hit. And, with a 223 round, you've got a good chanceof getting killed, and that's why the military uses 223's. They're an extremelydeadly weapon....9/07... As long as they don't hit something before they hit you, the chancesare that they are going to take an arm off or a leg off, or kill you. Muchmore deadly than a 3006 in that regard, because a 3006 will go through youand it'll just leave a big hole, but a 223 won't, it'll go in and it'llexplode and you will have shrapnel all over you. ....9/30... And, that's what happened ultimately when you take the x-rays of thebodies--the two dead marshalls. They're just littered with shrapnel. There's no exit wounds; they go in and they explode and that's what happens. So, that's what we're dealing with. We're dealing now with a situationwhich is so intense and so tight that it's literally a powder keg waitingto explode and it does explode....9/52... What basically you've got at the time the shooting started--you'vegot Hobson getting out of the Cheshire vehicle and going around and he'skind of in the middle of the thing and he's up out of the road. And, hecomes up onto the highway with one of their cars--next to one of their cars....10/09... Kapp (?) is by the right door of the Cheshire vehicle. Cheshire isbehind the driver's seat or at his lefthand door. Yori Kahl is at a fencepostabout 75 feet out--directly out from Cheshire. ...10/25... It's not actually a fencepost, it's a great big fencepost with a utilitypole. So, that's where he is. Gordon Kahl is right smack dab in the middleof the y of the highway, next to his car. Yori Kahl is up next to thetrailer house by the corner. He's now been cut off by Wigglesworth. And,Wagner is flat down in his face in the back seat of the car and so is Mrs.Kahl....10/55... Brower is out beside one of the cars flat on the ground. CROK7So, you've got all the players in place and basically then what you haveis roughly about nine minutes of standoff. ...11/08... And, the way you know this is simply by the radio transmissions. And, you hear the radio transmissions which were recorded by the state radio,talking back and forward about what they are doing, and what they are intendingto do and you basically can count them off with the state counter, fromthe time they get there to the confrontation starts and until about thetime that you figure that the shooting is starting is right around nineminutes....11/34... And, then essentially the first shot is fired. Somebody says "Whoshot first?" "Who made that shot?" And then all hell brakes loose and you're talkingmaybe less than a minute of actual firing and the firing's all over, andthen you start with a body count....CROK711/55... But basically what the witnesses describe as follows: Cappsays that the first shot came from the direction of where Yori Kahl was....12/04...Hesaid it came from over in that direction and he didn't actually see themuzzle blast but he looked over there and he saw Yori Kahl looking likehe had just fired. At that same minute, he said he saw Cheshire reach forhis throat area indicating he had been hit and saw some blood....12/22... Almost simultaneously then, there's a confrontation between him andGordon Kahl in which there's shot exchanged. Capp fires twice at Yori,hits him on the second shot, which indeed was confirmed, he ahd buckshotin him. It's one of the things he went to the hospital for. ...12/47... Sometime in there, apparently Ken Muir has also fired at Yori, becausethat obviously is the shot that is in the pistol that's on his chest. Sometimein there Capp is hit, takes his trigger finger off and I think if I rememberright it was his right trigger finger, takes his trigger finger off....13/20... He kinda backs out the action. Bob Cheshire is hit again by someone,we don't know who. So, now he's got a bullet that goes in his side andunder his arm, about here, goes into his chest and just disintegrates. But, in the process, severing a couple of major arteries. So, he's basicallybleeding to death internal....13/44... He's then hit again on kind of the side of his face about where theVegas (?) nerve would come down and the carodtid artery. And there's anargument at trial about what that would effect his voice--if his Vegas nerveis severed then he's got no more voice. ...CROK714/01... But, he's got those two hits within seconds and we aren't surewho shot the second one but we're reasonably sure that Yori shot the firstone. The second one could have either been Gordon Kahl, or it could havebeen Scott Faul. Scott fires roughly five shots from the corner of thetrailer house. ...14/23... Those all hit within probably a three or four foot radius in the frontwindow, or right in the front of the vehicle. They're all right basicallywhere Cheshire was. We don't know if one of those shots was one that wentinto the side of his face or not, but we know that those shells were allwent in, were passable from follow thru, ...14/46... that was followed through. Somewhere in the frey (?), someone, andwe think it probably was Gordon Kahl, turns and shoots Marshall Muir--oneshot right through the heart. And, he just drops just like a stone. Anothershot is fired at the Deputy Sneibel (?)....15/07... I'm not sure it was a ricquochet or what, it hits him kind of in thehand--in the upper thigh. Another shot is shot and apparently goes underthe cars, hits a rock, and a rock is driven up into Jim Hobson's head andbasically he's then semi conscious from then on--does brain damage, andserious permanent damage to Hobson. ...15/36... That was not apparently a bullet. It was actually a riquocheting rockthat was hit off the assphault. So, there basically are all the shots thathit anybody. The only one of our team that wasn't hit at all is Wigglesworth....15/53... And, he's not really in the firing. He never fires his gun. He'scoming around the other side. None of the other defendants were hit atall. As far as we know, the only one that was hit Yori Kahl--we know hewas hit by Capp with the buckshot. And, he was obviously hit by someone,probably Ken Muir, in the pistol. ...16/19... So, that's essentially how the set-up is. And, that's where all theplayers are. We're talking now about maybe a minute worth of firing todo all that, less time than it took me to tell you all that....16/32... CROK7 ...16/52...Well, I'm not sure my opinion is worth a whole lot other thanI think it's probably the same opinion of most law enforcement officershave had after they look at what went wrong. And, I think most of themjust simply judged what went wrong is they got in too close if they were'ntwilling to shoot. ...17/11... If they weren't going to get in and give the order to drop your gunsor else and fire if they didn't. If they weren't willy to do that, thenthey were in too close. If they had gone in said "Drop your arms,we're going to fire" and been prepared to fire, they would have beenwithin their legal rights. ...17/32... They probably would have been sorely condemned by the public, becaue,you know, we all like to think that we give a guy every opportunity to surrenderbefore you fire. But, legally, they had every right to go in, shoot theseguys basically for pointing weapons at them. ...17/48... They had a right to have weapons and the defendants didn't--as simpleas that. I don't think the marshalls were ever prepared to do that. Ifthey weren't, then they should not have been in that close, because thealternative was simply backing off far enough so that these guys were notsure that they were going to hit anybody on their first shot....18/10... Because once you've taken that factor out of it, it's going to bea deterrant for them taking a shot at anyone. Because if have to--if theyhave any concern about shooting and missing, they probably won't shoot. They won't start the firing....CROK718/24... Basically, what they either should have done, I suppose, iseither backed out and abandoned the whole project, or else, backed off farenough until additional law enforcement had gotten there and they can simplyput them under seige....18/40... And, you know, nobody particularly wanted, from the law enforcementside, to wind up getting into a gun fight and mowing a bunch of tax protestersdown over a bunch of misdemeanor tax violations. That was not the objective....18/55... And, that's clear from what you see from the activites of the marshallsthat that was not their objective. Well, the point is if that isn't yourobjective, then you better do it in a way that doesn't promote a gun fight....19/10... Unless you youself are prepared to go ahead and use the violence youare entitled to use, then you better not force the other guy into doingit. Because, obviously if he shoots at you you are going to have to shootback. ...19/23... ...19/32...Oh, no question about it--but with cause. You know, I'vebeen doing tax protesters, oh since somewhere around '73, 72'-73'--quitefrankly up until this time, I had neve thought that there was anything particularly dangerous about tax protestors. ...19/50... I'd been threatened by them. I'd had them go out of court swearingat me and threatening me and whatnot and I laughed it off. It was not takenas a serious threat by me. It was not taken as a serious threat by anyoneelse because basically these people had never demonstrated any willingnessto actually carry through with anything violent. ...20/10... Obviously, Gordon Kahl was an exception. And, I don't think that thosemarshalls recognized that. CROK7Now there you get down to one of the marshalls, Bud Warren, former U.S.Marshall, Bud perhaps did. And, Bud maybe forsaw better than others whatwas going to happen....20/32... But, quite clearly, Ken Muir didn't and the other marshalls didn't. And, I don't necessarily fault them for that because I think they feltthat if they got this guy surrounded he wasn't really going to murder alaw enforcement officer rather than surernder. ...20/50... I don't think it ever ocured to them that he would shoot them downrather than surrender if it got to the point where he couldn't escape andthey obviously thought they had him to the point where they thought he couldn'tescape. ...21/02... Well, it's pretty clear to me that part of their thinking was not thatwe are going to get into a gun fight but how do we keep this guy surroundedand how do we keep him escaping some way. CROK7It's kinda of basically like Custer and the Indians. The explainationfor Custer and the Indians was that Custer, quite frankly, did not thinkthe Indians were going to fight. He was more concernded about them escaping....21/28... And, when it turned out that they were going to fight, Custer was justtotally out gunned and out manned and everything went wrong. In some waysthat's what happened here, a misscalculation of your enemy because that'swhat it certainly turned out to be. ...21/45... CROK7...22/08...He--Darrell is an enigmatic figure in all this. The law enforcementpeople do not like Darrell. They've never forgiven Darrell for what hedid. There are a lot of people in law enforcement, that to this day, willswar up and down, that Darrell was actually a fellow-traveler of GordonKahl and was kind of rooting for him....22/32... I never accepted that. I think that the problem with Darell was reallya problem of nerve. I think Darrell thought, probably more correctly thanthe marshalls that I've just said, that there was going to be a shoot out. I think he probably judged Gordon Kahl as more dangerous than the marshallsdid....22/56... And, I think he felt that there's going to be a shoot out. He didn'twant to be aprt of it, not necessarily for any great sympathy for GordonKahl, but because he didn't want any part of a shoot out. And, I thinkthat pretty much explains it. ...23/10... There was substantial suspicion that he had tipped them off and thatsort of thing and that did not bear out. There was some calls made to himby Mr. Brower, but there was no indication, by Mr. Brower, or anybody else,or by anyone surrounding Mr. Graff, that he in fact had tipped them off....23/35... Or, that he had done anything to frustrate the marshall's arrent attempt. But, I will never be able to convince a lot of law enforcement of that. They have never forgiven Darrell for his part in it. I don't know--youknow, it's hard for me, as a proscutor, to go beyond that and to simplysay that I felt that there was no criminal culpability. I felt that therewas no serious question that Darrell deserved proscution or anything ofthat nature. ...24/09... I think I made a pretty clear decision on that, and the other peoplein our office did. I guess I might have some personal opinions as to hisgrit and what not, but I'm not sure I want to necessarily express those. CROK7Obviously, the law enforcement people felt that he should have gonealong and he should have cooperated. He should have helped. And, maybeanother person ther would have made the difference. ...24/38... The same point is made in regard to Bud Warren, by the way, that Budhad been there. He knew this guy. He had a little rapport with him. MaybeBud being there would have made a difference. Maybe he would have beenable to talk him into throwing his gun down....24/54... So, that argument has been made with Bud the same way. Law enforcementhad never forgiven Bud for refusing to go. I don't want to necessarilyget my own personal opinion beyond relating that, from law enforcement standpoint,both of those men did not engratiate themselves with their law enforcementofficers, and I don't know if they have ever regained that. ...25/20... I think Bud probably died never having reconciled himself with hisformer marshall friends, or the other people in law enforcement. I don'tthink he ever did. ...25/34... ...25/53...yeah, I think the weakness of the book, from my perspective,is that the editors talked him into dropping some of the trial out. And,I know that happened because I don't think Jim has made any bones aboutit. They wanted him to rewrite it. They wanted him to put more of thefarm problem into, things of that nature....26/14... And, maybe that gave it a broader appeal, but I think it weakenedit as a story of Gordon Kahl, and a story of the trial, and so forth. Ithink, from my own perspective, I would have liked to see more of the trialthrown in there. There was some really great trial scenes that he couldhave developed more than he did, and I think some fun scenes.CROK7...26/39... For example, the defense--funniest thing I've ever seendone in a court room. The defense did a little pantomime. All of the defenselawyers were playing roles. They kind of reconstructed this--what had happened. And, they had it all timed out by somebody and they rapped their rulerfor the shells being fired and all sorts of things....27/02... Everybody in the court room is sitting there with their mouths open. "What on earth are they doing?" It's the dumbest thing I everheard of. And, that would have been a wonderful thing to have developedin a book because I'd never seen anybody pull a stunt like that....27/19... And, the judge is sitting up there--you could just see judge Benson,normally a very stern individual, just sitting there "What in hellis going on here?" But, it was one of those little things that, yeah,if you would have had more room, you could have developed because it wasa fun little thing. ...27/37... There was some dramatic things that didn't get in. But, if you lookat what he put in, given the space that the editors had given him, or allowedhim, yeah, I suppose he put in about what he had to. But, there wouldhave been other things that I would have added. ...27/52... ...28/08...Well, the problem I had with the farm thing--I think he didan excellent job of talking about the farm problems, and that's problemsthat, as he said in the book, that are very close to my heart. My rootsare in North Dakota. My family still farms. My brother-in-law is farmingour family farm. And, that's something that's near and dear to me...28/32... But, I don't know that Jim made quite the transition that he neededto about what that really had to do with Gordon Kahl. Because, when itreally got down to it, the things that had gone wrong with Gordon Kahl,went wrong with him about 1945 when he came back from the war. ...28/52... And, he never really truly came back from the war in the sense thatGordon Kahl was never the same afterwards, as I understood the development,character development, not just from his book, from what the FBI had toldme, and basically their background. ...29/08... So, what did that have to do with it other than to show that, yes,the times were right for this sort of thing to happen. But, would it havemade any difference to Grodon Kahl? The answer, unfortunately, is no. What went wrong with Gordon Kahl would have gone wrong in good,bad, or indifferenttimes....29/31... Because, there had been a lot of good times since World War II, anda lot of very good times on the farm, and none of that straightened GordonKahl out. You know, what it did--the obvious thing that there were problemson the farms that basically they looked to people like Gordon Kahl as "Dothey have the answer?" ...29/56... There is no question that that happened. Some of these meetings--themeeting in Medina was a meeting like that, a lot of people that went tothat meeting, went there thinking "Do these guys have the answera asto how to solve the farm problem."...30/11... Well, as it turned out, what was being discussed at this stupid meetingin Medina is whether or not blacks were going to allowed into this stupidtownship. And, most of the people came away saying "What the helldid we go to that for? We got nothing against blacks. If they want tocome up here and farm, that's their business but we want to find out howdo we get the price of wheat up?" ...30/33... And, for the practical matter that Gordon Kahl had to offer gave nosolice to hardly anybody, other than the tax protester.END CROOKS#7STARTCROOKS#8 ...00/05...And the tax protester stuff fit pretty good but the farmproblem didn't just seem to ever connect up. That's what I was left with,and that's what a lot of people were left with. ...00/13... ...00/28...That's Sarah Vogel and obviously she got to be the financierof Gordon Kahl, but, yeah, you're right, there was never a connection thatI thought was properly made there and a lot of people felf that way andI think Jim felt that way. Jim did not particularly want to write it thatway, but, I think the editors felt that they needed it to get more of ageneral interest and that's why it's there. ...00/57 ...1/05...Well, you don't know. You know, if you wind up with a JessicaLang's countRy thing, type of approach, or if it's going to be murder onthe prarie appoach, I mean I don't know. It's going to be interesting....1/19... ...1/27...Oh, there was some great cout room stuff. One of the funnestthings I ever did at trial was a cross examination of Dr. Smith. And, Ijust never had a good a time cross examining anybody in my life as theirDr. Smith who is their general all-purpose expert....1/45... You know, he was a glass expert; he was a blood expert; he was thisexpert and that expert. And, Dr. Smith, incidentally I think quite highlyof, we use him ourself, but quite obviously he was asked to do more thanhe had the capability to do. And, he was one of those experts that crawledout on a limb so far that I could just chop him off one segment at a time....2/13... It was a lot of fun for a trial lawyer to do that. I mean it's justthoroughly enjoyable to chop an expert off because he literally was sayingthings that he didn't know as much about as I did. You get into bullistics,and I had, obviously, had been more associated with bullistics than Dr.Smith. ...2/31... But, there were some fun things that happened during his cross examination. And, there were some fun things that happened with Dr. Petty. He was probablythe most impressive expert witness that I've ever seen in my 20 years, andI've seen some good ones. But, Dr. Petty got down and he took off his coatand he talked to the jury for about like an hour with no questions....2/56... He did a lecture and it was beautiful--just sittin there thinking"God, this is good." But, there were a lot of things, you know,you could develop out of that trial that would have made interesting reading,interesting watching that there just wasn't space. ...3/14... ...3/26...Oh, no you never would because the way that came most of itwouldn't be in the record. CROK8**I mean, you've got these lawyers running all over the court room andthey're rapping their gavels, and they are doing this and doing that. And,the judge is sitting up there saying "What in the hell is going on."...3/42... And, then they finish it up by asking Dr. Smith, "Well now DrSmith, could that have happened?" Smith saying "Well, I don'tknow. I suppose." It had the jury laughing. It had us laughing....4/00... It even had them laughing because it was one of those funny thingsthat even the judge cracked a little smile over it. Because, nobody expectedit. It caught us all by complete surprise. And, it was one of those thingsthat could have developed just artistically because his article that dayin the paper wrote that up fairly well....4/22... I remember that when he wrote it up that night he said "Well,we all got a little treat. And, he described this thing in the paper. And, I think if he would have taken his Fargo Forum paper article and pluggedit in there, I think it would have been a nice little addition. ...4/38...CROK8 ...4/49...I don't think there was a serious threat. If there was, itwas deterred probably by a show of force. The marshalls had a very, verytight security which was there more for deterrant than anything else. ...5/06... I mean it was basically there to make sure that there wasn't anybodythat it think it was easy to do anything, and there never was an incident. Things went along very smoothly. There was no problem. ...5/20... Probably, a week or so before the trial I started getting phone calls--thehang-up calls, the dead line calls. I guess I felt somewhat uneasy. Ididn't know quite what was going to be the potential for that. My housewas being watched and Dennis's house was being watched. ...5/47... As a matter of fact, it was kind of funny, my neighbor had a companycar that had Wisconsin plates on it. And, he had a relative of his cometo visit him for the weekend with Minnasota plates on it. So, he's gotthis Wisconsin plate car and this Minnesota plate car parked out kinda infront of my house....6/08... And all at once, here comes the sirens and here's the policemen saying"You know who these people are with these cars out there." And,this was the Wickstom from Wisconsin which was what's behind it and I said"Yeah, it's my neighbor's car and I think that's his brother or somebody." And, he said "Oh God, you guys nearly gave us a heart attack. Wefigured you were about ready to get assaulted by Wickstom and crew fromWisconsin." ...6/38... But, yeah, it was watched closely and I felt good about that but Ialso obviously knew that if somebody wanted to do something to me they didn'thave any great difficulty doing it. What Jim says in the book is absolutelycorrect. I got my shot gun out and loaded it and put it beside my bed,not necessarily becasue I thought there was anything useful to be done withit, but it kind of reassured my wife. ...7/03... I think she was nervous. Yeah, I don't think it was ever any of usthat were involved in the government side didn't recoginze that there wasa potential there for serious personal consequences. We were careful. It's stupid, but when I got into my car after trial every day I'd alwayslook under the wheels to make sure that somebody had stuck a little plasticexplosive bomb that i'm gonna drive over. I had no idea if there is sucha bomb made but I always--I convinced myself that there was some use tomake sure that there was nothing under my wheel. ...7/44... In actuality, my car was watched pretty closely. But, yeah, therewas a lot of tension. There was a lot of tension for the judge. CROK8**...7/55... There was certainly tension for the jurors. Mr. Pankow, thejuror that I mentioned earlier told me he felt very uneasy, not necessairlybecasue they were sequestered, they were uneasy for what was going to happenafterward. They just didn't know. "If we returned verdicts, are we going to wind up being...?"...8/19... And, they kind of concluded apparently "Well, we do our dutyand that's that." And, that's what Dennis and I concluded. You can'tbe deterred by it. But, ther's still a nervousness. ...8/32...CROK8** ...9/15...Well, I am a 32nd degree Mason which means basically thatyou've gone through the advancement of the 3rd degree Masonry which is basicallyyou're standard run-of-the-mill--if you're going to join the Shrine you'vegot to go up Yorkish rights or Scottish rights and I went Yorkish rights,or Scottish rights and the end of that is 32nd degree Mason. ...9/40... So, yeah, that's true but I'm happy to report that I've never beeninvolved in human sacrifice. And, certainly that's nothing to do with MasonicLodge at all....9/54... But, yeah, there was something I have no idea historically what accountsfor it, but they do not like Masons. They don't like Jews. They don'tlike blacks. Now, I don't know if that puts all of us in the same kettle,but, yeah Masons--when one of them saw that I had a Masonic square and compasson my hand--"I mean, holy smoke, that guy's a Mason!" ...10/25... It turns out, you know there are a lot of Mason's involved. JudgeBenson had taken a (?) from a lodge, but he was a Mason. Rodney Web wasa Mason and still is an active Mason. Gary Anear is a Mason. And, KenAldridge, the chief investigator is a Mason. There are a lot of Masons. There are a lot of Masons in Fargo-Moorehead, and a lot of Masons involvedin government, ...10/56... a lot of Masons everywhere like George Washington and on and on. I haveno idea, because when you look at the founding fathers a very large percentageof them were Masons. I never made the connection of what set these peopleoff thinking that there was something sinister about them, other than Masonshave obviously gotten a hard time from different sections as being a secret,or secretive society. ...11/28... But, that's no different than anybody else, the Elks, or anyone elsethat don't publicize their membership roles. Beyond that I have no ideawhat sparked those people. But, yes that's true, if the Mason's have gottena rather bad reviews from the tax protesters. ...11/52.. ...12/03...I was always accused of having the ability to rub my ringand make judge Benson do whatever I wanted, and God I wish I had that ability. I would have loved to have had that ability but I did not, I can assureyou. When I was rubbing my ring, Judge Benson never seem to react theway I wanted him to. ...12/25... ...12/38...Nothing. Quite frankly, one of the few trials I ever triedwhere I can honestly say nothing did not go about like I expected. Verylittle went bettter than I expected, but nothing went wrong. There werea couple of little things that I would have done different, and had nothingreally to do with the trial, but the one that I mentioned to Jim and Imade no secret of was--I got talked into making a--doing an interview ofScott Fall...13/16... Well, the interview didn't take place till a month or so before thetrial, long after all the facts and the dust had come to settle. Well,the marshall wanted and thought that he might have some clue, or give themsome clue, even by accident, as to where they were going to find GordonKahl. ...13/36... I didn't think they would, and I quite frankly thought it was a wasteof time, but they finally prevailed that I should make a deal so that wecould interview him. So, I finally struck a bargain. Well, as it turnedout, that was one of the dunbest things I ever did. I had absolutely noreason to think that we would get anything useful out of that. ...13/57... And, we didn't. All we did was that he generated a statement whichI could have written myself. I knew exactly what he was going to say becauseIknew what he was going to say if he was going to properly defend the case. So, I could have writen the statement myself I wouldn't have had to interviewhim. ...14/11... And, we got this stupid statment and then I'd agree the conditionsthat the statement could be used, etc. And, then, as you see in the transcript,Irv Nodland and I get into a great big fight at trial about what we hadintended by this thing. And, I kept saying to myself, "What in God'sname did I ever agree to such a stupid thing for?" ...14/33... And, I would never do that again. I would just say "Hey, youknow, we aren't going to gum up the thing now." I felt bad about it--because I felt bad getting into a fight with Irv about what it said. And,we had put this stupid agreement toghether and he thought it meant somethingdifferent than I did, and neither one one wer probably right when you readit over it didn't properly reflect what either one of us intended. ...15/02... You know, it doesn't speak to well of our draftsman ability for eitherone of us. The point ultimately was that it became a point at appeal andwhatnot. And, I would have done that differently. But, it was really somethingthat happened prior to trial. And, beyond that, there is very little thatI can say that I would have done differently. ...15/26... Things went probably as carefully as I've planned a trial. And, thedifference was that I had a lot of time to do it. And, I was basicallyworking full time. And, I was planning closing argument a month beforetrial, which is unusual and is certainly a luxury. ...15/45... Normally, you get to plan your closing argument over supper that nightbefore you give it. CROK8** But, obviouly the word had been passed from the department, they expectedfull time effort on it. And, we quite frankly, were willing to give fulltime efffort on it from the prosecution team. ...16/06... So, basically , I cleared my desk, everything that was on it just simplywent to someone else and I didn't do anything but the Kahl case for a coupleof months. And, Dennis didn't quite clear his as much, but almost. And,we basically got some help from the department. We got our law clerk backand we did some other things that worked around the shortage that--you knowthe department took over a few of our civil cases and whatnot. So, we didit quite intentionally so that we would not be doing anything at the lastmoment. ...16/49... And, I can truly say that, there was very little that I hadn't thoughtof before trial. And, it was just that I did have a lot of time to thinkabout it and I planned it. It worked out pretty much as I'd planned. ...17/02... ...17/10...Well, that part was not my plan. And, there was franklynothing anybody could do about it. What was obvious, an what had happenedobviously with regard to that gun, was Gordon Kahl had thought in his warpedmind somehow or other that was going to effect the trial. ...17/30... Well, in actuality, it didn't effect anything. All it did really wasprove, or at lest suggest that Ken Muir had in fact probably got off oneround before he died, and that round had hit Yori Kahl right in the gun. And, if it hadn't been for the gun Yori would have been dead. ...17/51... It would have gone right through his heart, right where the gun wassupposed to be. The defense had argued that that proved that Yori was firedon before he fired--that he did not fire first....CROK818/05... Well, unfortunatle for Yori, that isn't what he said. Yori'sinterview said that he had fired first. But, the defense had argued that"No, and in fact, Ken Muir had fired first." And, that never,quite frankly, made sense to me. I could never--I never think of any possiblemotive why Ken would have fired first unless he had been watching Yori likea hawk and saw him getting ready to fire and thought "Hey, I bettershoot him or he's going to kill somebody." ...18/37... I mean, that's conceivable I suppose, but tha'ts the only possiblecircumstances that I can imagine that Ken Muir would have fired a round. He certainly wouldn't have fired a round just because he said "Well,you know, this thing has gone on long enough. I'm going to break the stalemate."...18/51... That's not the kind of man Ken Muir was, and certainly I rejectedthat as a possibility. But that's in essence what the defense was arguing. So, along comes the gun. And, it was actually reported a couple of daysbefore the trial was over. ...19/11... The gun had been reported and what had happened was one of the defenselawyers had gotten a call saying there's some evidense out at West Acres,but the instructions were bad. So, they had passed it on and somebody hadgone out and looked at West Acres and they didn't find it. CROK8**...19/29... Well then, one of the maintenance men found the gun. Hereit is in a dumpster, or in one of these little cannisters. And, so nowthe gun shows up. Three of the defense lawyers had finished their argumentand one left. So, I told the judge "Hey, we got a problem." ...19/49... Now, we got this gun. What do we do with the stupid thing? And, nobodyknows what to do with it. This never happened before. Obviously it's apiece of evidence, that had it been available before, somebody would haveput it into evidence, probably us. But, we obviously don't particularlywant it. ...20/08... Matter of fact, at this stage, we're saying to ourselves "Whatthe hell did that have to show up for?" So, basically we're all sittingthere in chambers trying to figure out what to do with this situation,in which there is no good answer for. And, we start basically making suggestions. Basically, a consensious is finally reached that the defense wants itin so here's how we'll do it. ...20/37... The government will offer it. We'll put our sticker on it and we'llmake an explaination. And, we'll kind of concede foundation for it andthat's the way we did it. And, then the defense will have one closing argumentleft and they will get up and argue whatever they want. So, that's theway we did it....20/51... But, it didn't really caus us to do much more than add a couple oflines to our closing argument. It certainly didn't convince me that KenMuir had fired the first shot. What it convinced me of was that Ken Muirhad been a pretty good marksman and he's gotten one round and I felt certainregret that he'd hit the gun, because of all of the people that I wouldhave just as soon had Ken hit home with a bullet, Yori would be very closeto the top of the list. ...21/33... But, the point really is that it didn't change my presentation verymuch at all. And, certainly it didn't change my opinion of what happened....21/46...CROK8**...21/51...At that point, you're getting back to the same question. These men have refused to lay down their weapons. The marshalls basicallywere legally entitled to open fire any time they wanted....22/04... I along with everybody else would have felt not too good about thatif they would have just decided "Well, we've sat here long enough,and now we're going to start shooting people down." You know, I wouldnot have felt good about that but it would have been legal. ...22/22... I do not think that's what happened because I've you know, I've knowKen a long time. That was not Ken. I can't imagine Ken having fired particularlya deadly round at somebody unless he felt that it was no alternative tosave somebody's life, perhaps his own. But, he sertainly would not havesqueezed off a round simply to end a confrontation because he was tiredof sitting there. ...22/53... CROK8**...23/05...I hope Yori never does. In my judgement, Yori Kahl is anextremely dangerous person. I think he's a sociopathic person. I thinkhe's very much like his father, that he's basically filled hatred--hatredand intolerance--the kind of person that fits into the classical whaitesupremist doctrine, hatred of blacks, hatred of coloreds, hatred of Hispanics,basically hatred of anybody that isn't white, and protestant, or whatever....23/48... Yeah, I think he is extremely dangerous. I would feel very badly ifhe ever gets paroled, because I don't think it's ever safe to let him outin public. Scott Fall, on the other hand, I think is a completely differentstory. ...24/06... Scott Fall felt very badly about that shooting--no question in my mindabout that. I think he recognized, deep down, that he had picked the wrongside, and that it had terrible consequences, not only for himself but hisfamily....24/24... I think he wished with all of his being that it had never happened. He rationalized his own behavior to the point where he convinced himselfthat he wasn't as guilty that he in fact was. His argument had always been,"That well, I was trying to escape ...24/46.. and I was cornered, and I had no alternative," which just flewin the face of all of the facts. He didn't see the red lights. He didn'thear them shout that they were marshalls. He didn't hear that they hada warrant for Gordon Kahl. He didn't hear what everybody else heard, includingbystanders. And, what that tells me is that he rationalized, obviously....25/09... But in a certain extend, he honestly convinced himself, that he wasn'tas culpable. He deserved to go to prison and deserved the sentence he did. But, at some point, should he be parolled? I think that would depend onwhether or not he has straightened his thinking out, or whether he hasn't....25/33... I guess I wouldn't feel all that uncomfortable if some person decidedat some point that he's basically not a public threat. Because, I thinkGordon--I think he as opposed to Yori Kahl has a legitimate conscious. And, I always felt that way. I just never felt otherwise about him. ...25/54...CROK8**...25/59...Rather a pathetic person. Probably an abused wife, certainlymentally abused by her husband. Certainly a woman that, through all ofthis activity, that was not affirmably culpable for doing anything. Wenever really contended that she was....26/24... She probably deserved, technically, to be convicted, but we didn'tfeel badly when she didn't. I think she conspired to help him get away,but in the big picture of things, I guess maybe wives are entitled to dothat. And, I think that's about what the jury did was cut her a littleslack....26/50... They wouldn't have necessarily had to. But, in all of that, she remainsa very pathetic figure. Had she been married to a normal person, I thinkshe probably would have been a very nice person. Because, I never saw anythingin the workup of things that indicated that she was anything other thana very standard, middleclass, farm housewife kind of person. And, had shenot had such a screwy husband, I don't think Joan Kahl would have woundup at all like she is today....27/28... ...27/49...Well, it's made me do a couple of interviews that I haven'tdone for a long time in the Kahl case. It really hasn't effected me muchat all. CROK8**It's water under the damn to a certain extent. I don't think the taxprotesters are a serious problem in North Dakota, and have been since thatmurder. ...28/12... They haven't disappeared, but they've certainly been less visable. They've certainly been less public. They'er, if you talk to the IRS, there'sno shortage of them....28/25... But, there have been no indications that the white supremists factionhas caught on in North Dakota, or thrived, or doing any better than it everdid. I think, over all, in a certain respect, once these murders occuredI think it cooled everyone off. I think most of the tax protesters werehorrified. ...28/56... And, I think a lot of them said to themselves "My God, I didn'tthink that's what tax protesting involved." I don;t think most ofthem figured that that was part of the price of being a tax protester, wasbecoming involved in a shootout with marshalls. So, I think it cooled thetax protesters down a good deal....29/18... I think we saw that very clearly. They had to look very far, very hard at the time to find anybodyto find anybody that would talk for the tax protesters. And, they wind upgetting this ding-a-ling from Wisconsin...29/33.. I mean, you know, three states over. But, that wasn't an accident. They couldn't find any of these tax protester in North Dakota that wouldopen their mouth, including some of them that were vocal, Lynn Martin, etc. Most of them wouldn't say much. They ran a pretty low profile. So, theywinf up with this ding-a-ling Wickstrom. And, he wound up with a bunchof press in North Dakota. As far as I know, he never came to North Dakotaduring any of ;this time.(END LYNN CROOKS)END CROOKS#8(END SIDE A #8 LYNN CROOKS)
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A timeline of the life of Gordon Kahl, from early childhood interests, to his marriage to Joan Kahl, his decorated military experience,
his outspoken tax protest, the Medina shootout, and his unusual death in Arkansas in 1983.
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VARIETY / Indie documaker Jeffrey F. Jackson sticks it to the IRS and the Feds in "Death & Taxes," a hard-hitting reinvestigation of the 1983 Gordon Kahl case, about which questions still linger. Jackson's unfazed, investigative reporting-style approach and inventive handling of familiar material make this a controversial item for fests and progressive webs. Non-U.S. viewers will also get a charge out of its conspiracy theme. read more
CHRONICLES MAGAZINE / Gordon Kahl was a simple farmer who became famous for not filing income tax returns. Imprisoned and hounded by IRS agents who never did prove he owed any amount of money, Kahl and his son were involved in a shootout with police. The son is still serving a prison sentence, but the father was surrounded and shot in Arkansas by police officers who mutilated and burned his body. read more
GUNS & AMMO / A new video documentary, Death & Taxes, details a case of government murderously out of control that was briefly mentioned in the October 1994 Guns & Ammo article "The Ugly Truth About Gun Control." Death & Taxes is the story of Gordon Kahl, a North Dakota farmer and decorated World War II veteran, and his apparent death at the hands of federal agents. read more
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Now Available!This set of 6 DVD's comprises over 13 hours of uncut footage, including a 2+ hour prison interview with Yorie Kahl, and candid interviews with wife Joan Kahl. In this rich stockpile of research, you'll find many more threads than could reasonably be pursued in the final feature.
The Death & Taxes Miniseries DVD Set Includes...
01: Gordon Kahl Meets With Head North Dakota U.S. Marshal Bud Warren (60 min)
02: The Beginning: Gordon Kahl's military experience and views on a variety of subjects (93 min)
03: Gordon's Texas Tax Trial (90 min)
04: Medina Shootout (60 min)
05: Gordon Kahl Was...: A montage of over 25 people describing who Gordon Kahl was in their eyes. (50 min)
06: Mysterious Death In Arkansas (90 min)
07: Media Circus: Chronological portrayal of Gordon Kahl in the media (70 min)
08: Yorie Kahl Prison Interview (150 min)
09: Joan Kahl Uncut Interviews (120 min)
A little-known fact regarding Death & Taxes is the surprising connection to Timothy McVeigh and the ATF / Oklahoma City Bombing. Here's a clip of Jackson sharing the story during a director's commentary on his film Postal Worker.
The story of Gordon Kahl so captured the attention of mainstream America that it was turned into a highly-rated made-for-television movie titled
In The Line of Duty - Manhunt In The Dakotas.
DEATH & TAXES is the story of Gordon Kahl, a North Dakota farmer who became America's "most-wanted" fugitive. How had a WWII war hero become the target of one of the largest manhunts in FBI history?
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The badly burned remains of Gordon Kahl, with an island of skin that shows he was in a prone position at the time of the fire.
Was Kahl a racist, gun-toting fanatic? Or a victim of an IRS policy of harassing vocal tax protestors into silence to keep the rest of us intimidated? Did Bill Clinton conspire to cover-up the torture and execution of Gordon Kahl in Arkansas? Did federal agents mutilate and burn the body to cover-up the murder of the wrong man?
DEATH & TAXES follows the trail of Gordon Kahl as his body is exhumed for a new autopsy. Building on newsreel clips covering two fiery shootouts and hundreds of interviews -- with IRS agents and federal prosecutors as well as Kahl's family and supporters -- D&T explores the myths and controversies surrounding a man who dared to challenge the federal income tax system. Some revile Kahl as a cop killer. Others revere him as an American patriot. Which was he?
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