‘Twilight’ Defense Assails ‘Wonderland’ Prosecution

Reading a passage from the Lewis Carroll classic, a defense attorney in the “Twilight Zone” involuntary manslaughter trial claimed during his final arguments Monday that the five defendants are the victims of an “ ‘Alice in Wonderland’ prosecution.”

The prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Lea Purwin D’Agostino, has twisted the facts in the case to the degree that even “safety meant danger,” said attorney Arnold L. Klein, who represents special-effects coordinator Paul Stewart.

“Stewart is supposed to be the master of illusions,” contended Klein, who is expected to conclude his remarks to jurors today. “There’s one better in this courtroom--Mrs. D’Agostino.”

Three Categories

In her own recent final argument, D’Agostino had asserted that the defense could be broken down into three categories: “SODDI,” which she said stood for “some other dude did it;” the “BEE defense,” meaning “blame everyone else,” and the “red-herring defense,” in which jurors would be confused by technicalities.

Klein countered Monday that D’Agostino employed the “three-D prosecution,” in which she has practiced “dishonesty, distortion and deception.” He added outside the courtroom that the prosecutor reminds him of the Red Queen in “Alice,” because she exhibits a propensity for “twisting logic and reason.”

Stewart, film director John Landis and three film-making associates are charged with criminal negligence in the 1982 film set deaths of actor Vic Morrow and two child actors who were struck and killed by a helicopter during the filming of a mock Vietnam War sequence.

Rebuttal by D’Agostino

The jury, which began hearing evidence last September, will begin deliberating after presentations by three more defense attorneys and a rebuttal by D’Agostino.

Klein’s remarks followed the forceful conclusion of attorney James Neal’s final arguments in defense of Landis.

Speaking in a preacher’s-style cadence, the Nashville, Tenn., lawyer declared: “The proof justifies and requires for you to say Mr. Landis . . . we know you did not use barbaric tactics, we know you are not a tyrannical dictator, we know you did not intend to hurt anyone. . . . We know you are not guilty of reckless and wanton conduct.”

Neal added that Landis has exhibited remorse for the deaths and that his own “scars are deep and everlasting.”