Prosecutor’s Potato Demonstration Ruled Out in ‘Twilight Zone’ Trial

The prosecutor in the “Twilight Zone” involuntary manslaughter trial startled courtroom onlookers and drew the wrath of defense lawyers Thursday by suddenly stabbing a raw potato with a straw in an attempt to make a point during her final argument.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Lea Purwin D’Agostino, who proceeded to pass the pierced potato to quizzical-looking jurors, declared that the demonstration showed that bamboo, or other debris, could have downed the helicopter that crashed and killed actor Vic Morrow and two child actors after its tail rotor was engulfed by the fireball of a special-effects explosive.

But Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Roger W. Boren ruled that the experiment proved nothing of relevance. He then ordered jurors to disregard it.

This latest eyebrow-raising wrinkle in the colorful, long-running trial came during the second day of D’Agostino’s rebuttal argument to the jury. After she concludes next week, jurors will finally begin their deliberations on the fate of director John Landis and four associates, who are accused of criminal negligence in the 1982 tragedy.

During 71 days of prosecution testimony by 71 witnesses, D’Agostino did not call an expert to testify that debris from a hut under which the explosive lay caused the helicopter to crash.

Defense attorneys, on the other hand, presented expert testimony that the crash occurred because of the fireball’s heat, which caused the rotor’s metal skin to peel away. The accident was unforeseeable, they added, since there had been no previously recorded accidents caused by the process, known as “heat delamination.”

In her argument Thursday, D’Agostino emphasized to jurors that she need not prove the precise cause of the crash in order to prove that the defendants acted with reckless and wanton disregard for the victims’ life.

Nonetheless, she asserted, “it was debris and not delamination that caused the crash,” and she then proceeded to reach behind the witness stand, where she had secretly stored the potato and a red plastic straw.

Compared to Helicopter

After stabbing the spud--while holding her thumb on the upper end of the straw to cover the air hole--D’Agostino declared, “If I can do this with a straw, ladies and gentlemen, on a raw potato, what do you think a piece of bamboo, a hard piece of bamboo, could do on that tail rotor blade?”

Outside the jurors’ presence, defense attorneys complained, saying D’Agostino was, in essence, testifying herself since no witnesses had presented evidence akin to the experiment. And outside the courtroom, they questioned what the demonstration proved, since the helicopter was not made out of potatoes.

“I don’t think it’s damaging,” said defense counsel Harland Braun. “I think it’s absurd.”

Braun, who represents associate producer George Folsey Jr., added that he was angered that Boren did not punish D’Agostino for her actions, saying, “I think he has no guts with respect to the prosecution.”