Justice Served--or Subverted?

On its face, the handwritten document that arrived at the United States Courthouse in Philadelphia the summer of 1996 looked to be an entirely futile affair.

It was yet another petition for a writ of habeas corpus, filed by a convicted murderer seeking an order freeing her because she was illegally imprisoned. Federal courthouses receive thousands of such pleas each year from state prisoners; virtually all are rejected outright. This one--Lisa Michelle Lambert vs. Mrs. Charlotte Blackwell, Supt., entered in the docket on Sept. 12 as civil action No. 96-6244--faced even more obstacles than most.

Lisa Lambert, then 24--considered “trailer trash” by some in Lancaster County--had written her habeas petition without the help of an attorney. Unable to pay assorted fees, she’d attached a request to proceed as a pauper. She’d listed a number of claims, but none that judges hadn’t heard countless times before.

Worst of all, she’d found no way to obscure the basic details of her case, since they were readily available in newspaper accounts as well as court records. Lisa Lambert’s murder trial had been the most notorious ever in this bucolic region known for its Amish enclave and Pennsylvania Dutch culture.

The East Lampeter police arrested Lisa and two friends just hours after finding the body of 16-year-old Laurie Show on the floor of her mother’s condominium, her throat slashed ear-to-ear. Lisa, then 19, had been harassing Laurie over a teenage romantic rivalry. Yes, Lisa conceded to the police. Yes, she’d been at the Shows’ condo that morning.

At her trial, courtroom spectators jeered as they eyed Lisa’s tight skirts and heavy makeup. The presiding judge, after hearing the case without a jury, found her guilty of first-degree murder. Lisa’s defense attorneys were pleased when she drew life without parole rather than the death penalty.

In the trial’s aftermath, the victim’s mother, Hazel Show, successfully campaigned for a new state anti-stalking law. The lead police detective signed a contract with a television movie production company. Lisa failed with no less than four appeals, the last denied by the state Supreme Court.

Now came this federal habeas petition, Lisa’s final chance.

Whatever meager prospects it possessed appeared to evaporate when, after being received by the clerk of the U.S. District Court, it was assigned to Judge Stewart Dalzell. Dalzell’s background suggested little interest in the plight of a convicted murderer. Then 53, a former real estate lawyer at a blue-chip Philadelphia firm, he was known as a pro-business Republican who favored strict sentences and victims’ rights.

Yet something in Lisa Lambert’s petition caught the judge’s eye. After studying the handwritten pages, Dalzell reached for his phone. This one isn’t a capital case, he told a death row specialist at a top Philadelphia law firm. But I think someone there might be interested.

So began a federal proceeding unprecedented in American history--one with far-reaching implications for how criminal cases are handled throughout the 50 states.

Lancaster County citizens are still reeling over what transpired, and what was revealed, in Judge Dalzell’s courtroom last April. What happened there represents a frontal challenge to how the courts, the states and the federal government administer justice. Increasingly in recent years, judges and Congress, bowing to state jurisdiction, have sharply narrowed convicts’ chances of gaining federal review of their cases, no matter how strong their claims may be. Yet this federal judge, saying he didn’t trust Pennsylvania to be fair, did not just grant a review; he reached deeply into what are normally sovereign state proceedings.

When it was over, Lisa Lambert walked out of Dalzell’s courtroom a free woman, declared by the judge to be “actually innocent.” When it was over, those prosecutors and detectives who’d put her away faced criminal investigations by a U.S. attorney. When it was over, all of Lancaster County stood condemned by Dalzell for having “made a Faustian bargain” and “lost its soul.”

In barring the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from ever retrying Lambert--the action that makes this case unprecedented--Dalzell proclaimed: “We entertain no doubt at all that [her] trial was corrupted from start to finish by wholesale prosecutorial misconduct. . . . The fact is the Commonwealth rigged the proceedings in the state trial to such an extent that it was a trial in name only. . . . The Commonwealth’s conduct in this matter shocks our conscience.”

Here in Lancaster County, though, it’s not the commonwealth’s role that dismays, but Judge Dalzell’s. In a community informed deeply by a fundamentalist Christian ethos, legions still seethe over Dalzell. By formal petition, many thousands now call for his impeachment. By distraught letters and phone calls, many thousands insist that it’s Dalzell who is guilty of monstrous misconduct.

Has a federal judge, out of moral outrage or a motive more sinister, so overstepped his bounds that he’s made a mockery of justice? This question, rather than the dismaying particulars of Lisa Lambert’s prosecution, now consumes both Lancaster County and the broader legal and political communities.

At times, the furor focuses on Lisa’s conduct: Whatever the authorities’ “mistakes,” she stalked Laurie, she was in the victim’s condo, she was party to a murder. At times, the furor focuses on issues of law: Six state attorneys general, including California’s Dan Lungren, have filed an appeal warning of the “potential to seriously weaken if not dismantle entirely” the habeas process. At times, the furor focuses on hardball politics: An archconservative Washington-based group--endorsed by four Republican U.S. senators, former Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III and former appeals court Judge Robert H. Bork--has assailed Dalzell in a 15-minute fund-raising videotape.

Yet matters run even deeper for most Lancaster County citizens: They are struggling to maintain steady grips on all they believe; they are rising in agitation to defend themselves, their community and their view of the world.

How could this be? they demand. We don’t know Judge Stewart Dalzell, but we know our detectives, we know our prosecutors. We live in the same neighborhoods, we sit with them at school meetings, we drink beer with them. They couldn’t have done anything wrong. These are men of honor and integrity. These are Lancaster County’s leaders and protectors.

“I just can’t believe it,” offered Ted Darcus, chairman of Lancaster’s City Council. “That’s the hardest part. The people involved in this. I have a tough time because I know them. It’s just not in their character to do what the judge says they did. To me, it’s humanly impossible. I do not believe it. I cannot believe it.”

Philadelphia Lawyer Takes the Bait

In late September of 1996, an e-mail message flashed across computer screens throughout the prominent Philadelphia law firm of Schnader, Harrison, Segal & Lewis. Anyone interested, a senior partner wanted to know, in a habeas case in which the client’s life isn’t at risk?

Christina Rainville, 35, a senior associate in the firm’s litigation department, happened to see that message. After a 2 1/2-year battle, she’d just won a $12.5-million breach-of-contract case. She suddenly went from being exceptionally busy to being idle. The message intrigued her. She hadn’t done pro bono work in a long time. Knowing nothing about the case, Tina Rainville volunteered to defend Lisa Lambert.

Only after Judge Dalzell appointed her counsel for the petitioner on Oct. 4 did Rainville learn what she’d bought into. When she did, she blanched. It seemed clear from the newspaper articles alone: Lisa Lambert was guilty.

The details of Laurie Show’s death looked that obvious.

Called to an early-morning appointment at her daughter’s school, Hazel Show left their condo before 7 on Dec. 20, 1991. At the school she discovered the call had been a hoax. Returning home, she learned from a neighbor that there had been a commotion in her condo. Rushing upstairs, she found her daughter lying on the floor of her bedroom, bleeding profusely from a deep, wide slash across her neck.

“Michelle . . . Michelle did it.” That’s what Hazel Show testified she heard Laurie say before the girl died in her arms.

There was no question who Michelle was: Lisa Michelle Lambert. There had been bad blood between Laurie and Lisa for months. It had started in the summer of 1991, when Laurie had a brief fling with Lisa’s boyfriend, Lawrence “Butch” Yunkin. As a parade of teenage witnesses testified at her trial, Lisa hadn’t hidden her anger for Laurie. She’d confronted her once at a shopping mall and hit her. She’d stalked and harassed her. According to one acquaintance, she’d once threatened to slit Laurie’s throat. According to others, she and some friends had plotted to kidnap her.

East Lampeter police never seriously considered other suspects. They found Lisa at the bowling alley, sitting with Butch Yunkin, 20, and Tabitha Buck, 17. Butch was a blond, muscular, 6-foot-1 truck driver’s son whom Lisa called “my Adonis.” Tabitha was a plain, heavyset girl whom Lisa had recently befriended. Then six months’ pregnant with Butch’s baby, Lisa talked freely after her arrest.

The three of them had gone to the Show condo that morning as a “prank,” she told police. They planned to tie Laurie up, scare her, cut off her hair. But everything spun out of control. As Lisa lingered outside, Tabitha charged in and attacked Laurie. Lisa tried to intervene, but Tabitha kept swinging a knife. Lisa fled down the staircase. Lisa wasn’t there when Laurie’s throat was cut.

In Lisa’s first account, neither was Butch Yunkin; he was at a nearby McDonald’s, unaware, waiting to pick them up. But by the time Lisa’s case went to trial in June 1992, her story had changed: Now she’d bumped into Butch on the way down the condo’s staircase that morning. He was on his way up. As Lisa fled, Butch joined Tabitha in the condo. Butch and Tabitha killed Laurie. Then Butch convinced Lisa to protect him. Butch beat her, Butch abused her, Butch scared her. Butch gets his way with everything.

The prosecutors went with Lisa’s first version: she and Tabitha in the condo, Butch at McDonald’s. So did Lancaster County Court Judge Lawrence F. Stengel, who in July 1992 found Lisa guilty of first-degree murder.

Three months later, a jury convicted Tabitha of second-degree murder, believing her an “accomplice” who didn’t wield the knife. A judge sentenced her to life without parole.

Tina Rainville, flipping through the news accounts, came finally to Butch Yunkin’s fate. She read the words once, frowned, then reread them. It seemed so odd. He’d negotiated a plea bargain of just three years for “hindering apprehension,” but prosecutors later withdrew it, saying he’d lied at Lisa’s trial. Butch finally pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and was sentenced to 10 to 20 years.

Why such a sweetheart deal? Rainville wondered. And why did it fall apart?

She turned some more pages. Here now was an account of Lisa’s sentencing. It seemed even stranger.

On the day Lisa appeared in court to learn whether she would be executed, she wore a white satin evening gown. To please Butch, she’d dyed her brown hair the color of champagne. To please Butch, she’d turned her brown eyes blue with colored contact lenses. According to the article, her defense attorneys considered Judge Stengel a “thoughtful man” for sparing her life.

Closing the file, Rainville felt sick to her stomach. The mother of a 2-year-old, she was a film school graduate who’d turned late to the law. Considered a prickly maverick by some of her firm’s more vintage partners, she now specialized in civil matters such as computer technology and securities fraud. She’d never considered criminal defense work because she cringed at representing guilty people. Yet now she’d signed up to defend the killer of a teenage girl.

That, at least, was what she thought until she first called Lisa. She expected to hear the voice of a rough tramp, the rancorous teenager who’d been kicked out of her family’s home at 15. On the phone, though, her client sounded timid, afraid, lost. Also, utterly cogent.

Laurie could not have said “Michelle did it,” Lisa insisted. Because it wasn’t true--or possible. Laurie couldn’t have said anything with her neck slashed. Ask a pathologist, find an expert witness. He’ll say Laurie couldn’t talk.

Rainville picked up a pen.

It was a good thing we were speaking by phone that first time, Rainville would say later. When she finally met Lisa, she almost fell over. Lisa had on more makeup than Tammy Faye Bakker. No visible flesh on her face, her eyelashes a single panel, her mouth covered with multicolored lipstick. Her makeup so unbelievably dramatic, so abnormal, she looked mentally ill. If she’d seen Lisa first, she would never have believed her.

Now though, listening only to a voice, Rainville did believe her.

I took the blame for Butch because I was afraid of him, Lisa was saying. He pushed me around, he slapped me. I was scared; I thought he’d hurt our baby. He told me to take the blame because I’d get less time than him. He promised me that. He begged me, he ordered me, he told me I had to do it.

Point by point, Lisa built her case. When she finished, Rainville grilled her, tried to break her. For every question, the client had a logical answer. Lisa offered advice about points of law, suggestions for how to proceed. Where to find the truth, where to uncover lies.

Most important, she talked about a motive for why Butch Yunkin killed Laurie Show: He had date-raped her; Butch feared Laurie was about to file charges.

She also offered a motive for why the police focused on Lisa: Six months before the murder, three East Lampeter cops gang-raped her. Three cops who knew her through Butch. Three cops who’d been called to their trailer when Butch beat her.

Had this come out at your trial? Rainville asked.

No, Lisa said. I wouldn’t let my attorney use it. Won’t let you either. They’ll hurt my family if you do. They’ll hurt my baby.

After an hour on the phone, Rainville hung up. Parts of Lisa’s story sounded outlandish. The gang-rape business sounded particularly dubious. Still, Lisa was offering facts that if not true, could easily be proved lies.

She had a lot of leads to chase, Rainville decided.

Pages of Petition Urge a New Look

When Lisa Lambert’s amended habeas petition reached Judge Dalzell’s desk on Jan. 3, it differed considerably from the handwritten version that aroused his interest four months earlier.

This one, drafted by Rainville and seven of her colleagues, offered professionally printed blocks of type instead of graceful schoolgirl curls; now it looked like a legal brief rather than an invitation to a birthday party. More important, it raised the stakes. This revised petition declared Lisa Lambert innocent.

“Inevitably,” her lawyers declared, “there are situations where the criminal justice system fails. So far, this is such a case. . . . Police and the prosecution first decided that she was guilty, then tried to find evidence to support their theory. When evidence failed to suggest that Lambert in fact was guilty, evidence was altered, manipulated, and even manufactured. Witnesses were tampered with, and perjury was committed. . . .”

Judge Dalzell began to turn the pages of the petition.

Here were photos of Laurie Show’s neck wound: 5 inches side to side, 2 inches in width, the widest portion at least an inch-and-a-quarter deep. Here was a speech expert declaring unequivocally that given the nature of this severe wound, Laurie Show’s dying declaration--”Michelle did it”--was impossible.

Here were photos showing that a dying Laurie had written Butch and Tabitha’s initials in blood on her hallway walls. Here were reports of Tabitha’s earlier fights with Laurie. Here was mention of an earring found on the victim’s body that matched one worn by Butch. Here was an eyewitness account of Butch at the murder scene. Here were claims of altered evidence, missing evidence, hidden evidence.

On page 31, Judge Dalzell saw a particularly startling charge: that the prosecutor had tampered with Lisa Lambert’s expert witness, a pathologist named Isidore Mihalakis.

Before trial, Assistant Dist. Atty. John Kenneff had called Mihalakis to say he was “displeased and disappointed” that he was working for Lisa Lambert and was “concerned” about the county hiring him for “future cases.” At a hearing held after this contact came to light, Mihalakis denied that Kenneff’s comments affected him. But at the trial, much to Lisa’s lawyer’s surprise, Mihalakis sounded like a witness for the prosecution.

Where he’d earlier stated that Lisa couldn’t have forced the knife into Laurie’s bone as hard as the evidence indicated, now he said she could. Where he’d once stated it was highly unlikely that Laurie could have talked, now he said her ability to speak was compromised but not eliminated. The change in Mihalakis’ fortunes after this testimony was striking: His income from his work as a state expert quadrupled the next year from less than $10,000 to $41,919.

On other pages, Dalzell could see something even more interesting: Butch Yunkin’s apparent confession to the murder.

It came in a letter exchanged between Butch and Lisa while both sat in prison awaiting trial.

“Listen to me,” Lisa wrote. “I guess I won’t tell on you, BUT PLEASE answer these questions honestly. There are some things I need to know if I’m supposed to take the Blame for WHAT YOU DID! MAIL THESE BACK TO ME.”

There had been 29 questions in all.

WILL you promise TO love me if I lie for you?

Butch’s answer: Always + Forever.

Will you always stick WITH me as long as I still don’t tell that YOU held Laurie down FOR Tabby?

Butch’s answer: Will always love you.

Do you PROMISE to not BEAT my face up anymore, if I lie 4 U? That’s WHY I Had said “I HATED you!” Will you be nice like our 1st date?

Butch’s answer: Yes

Are you sure that if I take the blame for you THAT I’ll get less time. Absolutely sure?

Butch’s answer: Yes

Should I STILL cover up that YOU helped Tabby KILL Laurie? Are you absolutely sure?

Butch’s answer: Yes, I’m positive.

From the record before him, Dalzell could see this letter had been introduced at Lisa’s trial. Butch, on the witness stand, had called it a fake. Butch: the prosecution’s star witness.

What to make of all this? The claims were troubling, but criminal cases always involve a hodgepodge of murky detail; prosecutors and defense attorneys constantly battle over whose version of events should prevail. The authorities who prosecuted Lisa had explanations for everything. The state’s conduct in the Lambert case hadn’t in the least bothered Pennsylvania state trial and appellate judges.

Why, then, should it concern a federal judge?

A Blue-Blood ‘Law-and-Order’ Judge

A graduate of the law school and the Wharton School of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, Stewart Dalzell had come from Philadelphia’s Main Line. He’d practiced for 22 years at the prominent law firm of Drinker, Biddle & Reath, where he specialized in real estate law and became known as a rainmaker. His appointment to the federal bench in 1991 by President Bush came six months after the death of his close friend, the late U.S. Sen. John Heinz, for whom he served as campaign treasurer. He was active in the Episcopal Church; he was married with two children. He was known as a “middle-of-the-road Republican” and a “neoconservative on economic issues.”

He was also known as a “law-and-order guy.” An appeals court once told Dalzell he should be more “generous” to criminals who testified against co-defendants. Of the hundreds of habeas petitions that crossed his desk each year, Dalzell almost never ruled in favor of the convicts. Most often, he found their original trials were fair, their complaints without merit.

Dalzell had proved himself equally restrained in civil cases. He was known as a judge likely to toss out cases against corporations if he thought the plaintiff didn’t have enough evidence to go before a jury. Ted Byrne, a conservative radio talk show host in Lancaster County who recently studied Dalzell’s written opinions, found that the judge favored landlord rights over tenants, employer rights over employee protections, and businesses over customers. “From what I saw in his decisions,” Byrne said, “I’d vote for him for the Supreme Court.”

On the other hand, Stewart Dalzell, after six years on the bench, also had a reputation for being hard to predict. With a mane of white hair curled over his ears, he didn’t even look much like a blue-blooded federal judge. Certain lawyers thought him smart enough to “sniff out a rat if there’s one there” and “courageous enough to fight.” It was said he didn’t suffer fools gladly. When you’re in front of him, one lawyer observed, “you know you’re in front of a real judge.”

Until the Lambert case, the matter that had most put Dalzell in the spotlight was his 1996 opinion for a special three-judge panel that struck down the Communications Decency Act, the federal government’s effort to regulate the Internet. “Just as the strength of the Internet is chaos,” he wrote, “so the strength of our liberty depends upon the chaos and cacophony of the unfettered speech the 1st Amendment protects. For these reasons, I without hesitation hold that the CDA is unconstitutional on its face.”

Perhaps most telling about Dalzell was the lawyers’ evaluation of him printed in the much-relied-upon Almanac of the Federal Judiciary: “Bright and scholarly . . . a quick mind . . . . He’s neutral in everything . . . . He doesn’t have an agenda that guides him . . . . He cares about doing the right thing.”

What, though, was the “right thing” in a habeas petition such as Lisa Lambert’s?

A writ of habeas corpus, part of U.S. law since 1789, is a final legal opportunity available to convicts seeking freedom. Under federal law, such prisoners can claim their criminal convictions in state courts violated their civil rights because of prosecutorial misconduct or procedural error. Their claim for freedom rests not on innocence, but on being unjustly imprisoned.

It’s no small irony that the habeas action derives from William Penn’s imprisonment in London, where he was charged with illegally holding religious meetings. He successfully argued that a person shouldn’t be held in prison without a fair trial, then left Britain, founded Pennsylvania, and included the habeas protection in the laws of that state.

Perceptions of frivolous overuse, frustration about years of judicial delay, anger at federal intrusion into state affairs, mounting concern over crime--all have inspired efforts to constrain use of habeas petitions. The Pennsylvania General Assembly in November 1995 barred certain appeals even if the petitioner was claiming “actual innocence.” Last year, Congress also tightened habeas rules, making it harder for a state prisoner to win a federal hearing.

So has the U.S. Supreme Court. McClesky vs. Zant; Coleman vs. Thompson; Barefoot vs. Estelle--these decisions in recent years sharply limited efforts to get state murder cases reviewed by federal judges. The first effectively eliminated the filing of successive habeas corpus claims. The second closed the federal courthouse door to some first-time petitioners. The third, invoking “a presumption of finality,” declared that “the role of federal habeas proceedings is secondary and limited. . . . Federal courts are not forums in which to re-litigate trials.”

Yet that last, in effect, was precisely what Lisa Lambert was asking in the petition that sat before Judge Dalzell in early January. Her claim of “actual innocence” raised issues reaching well beyond matters of procedural violations. Without saying so directly, she was asking a federal judge to retry her case; she was asking a federal judge to usurp a state judge’s role. Underlying that request was the notion that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania could not be trusted to try her fairly, or guarantee her the basic protections afforded by the U.S. Constitution.

Few prisoners succeed with any habeas plea, let alone one such as Lambert’s. Federal judges deny most habeas petitions. Of about 10,000 petitions filed each year, only 1%, or 100 total, are even granted an evidentiary hearing. Of those, only a fraction are granted relief. Such relief generally means not freedom but a new criminal trial in state court. Only if a local prosecutor then drops the case, deeming it unwinnable, might a prisoner gain freedom. Convicted murderers just don’t walk out the door at a federal habeas hearing.

There’s no question that Judge Dalzell understood this as he sat in his chambers, studying Lisa Lambert’s petition. Whether it was the very controversy surrounding the habeas issue that fueled his interest cannot be said. Nor can conclusions be reached about the speculation--he’s ambitious, he’s power-hungry, he’s looking to make history, he wants his name on the lips of law students for 100 years--presently circulating in Lancaster County. All that’s known is that on Jan. 15, 12 days after receiving Lambert’s plea, Dalzell summoned the lawyers for both sides to his chambers.

There, over Lancaster County’s fierce objections, he tentatively scheduled an evidentiary hearing to begin March 31. What’s more, he ruled, because of “unusual circumstances,” Lisa’s counsel could depose state witnesses and conduct expedited, wide-ranging discovery.

Outrage Over Habeas Hearing

The reaction in Lancaster County to the news that Lisa Lambert had been granted a federal habeas hearing was as intense as it was predictable.

Haven’t four judges already rejected her claims? Hasn’t she already appealed unsuccessfully? Hasn’t she already admitted that she lied to the police?

“I am appalled,” one citizen wrote the local paper in a typical letter. “Michelle Lambert is sitting there conniving with a taxpayer-paid, court-appointed attorney. . . . A conviction used to be a conviction--no more! Now the criminal has all the rights. . . .”

It was known in Lancaster County that Lisa Lambert came from a two-parent Christian family, headed by an accountant father. She and her three brothers lived in a large two-story house in a middle-class neighborhood set amid Amish farmland. Yet Lisa had left home at 15, in fact had been evicted, with her parents writing a letter ordering her to stay away from the family residence. She eventually ended up in Butch Yunkin’s trailer. She’d gotten pregnant by him, given birth out of wedlock and relinquished the baby to her parents. She’d publicly harassed Laurie Show; she’d been in Laurie’s condo the morning of the murder. She was a bad kid who did bad things.

The eastern reach of Lancaster County believes wholeheartedly in evil. Some local boosters like to point to the county’s rolling green valley fields full of corn, tobacco, tomatoes and strawberries. Others prefer to remind that Lancaster County has become a fast-growing industrial center, now home to 10,000 businesses, among them Kellogg Co., Tyson Foods Inc. and R.R. Donnelly & Sons Co. Yet this area is best described as an adroitly designed tourist mecca commingled with a stronghold of Christian fundamentalism.

Most of the county’s 36,000 Amish and Mennonites dwell here; more than 5 million visitors a year pass through, taking buggy rides and visiting clean, undistinctive shops with names such as Amish Country Crafts. The image all this presents is not so much artificial as incomplete. The American Music Theater’s well-attended Christian shows round out the picture and finally offer a more telling glimpse of the region than any horse-drawn buggy rolling down a back road.

Many citizens of eastern Lancaster County would like the county to be dry. A good number give money to Oral Roberts. Some are not averse to seeking out “healers” when ill. Guns are owned not so much for hunting as for self-protection. Citizens respect and believe in their government and their public authorities. Police and prosecutors are seen as preservers of the social order and protectors of the citizenry. “It’s not real easy to get an acquittal here,” is how Elvin Kraybill, president of the county bar association, puts it. “Nor is this a community with large plaintiffs’ awards.”

For Lisa Lambert to cast herself as the innocent victim of authorities’ malevolent misconduct was maddening to almost everyone in Lancaster County. For a federal judge in Philadelphia to take her seriously was unimaginable.

“If you ever hear someone suggest that the American court system is weighted against defendants, you might mention this case which proves otherwise. . . .” the Lancaster New Era suggested in an editorial on the eve of Lisa’s hearing. “U.S. District Judge Stewart Dalzell will hear this case. He should throw it out, with a reprimand to Lambert’s lawyer. . . . What a waste of time and money!”

Yet even as those words appeared in the local newspaper, county authorities were shifting uncomfortably in their chairs. They knew something hidden from most in their community: They knew that a cascade of revelations about the Lambert case had been pouring into Tina Rainville’s office ever since January.

Despite all the furor over Judge Dalzell scheduling a habeas hearing, his edict granting the defense unlimited discovery was the more fateful action. Under Pennsylvania criminal law, what the defense is entitled to see of the state’s case is restricted. But habeas corpus is in fact a federal civil proceeding, where much broader rules apply. If a habeas petitioner is fortunate enough to persuade a judge to allow discovery, doors fly open. By Dalzell’s ruling, Lisa’s lawyers were able to get their hands on virtually everything in the state files related to their client’s case.

In came a previously undisclosed, unedited videotape of investigators searching the Susquehanna River and finding a pink bag Lisa said she’d thrown there--a pink bag the police had always claimed they’d never found, a pink bag Lisa said contained Butch’s bloody sneakers.

In came a previously undisclosed audiotape of a police interview with Butch Yunkin full of gaps, clicks and curious pauses.

In came previously undisclosed testimony from a neighbor who saw Butch at the crime scene.

In came previously undisclosed testimony from a dog-handler whose bloodhound, searching the river after scenting Tabitha’s sweater, had found a piece of rope from the murder scene.

In came insurance company photos showing undisclosed blood in the Show condo’s hallway just where Lisa said she’d been trying to get Laurie away from Tabitha.

Perhaps most important, in came depositions from the three emergency medical technicians who first tended Laurie--EMTs whose names hadn’t previously been disclosed by the state. All three swore that as they worked over the victim, they saw that Laurie Show’s left carotid artery had been cut. It had been cut, they insisted, even though the autopsy report specifically said it hadn’t been.

That, the Philadelphia medical examiner Haresh Mirchandani advised Lisa’s attorneys, meant not just that Laurie couldn’t have talked to her mother; she couldn’t have done anything. With a cut carotid artery, she’d be unconscious within five minutes, dead within 10.

As the habeas hearing drew near, Lancaster County officials’ concern over these revelations grew noticeable. Dist. Atty. Joe Madenspacher, who hadn’t yet taken office when the murder happened, was learning things he hadn’t known.

We can’t convince Judge Dalzell to back off, the D.A.’s office told the victim’s mother, Hazel Show. We went down once, then a second time with the state attorney general. But we can’t shake him.

Two days before the hearing, the prosecutors’ message sounded even more troubled. The outcome could be different this time, the D.A.’s office warned Hazel’s ex-husband, John Show. We’re not sure what will happen. We’re scared.

As it happened, Tina Rainville also felt scared. For months, she’d been vainly urging Lisa Lambert to give up the garish makeup she still used. No way are you going to win if you look like that, she urged her client. I know you didn’t kill, but my God, you look like someone who could do it.

Lisa had stubbornly resisted. No, she said simply, I can’t.

By then Rainville had on her team an abuse expert, a professor of psychiatric nursing, who considered Lisa--with her terrified refusal to report a gang rape, abject willingness to do Butch’s bidding and insistent need for the mask of makeup--to be a “paradigmatic battered woman.” They had evidence that Butch date-raped Lisa on their fourth night out, evidence that he beat her sporadically, evidence that he couldn’t perform sexually unless he was hitting or sodomizing her, evidence that he insisted she dye her hair and “show more skin.”

They had poems Lisa wrote--”As you hurt me till I weep . . . As you pull my hair and call me a whore.” They had Lisa’s jailhouse letters to Butch--”I look horrible without makeup . . . . I gave you my heart, my virginity . . . . It has never been enough . . . . It’s because you know what I look like without the makeup and my leather clothes. You know I’m really not some hot babe. . . . The mask hides the real Michelle, the ugly Michelle. I am the one you can’t love.”

All quite credible, Rainville believed, but still: A painted and powdered Lisa just wouldn’t play in Dalzell’s courtroom.

“Practice,” she urged Lisa. “Try less makeup. Go day by day.”

At least Lisa looked better on some days than others, Rainville told herself. Some days her whole face made her look like a psychopath. On other days, she looked that way only from the nose up.

Next: Judge Dalzell’s outrage at Lancaster County’s conduct leads to an unprecedented decision.