Watching his daughter Logan defend her first murder case has sent criminal defense attorney Lee Davis strolling down more than 30 years of memory lane to when he handled his first homicide – a case in which the odds and the facts both conspired to put his client behind bars.
A Philadelphia native, Davis attended law school at Boston University School of Law and then remained in the Massachusetts capital to begin a career in criminal defense – the only area of the law in which he was interested.
As a solo attorney trying to get his footing, Davis took on as many appointed cases as he could handle, principally in juvenile court. While there, he became friendly with one of the mentors, a young Black man named Courtney.
“He had grown up in a housing project, earned a college degree and was working at Massachusetts General Hospital,” Davis recalls. “He was a success story.”
As Davis learned during a startling 3 a.m. phone call, however, Courtney’s achievements did not shield him from misfortune.
Hazy from sleep, Davis listened as Courtney’s girlfriend said the young man needed a lawyer. He initially thought Courtney wanted to help a juvenile who was in trouble, but that was not the case.
Instead, Courtney had been charged with first-degree murder and was insisting Davis, who had never defended anything above a misdemeanor, be his attorney.
Courtney could not have assembled a greener and more untested defense, Davis says. Not only was Davis fresh out of law school, but his co-chair was a third-year law student. Plus, Davis and his colleague were going up against two of the top prosecutors in Middlesex County.
“One was a former Boston Bruin, and the lead prosecutor was a humorless senior ADA who never made an offer in the case,” Davis remembers. “And we had a retired Marine colonel – Robert A. Barton – as our judge. If you were late, he’d charge you $100 a minute for contempt.”
While Courtney’s family held a bake sale at their church to raise money for his defense, Davis assembled the facts of the case.
As Davis tells the story, Courtney was on his way to the housing project in which his parents lived when multiple assailants robbed him, beat him unconscious and “damn near killed him.”
The aggressors then dragged Courtney to his parents’ unit, dropped him on the doorstep, rang the doorbell and ran, Davis says.
After convalescing for several days, Courtney had healed enough to return to work. On his way to the hospital, he stopped at a Popeye’s Chicken, where one of his attackers was working in the kitchen.
“So, the issue was, did Courtney go to Popeye’s looking for this guy, or did he go there to order chicken?” Davis says.
What happened next changed three lives: Courtney’s, the assailant’s and Davis’.
“The guy came out of the kitchen, said, ‘Do you want to finish this?’ and then he and Courtney stepped outside,” Davis continues.
Although there was contradictory testimony regarding what happened next, no one disputed the following: Courtney drew a scalpel out of his back pocket and struck his attacker once with enough force to severe his carotid artery and part of his spinal cord.
“He killed him on the spot in front of plate glass windows and a restaurant full of witnesses in the middle of the day,” Davis says. “Then he dropped the scalpel and ran.”
The state called for life without parole. Davis maintained it was involuntary manslaughter.
“I believed it was self-defense. Courtney committed a crime, but it had been under extreme provocation.”
Determined to save Courtney from a life of incarceration, Davis made a rookie mistake: He overprepared his client. As a result, during the trial, Courtney’s testimony sounded canned and rehearsed.
Making matters worse, the prosecutor bore down hard on Courtney while cross-examining him, and the young man broke apart like a crumbling statue, Davis says.
But then something surprising happened: The real Courtney emerged, the truth about what happened surfaced and his case became more believable.
Just like it’s easy for the now-seasoned Davis to see his blunders in this early case, he can also pick out the things he did well.
One, he called an eye doctor as an expert witness. Courtney wore prescription glasses, but those had been shattered in the attack, making it impossible for him to see into the kitchen, the doctor attested.
This put a chink in the state’s case, which asserted that Courtney went to the restaurant to kill his attacker and had therefore committed premeditated murder, Davis says.
Judging by the verdict that followed, Davis also delivered a closing argument worthy of “Law & Order.”
Seated in a packed courtroom and reeling in the wake of the prosecutor’s “kickass closing argument,” during which she recapped each horrific detail of the killing, Davis says he stood and walked toward the jury emptyhanded.
“I never use notes during a trial; I just talk with the jury,” Davis explains. “This was the first time I did that, mainly because I was terrified. I knew if I held a notepad, it would be shaking like a leaf.”
Using his inexperience to his advantage, Davis said, “If what the prosecutor tells you is true, then you should convict my client of first-degree murder. But you have to believe the following: That Courtney’s plan was to go to Popeye’s in broad daylight in front of 30 people and kill the victim, and to not take a gun or other weapon that would ensure death but to bring a scalpel from work.
“But is that of proof of first-degree murder, or proof that Courtney was so afraid, he was protecting himself?” Davis asked. “And was the depth of the strike proof of premeditated murder, or proof of how frightened he was?”
The jury was out for four days. Not only was Davis unable to eat (he says he lost six pounds while waiting for the verdict), but he also had to shave with both hands to keep from cutting himself.
When the jury finally returned to the courtroom and the foreperson stood to deliver the verdict, Davis says the people in the box were crying.
First, the foreperson announced the jury had found Courtney not guilty of first-degree murder; the foreperson then announced the jury had also found him not guilty of second-degree murder.
The jury did, however, find Courtney guilty of involuntary manslaughter. However, since he’d been incarcerated since his arrest, he had to serve only a few more weeks before being released.
“Some of the kids in neighborhood thought Courtney had left his roots,” Davis submits. “He had a good job, a girlfriend and a car, and they thought he had become too big for himself, so they beat him down.”
Their brutal lesson didn’t stick. Years later, Davis received a friend request from Courtney on Facebook and learned he had married his girlfriend, had three children with her and was working as a nurse in the Boston area.
Immediately after the case, Barton called Davis and his co-chair into his chambers and told them they had done well. He also suggested they might have been lucky and advised them to think long and hard before taking another murder case.
Since then, Davis has served as lead counsel in over 200 felony jury trials, including six death penalty cases.
Although Davis wasn’t looking for a case like Courtney’s, he says it was the fount from which his practice sprung. He also says the ripples from the splash can still be seen more than 30 years later as Logan prepares her first murder case.
His stroll down memory lane over, Davis returns his thoughts to the present and his preparations to serve as co-chair on his daughter’s case. He says he’s looking forward to watching her work.
As Logan’s father, Davis could be pardoned for being nervous on her behalf, but having full confidence in her abilities, he seems calm and assured.
That said, he still might want to start shaving with both hands.