Oklahoma's Atticus by Cates Hunter Howe;

Author:Cates, Hunter Howe; [Неизв.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: TRU002000 True Crime / Murder / General, HIS036130 History / United States / State & Local / Southwest (az, Nm, Ok, Tx), HIS028000 History / Native American
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press

10

Changing the Conversation

Howe was alone. No one in the county government believed Buster was innocent. No one in the city government believed he was innocent. Most of the press and the majority of the public did not believe Buster was innocent. “Even I didn’t believe in Buster’s innocence,” Howe’s wife, Imelda, said to the Tulsa World months later. “But Bill was all alone and I couldn’t let him know how I really felt.”

Howe was a man alone against a city, a county, perhaps even common sense. As far as the public was concerned, he was a fool at best and a charlatan at worst. After the weeks-long nightmare that was Phyllis’s disappearance and discovery, Tulsans wanted to put this tragedy behind them and Buster behind bars. Buster had confessed to killing the girl. Case closed. But now the story had flipped. Now Buster denied killing the girl and was even claiming the authorities had forced him to lie. The strange case of Buster Youngwolfe was not coming to a close anytime soon.

Following Buster’s public denial, Howe’s case got off to a rocky start. On Wednesday, April 8, Howe tried to prevent the county attorney and the sheriff from questioning his client any further. Howe claimed that the authorities had violated Buster’s constitutional rights by holding him for four days without charge and by forcing him to reenact the crime. Wheeler fought back, claiming he had no idea Howe was Buster’s attorney at the time of the reenactment. Perhaps displaying his sense of invulnerability, Wheeler said, “The most you can say was violated was some moral or ethical standards.”

“I think Mr. Wheeler has very ably stated my case,” said Howe.

Only one opinion mattered here, and unfortunately for Howe, Judge Elmer Adams did not agree with the public defender. According to Judge Adams, Wheeler had violated a “canon of the bar association” by communicating with Buster without Howe present but had not violated the Constitution. Howe’s appeal to prevent the county from speaking to Buster was denied.

Howe asked for Wheeler’s personal assurance that it would not happen again, but he was denied that as well. Wheeler said there was no reason for the court to forbid the county from unethical acts because “we have done nothing unethical.” Wheeler was contradicting himself in the press, and only Howe was willing to call him on it. In any event, the county attorney had little incentive to cede any ground. He was winning. For added measure, Wheeler said that Howe’s petition was “ridiculous.”

“It is not ridiculous under what has transpired,” said Howe.

Tensions between the two sides simmered from the start and for good reason. To prove Buster’s innocence, Howe had to prove that the county attorney was incompetent at best and corrupt at worst. From the county attorney’s vantage point, he was no longer fighting just to put a murderer behind bars but also to protect his reputation.

Tension spilled beyond the courtroom. Clifton Brooks, Buster’s brother-in-law, arrived to work at a rendering plant and received a threatening note.

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