SCARBOROUGH, Maine — A state prosecutor and defense attorney disagreed sharply Thursday as they argued in front of the state’s high court and high school students about whether Charles Black should get a new trial for trying to kill his wife by pushing her off the top of a 700-foot cliff in Camden.
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court heard the arguments in the appeal of Charles Black at Scarborough High School as part of its effort to show students how the judicial process works.
Attorney Steven Peterson, who represents Black in the appeal, told justices that the evidence was not sufficient for a rational jury to have convicted Black. Peterson focused on the lack of a pool of blood at the top of the mountain, which he contended would have been present if Black had struck his wife in the head three times with a rock as his former wife testified.
“Not having a pool of blood doesn’t pass the straight-face test,” Peterson said.
That lack of blood also was questioned by a student who posed queries to attorneys after the justices heard the appeal. One student asked why no rock was found with blood on it.
Peterson said there was a battalion of police officers, game wardens and dogs on the mountain after the incident and no such rock was found.
Assistant District Attorney Christopher Fernald said, however, that in homicide cases, the weapon is often not recovered but that the state can still prove its case. He said Black could have thrown the rock off the cliff in an attempt to get rid of it.
“That would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack,” Fernald said.
Fernald told justices that the state presented a mountain of other evidence to the jury that included the victim — Lisa Zahn’s — testimony, medical documents, as well as motive, which included Zahn’s multi-million-dollar inheritance and Black’s affair with a high school sweetheart.
In arguing for a new trial, Black’s defense attorney also said the superior court judge had erred in not allowing the trial to be moved outside of Knox County despite the extensive pretrial publicity.
Justices asked why it would make a difference to move the trial venue, with one of them pointing out that there are two large newspapers that cover the entire state and wrote about the case.
Peterson argued that there would be more interest in the case locally than in other parts of the state.
The prosecutor told justices, however, that when jurors were questioned by the presiding judge and the attorneys for the state and defense, the majority of potential jurors said they were surprised the case was still active, thinking it already had been completed.
One juror from Camden was asked if the Black case was the talk of the town and the person said it was not, Fernald said. He said most of the stories had been published years prior to the trial.
Fernald also stressed that simply being aware of a case does not disqualify a person from serving as a juror. He said the test is whether the person can be fair and impartial.
A jury of 11 women and one man convicted Black of attempted murder and multiple counts of elevated aggravated assault after a five-day trial in July 2014 in Knox County Superior Court. He was sentenced in September 2014 to 25 years in prison with all but 10 years suspended.
The events that led to the charges and conviction occurred on April 7, 2011, atop Maiden Cliff, where Black and his now ex-wife went to have a picnic. Zahn testified that her husband picked up a rock and struck her from behind and then dragged her to the edge of the cliff and pushed her off. She landed on a ledge not far from the top and was able to escape.
Black also fell while trying to get to her and was seriously injured when he struck another ledge, according to police. After Zahn made it down the mountain, she alerted a passing motorist. Rescuers later found Black, who was hospitalized at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor before being charged.
The district attorney’s office argued during the trial that Black attempted to kill his wife in order to get a $4 million inheritance she had received. The prosecution also pointed out that Black, now 72, had begun a cross-country affair with a former high school sweetheart.
There is no timetable under which the supreme court justices must issue their decisions in the appeal.