Federal Judge Is a Killer's Best Hope

Aug. 24, 2001 -- A federal judge not only holds the fate of convicted murderer Lisa Michelle Lambert in his hands, but also his tarnished reputation.

U.S. District Judge Stewart Dalzell believes he righted a wrong when he overturned Lambert's murder conviction for the 1991 slaying of romantic rival Laurie Show. However, law enforcement officials, Pennsylvania state judges and several residents of Lancaster County, Pa., believe he set a cold-blooded murderer free.

But Dalzell, who had a reputation as a no-nonsense, conservative, tough-on-crime judge before hearing Lambert's appeal, did more than overturn the conviction. In his written opinion, he declared Lambert "actually innocent," accused Lancaster County prosecutors of misconduct and corruption, and barred them from putting Lambert on trial again.

Dalzell's ruling was overturned on a technicality when the 3rd District Court of Appeals ruled that Lambert's conviction should have been challenged in the state courts first. Now Lambert's case is back before Dalzell — and he could set her free again, possibly as soon as this fall.

Experts believe that the prosecutorial and investigative misconduct alleged in Lambert's appeal warranted at least a retrial. But did Dalzell go too far? Or have the calls for Dalzell's impeachment and criticism by Lancaster residents and local papers over the years been unfair?

"Judge Dalzell is a very bright judge, not a softy in terms of criminal cases," said Alan Yatkin, a Philadelphia-based attorney who has represented clients before Dalzell in criminal and civil rights cases. "I found him to be a good, fair-minded judge … he tended to give stiff sentences, more likely to be on the higher end of sentences."

Yatkin said Dalzell is a very intellectual judge with a strong sense of justice. Dalzell, he said, must have truly been outraged by the investigation to make the ruling he did.

"I remember at the time [of Dalzell's ruling] thinking there must have been some exceptionally troubling aspects of the prosecution's case for him to be as strong in the language he used," Yatkin said.

‘Prank’ Turns Into Murder

Prosecutors say Lambert had a long history of friction with Show before the 16-year-old was killed in December 1991. Lambert, prosecutors say, was angered when she believed Show had slept with her boyfriend, Lawrence "Butch" Yunkin, and witnesses told them that she often talked about killing her.

"Witness after witness told us of the threats of Lambert to kill Laurie, to kidnap Laurie, to harm Laurie, in any way possible by Lambert," prosecutor John Kenneff told ABCNEWS. "And these were not necessarily Laurie Show's friends. Many of these [witnesses] were the friends and acquaintances of Lambert herself."

Prosecutors say Lambert recruited Yunkin and their friend Tabitha Buck in an alleged plan to pull a prank on Show. Yunkin dropped off Lambert and Buck at Show's house when they knew she was alone, and the prank allegedly involved just cutting Show's hair.

Instead, the alleged prank turned out to be a murder plot with Lambert allegedly slitting Show's throat and Buck and Yunkin acting as accessories. Lambert was convicted in 1992 of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole; Buck was convicted of second-degree murder and Yunkin pleaded no contest to third-degree murder.

Dying Gasp and Admission Challenged

During the two-week appeals hearing in 1997, Dalzell was troubled by several challenges to the prosecution's case. Lambert and her attorneys, the husband-wife lawyer team of Christina Rainville and Peter Greenberg, claimed she was the victim of a police conspiracy and doctored evidence. They challenged three key pieces of evidence prosecutors used to convict Lambert: her alleged admission in her police statement, an alleged statement made by a dying Show implicating Lambert, and a controversial videotape that was edited to exclude possibly exculpatory evidence for Lambert.

At Lambert's 1992 trial, Hazel Show, the victim's mother testified that Laurie told her with her dying breath that "Michelle did it." And Lancaster County medical experts who performed the autopsy agreed that even with a slit throat, Laurie Show would have been able to speak and give a message to her mother.

However, in front of Dalzell, expert witnesses present by Lambert's defense said that was impossible. Speech professor Charles Larson testified that Show's left carotid artery had been severed, leaving her vocal tract virtually "destroyed" and Show "totally incapable of speech."

Then Dalzell was troubled by Lambert's alleged admission. Lambert's complete statement was both typed and oddly, hand-written. In the type-written part, Lambert denied killing Show and implicated Buck and Yunkin in the slaying. She also claimed that she was wearing her own clothes at the murder scene.

But in the hand-written part — which came at the end of the statement — Lambert allegedly admitted that she wore Yunkin's sweatpants at the scene. Dalzell tried to check the veracity of the statement by having detective Raymond Solt, who interviewed Lambert, present his notes on statement. But Solt testified that he had destroyed his notes.

Letters, Lies and Videotape

Perhaps most disturbing to Dalzell was the controversy over the police videotape of a police search of the Susquehanna River, where the suspects allegedly dumped evidence of Show's slaying. At trial, Lambert implicated Yunkin in the slaying by claiming that a pink bag containing his bloody sneakers was dumped near the river. Prosecutors claimed there was no physical evidence linking Yunkin to the crime scene, and police claimed they had not found a pink bag.

But after reviewing the eight-minute videotape, Lambert's attorney Rainville noticed a pink bag and requested an unedited version. This unedited tape was 12 minutes long and showed police uncovering a pink bag. One officer, Detective Ronald Barley, appears to wave off the camera shortly after the bag is discovered.

When confronted at the appeals hearing by Dalzell, Barley claimed he forgot that investigators had found the bag, and he did not admit to an attempted coverup.

"Judge Dalzell uncovered the truth, and I think that there are a lot of people out there that don't like it," Lambert said. "I think they are very afraid, and I think this is part of a big conspiracy that's even bigger than we realize yet."

Questions Over 29 Questions

Dalzell was further outraged by the prosecution's handling of a 29-question prison letter Lambert sent to Yunkin. In his response, he allegedly admits to killing Show and having Buck as his accomplice.

The letter resembles a questionnaire and includes Yunkin's answers to Lambert's questions. Lambert asks Yunkin, "Should I still cover up that you helped Tabby kill Laurie?" Yunkin's alleged answer is, "Yes, I'm positive."

"He admitted in his own handwriting that he and Tabitha were the murderers, that I didn't have anything to do with it," Lambert said.

However, Yunkin claimed the letter was doctored. "I admitted to answering questions, yes," Yunkin said. "Some questions look similar. But some don't."

Yunkin also remembered the questions being written in pencil. But at some point during Lambert's trial, experts agreed that the letter was not altered the way Yunkin claimed, and that Yunkin was not being truthful about the 29 questions. But prosecutor Kenneff allowed Yunkin to continue testifying at Lambert's trial anyway. After her conviction, prosecutors offered Yunkin a plea bargain but later withdrew it because he failed a lie detector test about the 29-question prison letter. They never told Judge Lawrence Stengel, who heard the case.

Dalzell, incensed by apparent sloppiness of the investigation, declared Lambert innocent in a 91 page decision and found 25 instances of official misconduct. He ordered a federal investigation of the Lancaster County prosecutor Kenneff and seven police officers involved in the case. Because of the evidence suggesting misconduct, some say Dalzell may have had no other choice but to order some kind of review of the case.

"It's tough being the judge," said Yatkin. "It would be much easier for a judge to let a conviction in a slaying like that stand. When a judge does criticize the establishment, prosecutors and law enforcement officials may take umbrage. And if he doesn't do something, then there's accusations of special treatment. So the judge has his hands tied. … And because of ethics, he can't speak back."

The Story Behind an Alleged Conspiracy

But why would police try to pin a murder on Lambert?

Lambert and her attorneys claim they targeted her because she was gang-raped by three police officers six months before Show's slaying and they wanted to cover it up. She claimed that she was stalked by an officer named Randy Weaver, who wrote the police report on Show's slaying and is accused of being one of Lambert's alleged attackers.

"If you have a woman who's been gang-raped by three police officers, what better way to discredit her than to pin a murder on her, make her a murderer?" Lambert attorney Rainville said. "Who would ever believe her?"

But Weaver and the other officers deny that Lambert was stalked or ever attacked.

"I did not rape her," he said. "[Officer] John Bowman [another alleged Lambert attacker] did not rape her, and I don't know anybody that did rape her."

Weaver and other investigators also point out that Lambert told investigators several different versions of the killing. Lambert, they note, only made her allegations after being arrested for the killing. Lambert claims she initially remained silent out of fear.

In January 1999, federal prosecutors announced there was not enough evidence to bring charges against Kenneff and the police officers Dalzell accused of misconduct. The attorney general of Pennsylvania noted that Lambert's story is not credible because she told so many versions of the slaying. In her initial statements to police she claimed Yunkin was not involved in the killing. Then she changed her story and claimed she was protecting him out of fear because he had abused her in the past.

"I think she's made so many allegations that are bizarre and that are unsupported by the facts that anybody looking at Lisa Michelle Lambert has to conclude that her imagination works overtime," Pennsylvania Attorney General Mike Fisher told ABCNEWS.

Former Friends Point Fingers

After Dalzell's ruling was voided, Lambert's case was sent back to Stengel, the same judge who presided over her non-jury trial and acted as the jury. In his ruling, Judge Stengel upheld his verdict, arguing that Lambert is not at all innocent and bears responsibility for the slaying.

"There is no question that Ms. Lambert is not, and never will be, 'innocent' of this crime," Stengel wrote.

Lambert's attorneys suggest Stengel never would have overturned his own verdict because that would admit wrongdoing on his part.

"For Judge Stengel to grant Lisa Lambert a new trial or to say she was entitled to relief would be for him to have to admit that in 1992 he made a mistake," Rainville said at the time. "Judge Stengel's also an elected judge who's up for election in two years."

In the nearly 10 years since her conviction, Lambert and Buck and Yunkin have blamed each other for Show's death. Buck and Yunkin claim Lambert killed Show; Lambert says Yunkin and Buck did it. Lambert claims Yunkin plotted the slaying because he had raped Show in the backseat of a car and was afraid she would press charges.

Despite all the allegations against Yunkin, prosecutors discount Lambert's story because of Tabitha Buck. Prosecutors told ABCNEWS that Buck was offered a plea deal to tie Yunkin to the crime scene, and she had no information. Buck could have lied to lessen her prison time, investigators said, but she didn't.

"She had no information to give on Yunkin," Kenneff said. "She knew and her attorneys knew that there was a good deal for her if she could implicate Yunkin. That's why I believe her."

Guaranteed No-Win Situation

No matter how Dalzell rules, he is guaranteed to face criticism. In addition to federal investigators, no one who has investigated his findings of misconduct in the Lambert case — including the state courts, the Pennsylvania Bar Association, and the Pennsylvania Attorney General — found the evidence to support his allegations.

Dalzell will either be perceived by critics as a judge who set a murderer free or buckled under pressure to put a woman convicted with questionable evidence back in jail. And since Show's slaying seemed exceptionally gruesome, the call for justice was that much louder and the anger over his ruling that much stronger.

"Have you heard the saying, 'Hard cases make bad law?'" said Alan Yatkin. "If you look at the evidence questioning the conduct of prosecutors and the police in this case, there were sufficient concerns to trouble the judge. Those who have criticized him are either feeling defense or having feelings of hurt pride or at doing it at an emotional level. Maybe he was right, maybe he was wrong, maybe he did go a little overboard [with his ruling]. But some of the accusations and criticisms lauched against him have certainly been unfair."ABCNEWS' Law and Justice Unit and Bryan Robinson contributed to this report.