Soledad O'Brien
speaker
904 appearances
45 recordings
7 series
first heard Mar 2025
last heard 28 Feb
Soledad O'Brien’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
A year before the trial, the D.C. Bar Association actually protested her membership. The all-white group didn't like a black woman in their midst. Some board members even resigned over Dovey. So while she was fighting for justice for Ray, Dovey also had to fight for herself. She carried all of this with her that morning as she walked into the D.C. Circuit Court on July 20th, 1965.
People wanted her to fail.
On that hot summer Tuesday in D.C., all eyes were on Ray's trial.
That's Bob Bennett. Back in 1965, Bob was a newly minted lawyer working as a clerk.
Bob's a successful lawyer these days, and he knows a thing or two about being part of a noteworthy case. In the 90s, he was one of President Clinton's defense attorneys during his impeachment hearings. But Ray's case was one of the first times he was in a courtroom.
Bob was clerking for Judge Howard Corcoran, who'd recently been appointed to the district court bench. President Johnson nominated him, and he was confirmed by the Senate in March. Some thought the judge wasn't ready for such a high-profile murder case. Guess Dovey wasn't the only one out there with something to prove.
Dovey knew he wouldn't suffer fools. She had to be exemplary. Crowds of people gathered in the fourth-floor courtroom. The space was all wood and cavernous. Thankfully, it was air-conditioned, which offset that muggy July heat in the district. There were two tables, one for the prosecutor and one for the defense. Behind the lawyers sat a large crowd who'd come to watch justice be served.
Throngs of journalists were covering the trial. Stylish Georgetown women like Cicely Angleton came for all 11 days. You'll recall her husband Jim Angleton was the chief of CIA counterintelligence. Ray's mother, Martha Crump, had her church friends there for support. And sitting in front of all of them were Ray and Dovey. Ray wore a new blue suit. His mother bought it for him for the trial.
Ray was only 5'5". He looked sharp in his suit, but he was scared. He was visibly shaking. If he was convicted, Ray could face a death penalty. At one point, he reached out to touch Dovey's hand.
Seven women, five men, sat on the jury. According to Dovey, they were black and white in equal number and came from every walk of life. There was a taxi driver, a social worker, a nurse, and a counselor. And then there was the prosecutor representing the state, U.S. Attorney Alfred Hantman.
Hantman was a 25-year veteran of the D.C. criminal courts. He knew these kinds of cases better than most trial lawyers, prosecuted dozens of them. He was confident he'd prevail.
Chewing gum aggressively didn't exactly win over jurors, or at least annoyed one or two, according to Bennett. It smacked of overconfidence. Hantman took the floor and began his account of what happened that fateful day of October 12th, 1964. He recounted the murder blow by blow, growing louder and louder with each gruesome detail.
The Washington Post printed all the details of Hantman's opening statement. The assailant shot the victim first in the left temple. Then she was dragged 20 or 25 feet toward the embankment. The witness, Henry Wiggins, heard a scream, God, somebody help me. Mary struggled back across the towpath to the canal's edge. She crawled on her hands and knees, tearing at her assailant.
He shot her a second time, this time in her right shoulder. The bullet ripped through the main blood vessel leading into her heart. The details were hard to hear then. They're hard to hear now, decades later. Once Hantman had the courtroom horrified, he tore into Ray.
According to Hantman, Crump was a killer with no motive, a black man who enjoyed the thrill of violence, who killed for the sake of killing. The jury looked terrified. Hantman's details were graphic. That was the point. It seemed like his strategy was to scare jurors into a guilty verdict. But he didn't just want jurors to think Ray was a mindless killer, a man without a moral compass.
He also wanted them to know he was a liar. Hantman brought up the fishing rod.
We know Ray hadn't told the truth. As you might remember, he told Dovey he was with a lover that day. But the woman, Vivian, didn't want to testify because she didn't want her husband to find out. But during Hantman's opening statement, the jury thought Ray was lying because he had killed Mary. It was a devastating moment in court. Hantman finished his opening statement.
The fairest verdict was the guilty one. The U.S. attorney sat down. It was an unforgettable opening. Usually at this point, a defense lawyer tells their version of events so jurors will believe that the accused is actually innocent. Not, as Hantman argued, a killer who enjoyed the thrill of violence. Dovey rose. Then she did something out of the ordinary.
Even though everyone was expecting she would, she didn't make an opening statement. It was a bold move. But Dovey had her reasons. She didn't want to give away the main points of her case. If she did, then Hantman might not call one important witness, a gentleman who mapped out the area where Mary died. So Dovey bided her time and let the witness testimonies begin.
Hempman called upon Ray's neighbor, Elsie Perkins, to testify about the fishing gear. Elsie and Ray's apartment sat side by side on Stanton Terrace. She testified she saw Ray leaving his apartment at 8 that morning. He was wearing the same cap and jacket that the police found near Mary's body later that day. And mind you, he had no fishing gear with him.
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