Court usually isn’t like what you see in the movies or on television. Truth be told, there is a lot of sitting around for sometimes hours waiting for a judge to call a case much of the time. The lawyers speak for a couple of minutes about motion or waiting on test results, and then the judge sets another hearing date.
Big trials are another story. These can be interesting to watch sometimes. This is particularly true if you have a couple of really good lawyers going at it.
Tom Handy, who died last week, was one of the best. Handy spenxt 28 years working as the Commonwealth’s Attorney for Knox and Laurel counties.
He was one of the best prosecutors I have ever watched in court. He did a great job preparing his cases and methodically laying them out for the jury. He could do brutal cross examinations of witnesses and defendants.
His closing arguments were fantastic and often included the “red herring” argument. This was a reference to defense trying to distract the jury’s attention from the true facts of the case. It was typically very effective. He did not lose many trials.
One particular closing argument more than 30 years ago still stands out to me. He used silence to make his point.
The case involved a boy who was strangled in the back seat of a vehicle by his stepmother while the co-defendant drove. The medical examiner testified to how long it would have taken at a minimum to strangle the child to death. It was a few minutes.
During his closing argument in the trial of the co-defendant, Handy demonstrated how long this would have taken by not speaking to the jury for that length of time.
Never have I heard a courtroom so silent.
Although this case didn’t quite have the outcome Handy wanted, this closing argument has always stood out to me for its deafening silence.
Handy was also long active in Republican politics. When Larry Forgy ran for governor in 1995, Handy was his running mate as the lieutenant governor nominee.
They ran a close race losing to Democrats Paul Patton and Stephen Henry.
This was back before the public could watch results come in live on the internet. I remember general election night sStanding in the Whitley County Clerk’s Office as the returns came in with Whitley County Clerk Tom Rains.
Even though the public could not see the results as they came in, Rains had access to the state board of elections system as the county clerk. The office oversees local elections and is the one who inputs the local election numbers into to the state system. We watched the numbers come as they were entered into the system. Every few minutes Rains hit refresh.
For a good while, it looked like Forgy and Handy were going to win. Rains and I were excited over the prospect of someone from our region winning such a high office in the state.
Then the returns from Western Kentucky, which is an hour behind us, started coming in. At the time, Western Kentucky leaned heavy towards the Democrat party.
Every time Rains hit refresh, the Forgy-Handy lead got smaller until it disappeared entirely with Patton winning the race.
After Handy retired in 2003 as Commonwealth’s Attorney for Laurel and Knox counties, he stayed active in public service.
Handy helped with the formation of Operation UNITE and Leadership Tri-County. He also helped organize a mission group called Assisted Better Living for Everywhere (ABLE), which performs construction mission work within Kentucky and internationally.
He died April 13 and was laid to rest Saturday.
Handy was one of the good ones and will be missed.
