Hurricane, The

Before the second trial started, even the government's lawyers were concerned about Bello's testimony. They asked him to take a lie-detector test administered by a noted professor. Bello agreed, but the results were not what the prosecutors wanted to hear.

At the first trial, Bello told the jury he had been on the street, outside the bar, at the time of the shooting. Without knowing about that testimony, the professor administered the polygraph and concluded that Bello was telling the truth when he said he was INSIDE THE BAR at the time of the shooting. Whoops! That's not what the prosecutors wanted to hear! Such a major inconsistency, regarding his claimed eyewitness location, would help the defense lawyers crush the government's star witness.

The government's lead investigator told the professor the results of the polygraph were impossible. During several oral conversations, the professor refused to back down. He insisted Bello was telling the truth when he said he was INSIDE the bar. Finally, giving in to pressure from the government (and failing to provide all crucial details), the professor wrote a report merely summarizing what he believed were the polygraph results:

After careful analysis of [Bello's] polygrams, it is the opinion of the examiner that [Bello's] 196[7] testimony at the trial was true, and the statement recanting his original statement is not true.

In short, the professor believed Bello was telling the truth because he didn't know about Bello's testimony at the first trial. If Bello had, in fact, testified as the professor assumed - that Bello was inside the bar and not on the street at the time of the shooting - the professor would have been right. But he (said the defense lawyers) was wrong - and so was his summary report.

As they prepared Bello to testify at the second trial, the prosecutors were able to get Bello to "recant his recantation" by using the professor's report. Instead of giving defense lawyers all of the information about Bello's polygraph, which the law required them to do, the prosecutors only provided the summary report.

During the new trial, Bello testified he saw the defendants while he was on the street - just like he did seven years before during the first trial. Cross examination by the defense lawyers - pointing out multiple and conflicting versions of his story - could not shake him. Bello thought his lie detector results supported him. He was wrong, but only the prosecutors knew that. The jury found Carter and Artis guilty of murder in the first degree. Their life sentences were reinstated.