IllustratIon/davId tscheekar
REASONABLE DOUBT Courtroom sketch artist David Tscheekar drew this sketch of James Biela’s appeal hearing on July 11.
Convicted murderer James Biela maintains his innocence by Tim PrenTiss
Entirely by accident, I came across a website, “Exonerating Jimmy,” dedicated to exonerating James Biela. Everyone knew he was guilty. They had his DNA. The website, which appeared to be managed by his sister, said otherwise. Apparently everyone but his sister knew he was guilty. It could only be some glitch. Some evolutionary defense mechanism that could cause those who love him to be unable to see the obvious—that in 2007 and 2008, he stalked and attacked three or four young women, raped three of them and killed one—that he was, to put it simply, a monster. The disappearance—later found to be the murder—of Brianna Denison put the city of Reno on edge for six weeks. On January 21, 2008, while back in her hometown, Reno, on vacation from college in Santa Barbara, Denison disappeared from a friend’s house near the University of Nevada, Reno. Less publicized were the attacks on Taiwanese exchange student Emma C. that occurred five weeks earlier, an attack—apparently an aborted rape attempt—on UNR student
Anna P. a month before that, and the rape of Amanda Collins three weeks before that. Prior to the trial, news agencies reported that Biela’s DNA had been matched to three of those crimes— all but the attack against Collins. Collins didn’t report her attack until two months after it occurred, so no DNA had been recovered in that case. Biela was charged with all four of these attacks, and, with the exception of charges related to the attack on Anna P., which were inexplicably dropped, was convicted on all counts and sentenced to death. Because of the death sentence, the case was subject to mandatory appeal by the Nevada Supreme Court. The court’s written decision, in which it denied all the claims brought by Biela’s counsel, could be called perfunctory. One hopes judges always do their jobs with diligence, but the tone of the decision gave the impression they found the grounds brought unworthy of serious consideration. So despite DNA evidence and no hint of uncertainty on the part of the supreme court, Biela, and apparently
his sister, still were attempting to convince the world of his innocence. And he was working with considerable diligence. Biela initially filed his own 200-page petition, back in December of 2012, burying himself in documents in the process. I sent an email to the contact on the exoneratingjimmy.com website in March 2014. Only a few hours later, I was contacted by Biela’s sister, Kim Eastman, who asked for details on what exactly my intentions were. I explained I was a journalism student hoping to do a documentary on her efforts to exonerate him. After exchanging emails over the course of a week, she passed my address on to her brother. I soon received a letter from him, and over the course of the next two years we regularly exchanged letters and spoke on the phone about 10 times. “I have 700 police reports, then I have the Secret Witness tips,” Biela told me. “So I have thousands and thousands of pages of random garbage. But some of it is pretty interesting.” Some of what he found is bizarre. For someone widely considered a
monster, some of it seems to genuinely shock him. “When Miss Denison was gone, and they were sending out search parties, they found a human skull. It wasn’t hers, but you never heard anything about that. And I find that to be strange. I mean, whose fucking head was that? … Kind of weird. Then they call me weird.” The surprising thing is, though, he doesn’t seem weird—nervous, frustrated, occasionally angry, but not weird. In fact, he was friendly and funny. He didn’t resemble the descriptions of sociopaths I had read: cold, self-absorbed, free of shame. He was none of those things. He just seemed … normal. Eastman, Biela’s sister, is also unable to reconcile the brother that she knew with the murderous rapist he was accused of being. “I don’t remember him ever being violent, and as a kid, the role he played in our family was the funny one,” she said. “He was like the class clown kind of personality. He was always joking around and trying to make people laugh. “I don’t believe Jimmy’s someone who’s capable of doing
something like that. It literally was from left field. Jimmy growing up was quiet and shy, and he’s sensitive. He doesn’t fit the profile to me. And I’m sure that lots of people say that about their family members once they’re arrested. But I know there’re also people who’ve shown that side of themselves—that they are aggressive or angry. And I’ve never seen that side of Jimmy before.” The question of Biela’s personality and demeanor turned out to be at issue in the trial. The prosecution brought in witnesses to testify how he reacted when he heard the news Denison’s body was discovered. Defense attorney James Leslie claimed they refrained from putting Biela on the stand because, in Leslie’s estimation, he was incapable of seeming sympathetic. Ideally, a person’s demeanor should not be used as an indication of guilt or innocence. Trial lawyers aren’t naïve, however—they know a person who seems guilty, who acts like a criminal, is more likely to be convicted.
REASONABLE DOUBT
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