So, You Think You Love Horses? Some Reflections on the Nature of Horses and Man

More Discussions by “The Accidental Horseman”

Prosecutor Samuel Langhorne
This was his strangest case.

Assistant District Attorney Samuel Clemens Langhorne was rather surprised that the court granted a change of venue in the matter of the People versus Li Long. To everyone’s surprise, Li Long’s attorneys were from the high priced firm of Mazetov, Nernbladder and Donpostle. They proceeded to deluge the court with a series of motions, including this change of venue, and now he would have to go to Bakersfield, and the case would be tried in the Superior Court of Kern County. Langhorne had grown up in Kern County and was happy to leave the place when he had gotten the assistant district attorney job in Los Angeles. He absolutely hated Bakersfield. It seemed like a strange coincidence that of all places the court would pick Kern County.

From his corporate headquarters in Shanghai, Zhang Gang followed the developments in the case closely. He had watched American movies with Chinese subtitles during his long business trips and particularly enjoyed the ones depicting American legal proceedings. How could any nation function with such a warped legal system? Zhang Gang was one of the richest men in the world, but his initial attempt to secure the horse, Atlas, had failed quite spectacularly. Zhang Gang insisted on giving Atlas the dignity of being called a horse, but the truth was that Atlas was a Percheron-miniature donkey cross and more correctly might be called a mule, but no one dared correct Zhang Gang when he referred to Atlas as a horse. He was a patient man and saw this American legal case as an opportunity. He enjoyed the feeling of being a puppet master, and he was determined to work behind the scenes and use his money and influence to turn these proceedings into a three ring circus.

Seymour Bill Howers, for the Defense
Did the firm have a hidden agenda?

Zhang Gang’s plan was in full swing. A small army of lawyers was researching the legal issues. They had hoped to challenge the Boccamotore’s ownership of Atlas. Atlas’ original owner had been Reginald Bogy, who was already in Zhang’s back pocket. Unfortunately, the experienced car dealer from Arkansas had executed the bill of sale in the correct manner, and Zhang’s lawyers indicated that there was no way to challenge the Boccamotores’ legal ownership of Atlas. Still, by involving the Boccamotores and Atlas in a long, drawn-out legal case in far away Bakersfield, he hoped to wear them down and make them more willing to sell Atlas. In the mean time, his dark operative, Fu Wei, might regroup and execute another plan to grab Atlas while the animal was still in California.

However, Fu Wei indicated that it would be rather difficult. When the Boccamotores had wanted to bring Atlas home, Fu Wei advised Zhang that relocating his team to Maryland would take time and an effort should be made to keep Atlas in California. Seymour “Bill” Howers, Mazetov, Nernbladder and Donpostle’s lead attorney successfully demanded that Atlas be held in California as material evidence in the case, but what Fu had not counted on was that the court would stable Atlas at the Ahmanson facility of the Los Angeles Police Department’s mounted unit. The place was crawling with armed cops day and night and had state of the art security. Maria Boccamotore hated to leave California and return home without Atlas. She would miss him greatly, but she took comfort that he was stabled at a really great place. The mounted policemen had adopted Atlas as a mascot and made the two of them honorary members of the Metropolitan Division of the Los Angeles Police Department. Atlas seemed to enjoy all the attention and was becoming more of a ham every day.

“I can do this, Mr. Donpostle, or my middle name is not Able”, said Bill Howers. It seemed odd that the firm was so obsessed with defending a Chinese national who was charged with the crime of grand theft mule. Howers had never been called upon to defend anyone before on such a charge. He was an experienced and competent attorney and was not used to being micromanaged by his firm in this fashion. It seemed that almost daily he would get calls from one of the senior partners directing him to proceed in a particular fashion and often along avenues that were clearly counterproductive. The judge never seemed to rule favorably on any of his many motions, and the proceedings were now into their 23rd week. For example, he had argued that the charges were not properly drawn. Li Long’s real name is not Li Long but should be Long Li in English. He had forced the LAPD investigators to admit under oath that they had excluded the possibility that Atlas was a mule, and now they have the audacity to charge his client with grand theft mule. He had argued that in order to charge his client with grand theft mule, Atlas had to be worth over $950 and had rather convincing testimony from none other than expert witness, Hildegard von Westenhexe, to the effect that Atlas was totally worthless. However, after hours of his best legal maneuvering he was unsuccessful in getting the case dismissed, and they had proceeded to trial.

The Infamous Red Halter
“if the halter doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”

With station KCBS’ extensive news footage, it was hard to deny that Li Long had possession of Atlas at the time that the horse trailer had pulled up at the Chinese restaurant. However, Hower’s investigator presented him with a breathtaking discovery. Everyone who knows Atlas will tell you that he has a rather large head that is way out of proportion to his body. What the investigator told Howers was that the halter in the police evidence room was way too small to fit on Atlas. Howers demanded that Atlas be brought to court to try on the halter. He very theatrically told the jury that “if the halter doesn’t fit, you must acquit.” Something about saying that gave him a distinct feeling of déjà vue. Fu Wei had hoped that his team might grab Atlas on his way to court, but once again they were thwarted by the presence of armed officers from the LAPD mounted unit. Off duty officers had volunteered their time to transport Atlas to and from court. Zhang Gang had given orders that under no circumstances could anyone be injured or killed in the operation. Although Zhang was a powerful man, he knew that the Chinese government would act against him if they believed he had gone too far. Although the Chinese had consistently denied any knowledge or responsibility for what had happened that day on East Broadway, Zhang was not so naive as to believe that the government was ignorant about his activities. Once again, Fu Wei had to call off the operation.

Sure enough, the halter was way too small to fit on Atlas’ head. It was Bill Hower’s moment of triumph, but then things fell apart. On redirect Langhorne showed footage which clearly indicated that Atlas had been wearing a leather halter. Even though properly tagged and taken from the police evidence room, this halter was red nylon. The best that Howers could do was loudly cry that the evidence against his client was tainted and that the jury should consider that there was reasonable doubt.

Of course, the halter had been another of Fu Wei’s operations. They had discovered that the popular TV spinoff CSI Burbank was bagging its evidence using materials from the same vendor as the LAPD. By using bags, labels, and chain of custody documents stolen from the set, plus forged signatures copied from the charge card tickets of cooperating Chinese takeout restaurants, they had been able to create what appeared to be the actual evidence from Atlas’ abduction. Unfortunately, the man who purchased the halter never saw the appearance of the real one and just went to Pet Smart and bought the smallest halter he could find. A dishonest clerk at the property room was paid off to make the switch. However, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and once again Fu had to report failure to Zhang. However, Zhang was not upset. He was enjoying this and would have hated to see the trial end just yet.

Howers was running out of ideas and was seriously considering positing alien abduction. There was an urban legend among lawyers that a jury in Josephine County, Oregon had once bought into that defense. However, the problem with an alien abduction defense was that it was not that terribly far from the truth and Howers knew that. A good defense lawyer should move the jury away from the truth and not towards it. While he was considering his next move he received a call from Mr. Donpostle ordering him to request that the court compel the mule Atlas to testify. This was totally ridiculous, but Donpostle assured him that Mazetov, Nernbladder and Donpostle’s legal team had compiled many legal precedents for such a move. The court had already permitted a Chinese interpreter for his client. Now the defense would request that the court appoint an animal communicator to indicate Atlas’ answers to such questions that might be put to him and to indicate that Atlas affirmed his oath when sworn in. The case generated a pile of friend-of-the-court briefs from various animal protection and advocacy organizations supporting the right of an animal to testify in court. With these developments the case was heating up and attracting more news coverage.

The case was attracting more attention from the media.

Bill Howers had reviewed the abstracts of case records and Lexus search results on the issue of animals testifying in court, and there really were far fewer precedents than he was led to believe. A court in Kay Co., Oklahoma once had accepted a deposition taken from a duck. There was also this border collie that had been elected mayor of a place with the unlikely name of Rabbit Hash, Kentucky. The dog’s election had spun off a surprisingly large number of court cases and challenges. For example, a fundamentalist Christian church had asked that the town be prevented from swearing in the dog using a Bible. The National Association of Municipal Officials had sued out of concern that the new mayor had not been provided with toilet facilities “in keeping with the dignity of his office.” The town lost the case when testimony revealed the mayor was using the front lawn of the town hall. After reviewing all the cases regarding the collie, it seemed to Howers that the only thing that had gone unquestioned was the collie’s competence to hold public office. However, despite what Donpostle had said, there was little in the thick packet that had been over-nighted to him that had any bearing on his particular case.

There she goes again thought Atlas. People are so dense. It would have been obvious to any equine from the attitude and posture of his body what his answers to the questions were and she keeps getting then wrong. He would simply have to do something extreme and make them understand. Atlas stomped his foot. It echoed loudly on the hardwood paneling of the courtroom, and suddenly all eyes were on him. “Neigh, Neigh”, said Atlas and violently shook his head from side to side. The people were gaping at him with expressions of total disbelief. The judge recovered and turned to Ms. Dumfetter, the animal communicator, “Ms. Dumfetter will you please repeat the witnesses’ reply for the record.” “The witness replied in the affirmative, your honor”, insisted Ms. Dumfetter. Once again Atlas stomped his foot and shook his head from side to side. This time Langhorne found himself on his feet and was saying, “Objection, your honor, the witness is clearly disagreeing with the characterization of his reply.” Suddenly, he felt very foolish. Mules did not reply in court. This was a farce. Why did he just say that? “Your honor” Howers began, “The court has accredited Ms. Dumfetter as an animal communicator, and her replies on his behalf constitute the correct answer to the question for the record.”

The judge felt a feeling of panic deep in her stomach. She had granted the request that Atlas testify and had gained a certain amount of favorable attention from the media in return. Courts were prone to grant requests when the defense claimed they were necessary to provide for a fair trial. She could use that as cover for her actions. Also, there were all these friend-of-the-court briefs they had received. This case was no big deal: just someone stealing a mule. Now, to the entire world it looked like this animal was giving answers to questions in court. What should she do? She would easily become a laughingstock, not only of Bakersfield but the entire world with all this media attention. She leaned forward towards Atlas, and Atlas cocked an ear in her direction. She thought that horses were strange. You could never really tell if they were looking at you. She said, “Atlas, when you wish to answer no, what do you do?” Atlas shook his head from side to side. “When you wish to answer yes, what do you do?” The mule shook his head up and down. “Do you swear to tell the truth?” Atlas again shook his head up and down. Atlas found this last question from the judge puzzling. It would never have occurred to him to answer anything other than the truth. Could it be that people sometimes answered other than the truth? The very idea was unsettling to him. The judge had hoped that the animal would seem to be inconsistent and inattentive, but Atlas’ responses were very clear, immediate and consistent. She was now painted into a corner and could do nothing but proceed.

It was not only the judge but also Howers who felt a growing sense of panic. Calling Atlas to the stand was not his idea, and generally, a lawyer has a good idea what a witness is going to say long before he asks any questions. Although Howers did not know it, the idea of calling Atlas had originated with Zhang Gang and the sole propose was to make the American legal system look foolish. So far, Zhang had been very entertained by the proceedings. Howers had devoted what little preparation time he had to the objections he expected to receive regarding putting Atlas on the stand. What he did not know was that Fu Wei had gotten to the communicator and had threatened her and her family if she did not provide certain replies to questions likely to be put to Atlas. In truth, he would not have delivered on these threats, but Fu was a very imposing looking fellow, and the communicator had readily agreed.

Howers was a good lawyer and was always thoroughly prepared when questioning a witness. However, he had not seriously considered that he would really be putting questions to Atlas. Now, he had called Atlas to the stand, and it was expected that he would ask questions. His mind went blank, and he stammered out, “I have no further questions for this witness your honor.” Langhorne stood up. He thought that this might be interesting, and he wondered what he really would get answers to questions from an animal. The animal communicator was now sidelined, and the testimony would be straight from the horse’s mouth as it were. After a little hesitation he began asking Atlas a series of simple yes and no questions. Atlas had listened to human conversations for years and had a fairly good idea what Langhorne was asking.

For the next two hours Atlas characterized what happened on the day he was kidnapped. However, much to Reginald Bogy’s relief, Langhorne did not know to ask Atlas about Bogy’s role in the abduction. It was just assumed that Li Long had taken Atlas out of his stall. At one point Howers objected that Langhorne was leading the witness, and Langhorne was heard to say under his breath, “Yes, and with a little red halter.”

When the time came for redirect, Howers had recovered his poise sufficiently and went on the attack. Howers requested that the judge declare Atlas a hostile witness. Atlas with his floppy ears and benign expression looked hostile to no one. This was just another lawyer’s ploy and the jury could see that. Howers did his best to use big words and confuse Atlas. However, both Langhorne and the judge intervened and insisted that Howers not badger the witness. Langhorne had to admire how the little mule held up under questioning that would have demolished most human witnesses. Atlas was poised, calm, open and honest in all his answers. Try as hard as he might, Howers was not able to catch Atlas in any contradictions and finally just gave up and sat down.

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir
The media was drawn to their scandal.

Even at the end of Atlas’ lengthy testimony, a good portion of those present in the court room were in a state of denial. Animals just could not do that. This is some kind of a trick. Should we really convict a person on the testimony of a mule? The next day the story received national attention, and the press was calling Atlas “Mr. Ed.” However, Atlas’ moment of fame was short lived. Two days later a scandal broke that rocked the Mormon Church to its foundations, and the news crews that had appeared so suddenly in Bakersfield were off to Salt Lake City. Although it is hard to believe, it seems that the famed Mormon Tabernacle Choir had been lip syncing all of these years. They had small boom boxes hidden under their robes and were playing recordings of their various hymns. They might have continued to get away with this indefinitely except that their lead vocalist accidentally left a copy of the rap song “Wild for the Night” by Skrillex and Birdy Nam Nam in his machine. His mind had been on other things and that day out of habit and without thinking, he just started to do the number. The audience sat in stunned silence. Finally the music director managed to crawl under the robes of other members of the choir and reach him. He grabbed him by the back of his robes and pulled him out of the spot light. However, it was way too late, and the damage had been done. The media carried on for weeks over the scandal. Many other events that occurred that same week went totally unreported. For example, no mention appeared in the press that Texas had seceded from the Union or that the cure for cancer had finally been discovered. It should be of little surprise the fact that a mule had just given testimony in open court was all but forgotten.

The jury finally convicted Li Long of grand theft mule and not a moment too soon. The NCAA’s Final Four was about to start next week, and all of Bakersfield had big plans. However, the trial had lasted so long that even with the maximum sentence, Li Long was released on time served and returned to China. His only complaint was that terrible American food he had been served while in jail, but Zhang Gang made sure that he and his family were well provided for. Atlas was also able to go home. With the media attention having died down, most people readopted the attitude that animals were dumb and did not understand. However, Maria Boccamotore did not care. She was delighted to be getting her Atlas back and already knew that he was the smartest Percheron-miniature donkey cross in the world. Of course, Atlas was the only Percheron-miniature donkey cross in the world.

The Story Continued...Atlas Hits the Road (Equine Humor)....