Chapter Twenty One:Kathy Kohm:The Appeal

 Chapter 21

    Spencer County Prosecutor John Hargis had observed the civil trial but still did not find that criminal charges should be filed against Stanton Gash.  The problem still remained that they would have to convince all twelve jurors beyond a reasonable doubt.  They just didn’t think they could do that.  

    I agree with the prosecutor on that point.  I doubt that they could get all twelve jurors to agree then.  There was no direct evidence and no DNA match.  A skilled defense attorney could come up with all sorts of scenarios to explain away every bit of the circumstantial evidence. And let’s not forget, it was a man’s world then.  Some would say it still is.  But then, it really, really was.  Stanton Gash was a firefighter.  His Dad was the Assistant Chief of Police.  A good defense attorney would emphasize that and call character witnesses. This would be a jury of people who grew up with Sheriff Andy Griffith and Dragnet. They respected those uniforms. It only takes one doubtful juror. 

    Stanton Gash’s lawyer was John Clouse, a well known defense attorney in Evansville. Clouse was also a total character. If you Google his name you’ll find many articles about how well traveled he was. He was even in the Guinness Book of World Records for traveling so much.  He and an attorney from Ohio kept up a traveling competition of sorts trying to knock each other out of the Guinness book. 

    He was also a frequent writer of impassioned and opinionated letters to the editor of the Evansville papers. I found many of his letters caused several people to write counterpoint letters back to the editor. Anyone who read the papers back in the day probably knew the “frequent flyers” of the opinion pages.  Clouse was one of those. 

    Clouse had been a Veteran of WWII, serving in combat and narrowly surviving. After three months in the hospital he returned to the U.S.  He went to college on the G.I. Bill like so many others of his generation. He said he loved being a defense lawyer because criminals were such interesting people.  

    I believe everyone deserves a good defense. No matter what they are accused of; each defendant should be well represented in court.  Clouse definitely had the passion and the drive.

   John Clouse claimed in the 1983 appeal of Gash that all the evidence presented in the civil trial was circumstantial. The appeal further argued that a client has the right to exercise their 5th Amendment rights. 

   Nothing new came out of the appeal though.  The original ruling in the civil trial was upheld. 

   Kathy’s parents were satisfied with the ruling.  They planned to give the money to charity.  They were hoping something good would come out of all this.