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Recent Articles By Glenna Whitley

National Features

When Gerald Pabst took the witness stand to testify against his brother-in-law, he looked scared. He was literally shaking. Yet he answered the prosecutor's questions in a soft, even tone that didn't fit the gruesome details of the murder.

It was all the fault of Clay Chabot, Pabst said. At dawn, after the two men spent the night boozing and doing meth together, Chabot had dragged Pabst along to get compensation for a bad drug deal. The speed-fueled escapade had ended with Chabot killing the dealer's wife. Pabst said he'd obeyed Chabot's orders because he'd been threatened.

A peripatetic painter who spent a lot of his non-working life face-down drunk, Pabst appeared remorseful for his role, determined to tell the truth about the 1986 murder of Galua Crosby no matter the cost to himself. Pabst, who, along with Chabot, had been indicted for Crosby's murder, testified that he expected to be tried for the crime himself at some point. Under repeated questioning by the judge and Chabot's attorney, Pabst insisted he'd made no deal with the prosecution in exchange for his testimony.

Attorney and former judge Kelly Loving, who thought of Pabst as the "Pillsbury Doughboy," could see the effect his tubby client had on the jury. They believed every word Pabst said.

Chabot later took the stand in his own defense, denying any role in Crosby's death and blaming Pabst. But Chabot, a wiry and wired ex-military man, came off as a cocky, unemployed speed freak who jurors could readily imagine getting pissed off over a drug debt and exacting revenge by raping Crosby and shooting her three times in the head.

Classic courtroom drama: Two scumbags pointing the finger at each other. Each man could explain away the scant physical evidence linking him to the crime. Yeah, Pabst pawned the woman's boombox. But as Dallas Assistant District Attorney Janice Warder would hammer home, the murder weapon belonged to Chabot, who claimed Pabst had stolen it.

The jury believed Pabst, convicting Chabot and sentencing him to life in prison.

But what they didn't know was that the prosecution had a secret arrangement with Pabst in exchange for his testimony. Though Crosby's family believed Pabst had gone to prison, two days after Chabot's conviction, he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor theft of the boombox and walked free. Less than a slap on the hand.

This spring Clay Chabot's conviction became one of the latest DNA cases to bring shame to the Dallas County District Attorney's office. Pabst had played everyone involved in his prosecution for fools, and, in turn, they helped him deceive the jury.

The "Pillsbury Doughboy" failed to mention that he had sexually assaulted Crosby, a fact revealed this spring by a DNA test on a vaginal swab. The test ruled out any involvement in the rape by Chabot, who has maintained his innocence since he stepped inside the penitentiary.

Janice Warder, a well-respected prosecutor who became a state district judge in 1992, had made a "no-deal deal" with Pabst—or so it became clear when Chabot's conviction was appealed.

"You testify and I'll do the fair and just thing," Warder told Pabst and Loving, according to her later testimony in federal court.

According to interviews with defense attorneys and former prosecutors, such "nod-and-a-wink" deals were common practice in the Dallas District Attorney's office in the '80s and '90s under district attorneys Henry Wade, John Vance and Bill Hill. The attitude was that, if not written down, if not an explicit quid pro quo, such arrangements did not have to be disclosed under the so-called "Brady rule," which required all exculpatory evidence be turned over to the defense.

"They say, 'You have to trust us, and you won't be displeased,'" says Randy Schaffer, a Houston attorney who handled part of Chabot's appeal. "'We have an understanding, but we have no deal. Your client is doing this to be a good citizen.'"

Under District Attorney Craig Watkins, such prosecutorial tactics are being re-examined in the light of 14-and-counting DNA exonerations in Dallas County. The issue has drawn national attention: A crew from 60 Minutes filmed Watkins' presentation earlier this month for law students working with his office and the Innocence Project at Texas Wesleyan Law School. They will be screening more than 450 requests from offenders for DNA tests.

Dallas public defender Michelle Moore worked with some of the 10 exonerees who attended the seminar. She's also coordinating the DNA screening student project. Some things have already changed, Moore says. "The DA's office used to fight everything," Moore says. Under Watkins "they are more open to tests." A week after the seminar, Watkins announced that Steven Phillips, convicted of a 1982 sexual assault, did not commit that crime. An admitted peeping tom, Phillips remains in prison on other charges.

Many defense attorneys regard unwritten deals such as the one employed in the Chabot case as deceitful.

"It's egregious, unethical and illegal," says one Dallas defense attorney, who asked not to be identified. But she says the tactic is used routinely so the prosecution can avoid any taint on their witnesses' credibility.

In the Chabot case, the non-deal helped Pabst to come across as the truth-teller, even though Warder technically had promised nothing. And it helped Pabst sell Warder, the judge, the jury and his own defense attorney a whopper.

The allegations that Dallas prosecutors have often refused to disclose "non-deals" and other exculpatory evidence get strong reactions, but the responses can be put into two camps: former prosecutors who say it was rare, and defense attorneys who say it happened all the time.

Write Your Comment show comments (7)

  1. These people in law inforcement jobs and other public office`s are just like everyone else in world , some good some not so good , why would anyone even be surprised at any thing that goe`s on in those offices ...

    Comment by JOE — October 3, 2007 @ 05:25AM

  2. When the order taker at McDonald's messes up your order, the worse that can happen is that you maybe get a cheeseburger instead of a hamburger.

    When the power company looses your check for last months power bill, the worse that can happen is that they cut off your electricity and you are inconvenienced until you get it back on.

    When the IRS messes up your tax return, the worse that can happen is owe a bunch of money that you don't have.


    When the people of Law Enforcement and Jurisprudence messes up your case, the worse that can happen is that you END UP IN PRISON, FORFEIT YOUR FREEDOM, AND GET GANGED RAPED FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!!!!

    How the hell can you be so damned cavalier about the f@ck ups by Dallas Police and Dallas Prosecutors? I could understand if it were honest mistakes, but when it is a result of cops and prosecutors circumventing the law or just being plain lazy, they should be prosecuted themselves, sent to prison, and made to pay restitution to the innocent people they locked up.

    We are talking about burgers and fries here... these are people's lives RUINED!!!

    Comment by Larry Owens — October 3, 2007 @ 02:03PM

  3. What exactly was Warder's choice? She had 2 people both at the scene, both involved - how is either one of them that innocence? Both were involved in a Narcotics related death - How is either one of them a candidate for our sympathy?

    Warder would be the first to tell everyone, she should have picked the other one - but everyone has 20/20 hindsight now don't they?

    Comment by Wick Olson — October 6, 2007 @ 03:53PM

  4. "What exactly was Warder's choice? She had 2 people both at the scene, both involved - how is either one of them that innocence? Both were involved in a Narcotics related death - How is either one of them a candidate for our sympathy?

    Warder would be the first to tell everyone, she should have picked the other one - but everyone has 20/20 hindsight now don't they?

    Comment by Wick Olson — October 6, 2007 @ 03:53PM"

    Warder could have prosecuted them both for the murder if she wanted to. It might be harder to win and the jury would have seen two suspects and judged for themselves. But was the thought of putting one in the win column more of a priority? Could her decision to prosecute, to "get the win", be based on who she thought she could best get the conviction? Was the wiry speedfreak easier to prosecute than the non-threatening, soft-spoken "Pillsbury Doughboy"? I am not so naive to think that political motivations and concern for a winning record do not come into play. These prosecutors, most of them being the bottom of the barrel in thier law schools who could not find a job with a law firm, are just looking for enough successful prosecutions to get promoted or get the bigger, better job offer. They do not care if they convict the wrong person, they ignore facts, ala Michael Nifong, to get the win. Ask yourself why companies that settle out of court to avoid "cost of litigation" or bad publicity do what they do. Justice is blind to backroom deals and this skirting of the Brady rule is as underhanded as any other criminal conspiracy. Prosecutors that engage in this sort of "non-deal" should be prosecuted themselves. They are why the fake drug scandal went on for so long and why so many Dallas "criminals" have been exonerated lately.

    Comment by El Rey — October 10, 2007 @ 11:14AM

  5. This has been a common practice in the Dallas County Courthouse for more than 60 years. The shady backroom deals that lead to convictions, some innocent some not, however this is a tragic turn of events for a man, who was wrongly convicted and half of his life spent proving his innocence. Not sure where the earlier poster got the impression that the DA had evidence of two people at the crime scene. There was not one shred of physical evidence that put Clay Chabot at the scene of the crime. They had a blood typing test from the original rape kit that was the most common blood type in the world so it could have linked 50 million suspects, including Pabst. The total base of the prosecutions case was on the testimony of Pabst. Now with the new DNA evidence we find out the Pabst entire story was a fabrication. Pabst said Chabot raped and killed the Crosby, when in fact, according to the DNA results, Pabst did the raping, which coincides with Cabot's testimony that he didn't rape the victim, and leaves us to believe he had no part in the crime whatsoever, which Chabot has claimed all along. There was the statement by Sandra Pabst Chabot that her brother had borrowed her gun and returned it fully discharged of all the shells on the night of the murder. There was a pawn ticket, by Gerald Pabst of the radio (boom-box) taken from the scene of the crime. There was a T-shirt belonging to Graham with traces of human blood on it, that was never disclosed as to who the blood belonged to, in the possession of Pabst in his vehicle, at the time of his arrest. There was no physical evidence that put Chabot at the scene of the crime, none whatsoever. The fact of the matter is the weapon involved didn't belong to Clay Chabot, it belonged to his wife, the sister of Gerald Pabst. If you want to try and implicate Clay on the weapon, you have to implicate Sandra, because it was her gun not clay's. Not one fingerprint at the scene, not a hair, nothing linking Clay Chabot to the scene.

    The oath of the jury is "Guilty beyond a reasonable doubt", there is nothing but doubt in this case, as far as Clay Chabot is concerned. DNA links Pabst to raping the victim with 99.99% certainty, the pawn ticket links Pabst to the stolen property from the scene of the Rape and Murder. Pabst own sister testified that he had borrowed her gun that day and returned it afterwards, fully discharged or ammo, the same gun that was used to kill Crosby. The DA perjured herself in court when she denied under oath that there was no deal made with Pabst, in returned for his fabricated story used to convict Chabot, when in fact there was a deal. If there is not reasonable doubt in the Clay Chabot conviction than God help us.

    Comment by Mark F. Barnes — January 4, 2008 @ 08:02AM

  6. On April 21, 2008 Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins and his administration will attempt to railroad Lakeith Amir-Sharif ("Sharif") to prison for the next 10, 20 or 30 years, for crimes Mr. Watkins, his staff and others know beyond any reasonable doubt that Sharif is innocent of. The belief by many following this travesty of justice is that Mr. Watkins and staff feel pressured to obtain a conviction after having all but destroyed this young man's life based sloppy police investigations, unethical judges and the knowingly perjured testimony of an irrate ex-girlfriend by the name of Cathy Jonette Hawkins.

    This and other stories can be found on the website of Making The Walls Transparent and vidoes posted on youtube with the help of Kay Lee, co-founder of MTWT and Writer, Musician, Artist, Activist Mark Angelo Cummings. The time is now for Mr. Watkins to stop this miscarriage of justice and drop the charges against Sharif or forever have this stain of justice tarnish his legacy as Texas' first African-American.


    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXe40XLPGjk

    http://www.angelfire.com/crazy4/texas/taxpayerquestions.html

    Comment by Making The Walls Transparent — February 16, 2008 @ 01:22PM

  7. Scarily, Ms. Warder is now a candidate for Cooke County District Attorney. She was recruited heavily by the current Cooke County District Judge (up for re-election herself). Several of us have been passing out the "Devil's Deal" article (among others) to anyone who will stand still long enough to read it. We're concerned if she did what's alleged in that article - and apparently she did according to affidavit testimony - what does that mean for us up here? Wish the Observer was more wide-spread up here!

    Comment by Debbie — February 20, 2008 @ 02:01PM

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