widow upside the head. It would have the same effect on the jury. They wanted to hear Peter Tupton’s story, and the only one who could tell it was his widow. Young lawyers sometimes get carried away with the rules of evidence and challenge everything objectionable. They’re on their feet the whole trial. As you get older, you rest your feet and hoard your objections. If the answer doesn’t hurt, stay in your chair. Even if it does, sometimes you’re better off being quiet. Don’t highlight the weakness of your case by trying too hard to keep out answers or documents the jury is likely to hear or see anyway.
Melinda Tupton took us through the courtship and marriage, Peter’s early jobs with the Department of Environmental Resources and the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Then came the opening with the Everglades Society, an executive, policy-making position with public exposure. He leaped at it. This was his destiny.
“He loved the natural beauty of the Glades, its incredible variety of plant and animal life. He studied its history. Sometimes he would use Indian terms or call it by the name the Spanish explorers used,
El Laguna del Espiritu Santo
, the Lagoon of the Holy Spirit.”
‘This was getting a tad too mystical for my tastes. And was it my imagination, or did Melinda Tupton look straight at Gloria Morales when speaking Spanish with perfect intonation? Oh brother, this one was slick.
The widow told us how Tupton had prepared position papers for congressional investigative teams. He fought the sugarcane barons whose fertilizer drained into the great slough and who tampered with its water level through vast irrigation. He battled the developers and the froggers and the hunters and the macho off-road vehicle rednecks and everyone else whose vision was so crabbed they only saw the River of Grass as their own personal playground or cesspool.
“Peter discovered the source of the mercury pollution in the Glades,” she said proudly. “It comes from local garbage incinerators and is carried to the west by the prevailing breezes, then dumped into the saw grass in afternoon thunderstorms. Peter wanted to preserve the natural habitat for all the animals and to preserve the water supply for the millions of us”—she turned toward the jury box—“for all of us who live here.”
Then we learned about the wildlife her husband loved so much. Patterson had already played the television-interview tape, so the images of the hawksbill turtle and the seaside sparrow were fresh in the jurors’ minds. Melinda Tupton droned on about nocturnal opossums and pink flamingos and tiny fiddler crabs. She described how to tell the difference between the American crocodile with its long, narrow snout and olive-green color and the alligator with its blunt nose and black back.
“Peter loved the animals so much. Even the mosquitoes…”
Oh give me a break, lady.
Patterson let her keep going for a while, then got down to business. “Referring to Plaintiff’s Exhibit Twelve, Mrs. Tupton, can you identify this document?”
Patterson handed a one-page letter to the witness. “Yes, that’s a letter from Mr. Florio to my husband, threatening to sue him if he didn’t stop making trouble—that’s what the letter says, ‘making trouble’—for him with the Army Corps of Engineers and the Collier County Commission. It’s called a SLAPP suit, Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, and…”
Next to me, Nicky Florio’s thick neck was threatening to burst out of his white-on-white shirt. I had to shoosh him, so I could hear the witness.
“…it’s what happens when a rich company files a frivolous suit to silence its opposition.”
“Objection!” Sometimes, I don’t heed my own advice. “Your Honor, the question was whether the witness could identify the document. That didn’t call for her opinion of the character of an unfiled lawsuit.”
“Sustained.” Dixie Lee leaned toward the witness and gently
Melinda Tupton took us through the courtship and marriage, Peter’s early jobs with the Department of Environmental Resources and the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Then came the opening with the Everglades Society, an executive, policy-making position with public exposure. He leaped at it. This was his destiny.
“He loved the natural beauty of the Glades, its incredible variety of plant and animal life. He studied its history. Sometimes he would use Indian terms or call it by the name the Spanish explorers used,
El Laguna del Espiritu Santo
, the Lagoon of the Holy Spirit.”
‘This was getting a tad too mystical for my tastes. And was it my imagination, or did Melinda Tupton look straight at Gloria Morales when speaking Spanish with perfect intonation? Oh brother, this one was slick.
The widow told us how Tupton had prepared position papers for congressional investigative teams. He fought the sugarcane barons whose fertilizer drained into the great slough and who tampered with its water level through vast irrigation. He battled the developers and the froggers and the hunters and the macho off-road vehicle rednecks and everyone else whose vision was so crabbed they only saw the River of Grass as their own personal playground or cesspool.
“Peter discovered the source of the mercury pollution in the Glades,” she said proudly. “It comes from local garbage incinerators and is carried to the west by the prevailing breezes, then dumped into the saw grass in afternoon thunderstorms. Peter wanted to preserve the natural habitat for all the animals and to preserve the water supply for the millions of us”—she turned toward the jury box—“for all of us who live here.”
Then we learned about the wildlife her husband loved so much. Patterson had already played the television-interview tape, so the images of the hawksbill turtle and the seaside sparrow were fresh in the jurors’ minds. Melinda Tupton droned on about nocturnal opossums and pink flamingos and tiny fiddler crabs. She described how to tell the difference between the American crocodile with its long, narrow snout and olive-green color and the alligator with its blunt nose and black back.
“Peter loved the animals so much. Even the mosquitoes…”
Oh give me a break, lady.
Patterson let her keep going for a while, then got down to business. “Referring to Plaintiff’s Exhibit Twelve, Mrs. Tupton, can you identify this document?”
Patterson handed a one-page letter to the witness. “Yes, that’s a letter from Mr. Florio to my husband, threatening to sue him if he didn’t stop making trouble—that’s what the letter says, ‘making trouble’—for him with the Army Corps of Engineers and the Collier County Commission. It’s called a SLAPP suit, Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, and…”
Next to me, Nicky Florio’s thick neck was threatening to burst out of his white-on-white shirt. I had to shoosh him, so I could hear the witness.
“…it’s what happens when a rich company files a frivolous suit to silence its opposition.”
“Objection!” Sometimes, I don’t heed my own advice. “Your Honor, the question was whether the witness could identify the document. That didn’t call for her opinion of the character of an unfiled lawsuit.”
“Sustained.” Dixie Lee leaned toward the witness and gently
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