weeks: Ernest Burkhart. Mollie watched her husband as he walked
unsteadily down the long aisle to the stand. Hale glowered at his
nephew, whom one of Hale’s lawyers denounced as a “traitor to
his own blood.” Moments before, Burkhart had confided to a
prosecutor that if he testified, “they’ll kill me,” and as Burkhart sat
in the witness chair, it was evident that whatever strength he had
mustered to reach this point was fading.
A lawyer for Hale rose and demanded to confer privately with
Burkhart. “This man is my client!” he said. The judge asked
Burkhart if this individual was really his attorney, and Burkhart,
with one eye on Hale, said, “He’s not my attorney...but I’m willing
to talk to him.”
White and the prosecutors watched incredulously as Burkhart
stepped down from the stand and went with Hale’s lawyers into
the judge’s chambers. Five minutes drifted by, then ten, then
twenty; at last, the judge ordered the bailiff to retrieve them.
Hale’s lawyer Freeling emerged from the chamber and said, “Your
Honor, I’d like to ask the court to allow Mr. Burkhart until
tomorrow to confer with the defense.” The judge agreed, and for a
moment Hale personally buttonholed Burkhart in the courtroom,
the plot unfolding this time right in front of White. Leahy, the
prosecutor who had been hired by the Osage Tribal Council,
considered all this to be the most “high-handed and unusual
course of conduct I had ever witnessed on the part of attorneys.”
As Burkhart left the courtroom, White strove to catch his
attention, but Burkhart was swept away by a mob of Hale’s
supporters.
The next morning in court one of the prosecutors made the
announcement that White and everyone in the buzzing gallery
were expecting: Ernest Burkhart refused to testify for the state. In