EXECUTED BY ELECTRIC CHAIR 03-09-81
DOB: 05-24-1956
DOC#: 13134 White Male

Morgan County Superior Court Special Judge Jeffrey V. Boles

Prosecutor: G. Thomas Gray, Stephen A. Oliver
Defense: Steven L. Harris
Date of Murder: 04-28-79
Victim(s): Terry Chasteen W/F/21 and her 3 children: Misty Zollers W/F/5; Stephen Chasteen W/M/4; Mark Chasteen W/M/2 (No relationship to Judy)

Method of Murder: strangulation with strips of cloth (Terry Chasteen); asphyxia due to drowning (children)

Trial: Information for Murder filed (05-01-79); Probable Cause Hearing (05-03-79); Competency Hearing (07-09-79); Amended “Indictment” (01-07-80); Voir Dire/Jury Trial (01-07-80, 01-08-80, 01-09-80, 01-10-80, 01-11-80, 01-12-80, 01-14-80, 01-15-80, 01-16-80, 01-17-80, 01-18-80, 01-19-80, 01-21-80, 01-22-80, 01-23-80, 01-24-80, 01-25-80, 01-28-80, 01-29-80, 01-30-80, 01-31-80, 02-01-80, 02-02-80); Verdict (02-02-80); DP Sentencing Hearing (02-02-80); Verdict (02-02-80); Court Sentencing (02-25-80).

Conviction: Murder (Misty), Murder (Stephen), Murder (Mark), Felony-Murder (Terry)
Sentencing: February 25, 1980 (Death Sentence)
Aggravating Circumstances: b (1) Rape, 4 murders
Mitigating Circumstances: None

Direct Appeal:
Judy v. State, 416 N.E.2d 95 (Ind. January 30, 1981)
Conviction Affirmed 5-0 DP Affirmed 4-1
Pivarnik Opinion; Givan, Hunter, Prentice concur; Debruler dissents.

JUDY WAIVED ALL APPEALS AND WAS EXECUTED BY ELECTRIC CHAIR ON 03-09-81. HE WAS THE 71ST CONVICTED MURDERER EXECUTED IN INDIANA SINCE 1900, AND 1ST SINCE THE DEATH PENALTY WAS REINSTATED IN 1977.

Muncie Star-Press.Com

"22 Years Later, Scars of Judy Case Run Deep," by Laura Lane. (Saturday, February 9, 2002)

Editor's Note: April 28, 1979, was a Saturday. Terry Lee Chasteen was driving her three children to a baby-sitter's house before reporting to work in the produce department at a Marsh grocery store. While driving on Interstate 465 early that morning, Chasteen noticed the driver of a construction truck motioning toward her car. She pulled over. Steven Judy, too, pulled to the side of the road. He told her it looked as if a rear tire on the car were loose. He offered to tighten it, and she got a lug wrench out of the trunk. They returned to their vehicles. But Chasteen got back out and approached Judy, saying something was wrong with the emergency brake. He walked to the front of the car and opened the hood. But instead of fixing anything, he removed a coil wire from the engine so the car would not start. He offered Chasteen, 23, and her kids a ride. So 5-year-old Misty, 4-year-old Mark and nearly 3-year-old Steven crawled into the truck. Their mom sat by the door. Within an hour, Chasteen was raped and dead, and her children were drowned. All four were killed that morning by 24-year-old Steven Judy.

In less than 2 years, he, too, would be dead, the 73rd person in Indiana to receive the death penalty. Before his electrocution in March 1981, the death penalty had not been carried out in Indiana for 20 years Almost everyone involved in the State of Indiana vs. Steven Judy had nothing but contempt for the rapist and child killer. It's difficult to muster up sympathy for the man who never showed remorse for raping and killing a 23-year-old woman, then drowning her three children. Still, being involved in a death penalty case sets off a range of emotions.

After Judy's execution, his lawyer decided never again to defend someone facing the death penalty. The prosecutor said the trial and execution "took the fire out of me. I'd had it." The next year, he became a Superior Court judge. His assistant in the case is no longer an advocate of the death penalty he sought for Judy. Despite the fallout, people closest to the case say their sympathy was for the victims and their families, not the man who died in the electric chair. "The people involved in these cases struggle with the tragic reality of an execution while seeing the suffering the crime has caused at the same time," said Paula Sites, a staff attorney with the Indiana Public Defender Council. "What the offender has done is never going to be OK," she said. "But whether it's right to kill them for it is another question."

The police

"I have no use for anyone who kills children," said Robert Williams, retired officer of the Morgan County Sheriff's Department. He and then-Sheriff Dick Allen were the first on the scene at White Lick Creek that morning after mushroom hunters stumbled upon a body along the fast-flowing creek bank. The officers arrived and discovered one body. Terry Lee Chasteen. Then two. Misty Ann Zollars. They walked downstream. Three, Steven Michael Chasteen. Four, Mark Louis Chasteen. Williams's daughters were 2 and 6 at the time. "I could have pulled the switch myself," he said, referring to Judy's electrocution

Sheriff Allen lived upstairs at the old Morgan County Jail. So from his arrest until after his sentencing, Judy was among the sheriff's downstairs prisoners. "We was all hoping he'd get the death penalty," Allen said, "and were happy when he did get it." He spoke while standing on the bridge over White Lick Creek, pointing to the spot by a tall, straight sycamore where he and Williams found Chasteen's nude body. She had been bound and gagged with cloth strips torn from her Marsh uniform.

The prosecution

Tom Gray was in his first term as Morgan County prosecutor when Steven Judy came along. He was among the first at the murder scene. "I'll not ever forget that morning, the eerie mist of that morning," Gray said. A moment stands out, after the mother's body was found and her daughter was found snagged on tree limbs under water nearby. "We found two more," echoed a shout from downstream. "If I'd written a book about this case, that would have been the title," he said.

Gray took evidence before a grand jury and got murder indictments and a death penalty mandate. "Killing a person was not in my nature, but this was a no-brainer. It had to be done," Gray said. "It was an inevitable part of my job at the time. It happened that I was the one that would pursue the death sentence." Steve Oliver was working as an intern in the Morgan County prosecutor's office in April 1979. When his boss called him to White Lick Creek the morning of April 28, he saw a dead body for the first time. Oliver, 28 at the time, spent the day on the creek bank and at the morgue instead of at the party in his honor for passing the bar exam. He spent the next several months collecting information about Judy's past crimes and compiling evidence to prove Judy was sane when he killed Chasteen and her children. "He was a true sociopath, with absolutely no conscience or remorse or guilt," Oliver said. "It made me really want to see that this man was killed."

The defense

Defense attorney Steve Harris was 34 when the case landed in his lap. Having already defended four murder defendants in his career, Harris was the most likely choice to be appointed public defender in the death penalty case. For months, he and Judy spent time together on a daily basis, preparing for trial and then going through the process.

He remembers his client as personable, polite, considerate, cooperative - and also as a calculated killer. "It was a strange situation for me, to be there with this guy who seemed so normal, so sociable on the surface, who was capable of such horrible things." Even Harris said Judy had to die. "He would have killed again had he not been executed," his lawyer said.

The jury

Jury foreman John Sappington, a retired postal clerk, will never forget the day he voted to sentence Judy to death. "He looked at me, and he said, 'I know where you live, and I know you have a daughter.' He threatened all of us, and the judge too, if we didn't give him the death penalty." The 12 jurors didn't hesitate. When the nine men and three women got into the jury room to deliberate a sentence, Sappington asked whether they wanted to discuss the options or take an immediate vote. They wanted to vote. They all wanted Judy to die for his crimes. "I said, 'Let's sit here for a while, so it doesn't look so bad.' We had some coffee, and then called for the bailiff."

Aftermath of the penalty

Kathleen Gilbert, an associate professor at Indiana University who has studied capital punishment and grief issues, said people found ways to cope with knowing they were part of a process that killed a fellow human. "If you believe a person is guilty and the court made the right decision, if there's no torture over religious or moral philosophy, if all the pieces are consistent, then you can say this is a legitimate and appropriate choice," she said. A person might separate such a decision from the rest of his or her belief system because of the brutality of the crime, she said. "You can say that in a perfect world, we would not do this, there would not be people like this, there would be ways we could rehabilitate a person, but this is part of our system that's there for a reason," Gilbert explained. "So they make a commitment to live with that realization."

Judy the sociopath

On the surface, Steven Judy seemed harmless enough. He could be personable and charming. He liked children, and they liked him. His foster parents supported him. And yet he was capable of evil. "The thing that influenced me the most was the realization that there are many people in society who appear to be as normal and friendly as he was, and yet they are as dangerous as he was," said defense lawyer Harris. "It's scary for me to think how many people like him are out there."

When Judy was 13, he posed as a Boy Scout and forced his way into a woman's home in Indianapolis. He raped her then stabbed her with a pocket knife until the blade broke. He used a hatchet to fracture her skull and cut off a finger on her left hand as she tried to block his blows. For that brutal attack, he spent 6 months at a center for delinquent juveniles. From there, he was admitted to Central State Hospital and diagnosed as a sexual psychopath. He stayed there from October 1970 until January 1973, when he was released to the custody of foster parents Bob and Mary Carr. The Carrs, who had several young children at the time, said they didn't know the violent details of Judy's past. They bailed him out of jail after an armed robbery arrest a week before he killed Chasteen and her children.

Judy admitted the killings. Harris argued that his client was not guilty because he was insane. The state had to prove he was not. Prosecutors Gray and Oliver worried. "A guy kills three little kids and a mother? You worry the jury will think, 'Only a crazy person could do that,' " Gray said. "That was our fear." And if the jury had found Judy not guilty by reason of insanity, he would have been sent to a mental hospital until he was deemed cured, then released. At the time, Indiana did not give jurors the option of guilty but mentally ill.

But jurors agreed that Judy knew what he was doing and knew it was wrong. He was not crazy. He was guilty. And unlike most killers, he wanted to die.

'Give me death'

In many ways, Judy's refusal to allow appeals on his behalf to stop the death penalty made it easier to support and carry out - just as his threats to jurors and others in the case had made the penalty of death inevitable. He let Judge Jeffrey Boles know he wanted to die. "I honestly want you to give me the death penalty because one day I may get out," he said to Boles. "If you don't want another death hanging over your head, I think that's the only thing you can do."

Harris said his client wanted to take some kind of action at the sentencing hearing to make sure he was sentenced to death. "He said he was going to jump over the table and choke Tom Gray, and I told him that no, he shouldn't do that, that someone might shoot him, and that it might be me." Then Judy asked whether he could address the jurors. Harris said yes, but asked him to keep it clean. In a chilling moment, Judy threatened them, one by one, saying he would come after them and their families if he ever got out.

"I never go across that bridge without thinking of those people he killed," said Sappington, the jury foreman, who lives just a few miles away. "And I never lost one night's sleep over our decision. We had no choice." Sappington is a Catholic. His faith opposes capital punishment. "I've had to cope with that," he said. "I'm a man of conscience, and I thought it might bother me." But it has not. "If anyone against the death penalty had seen and heard what I did, they might reconsider," he said. "The world is better off."

A lawyer's change of heart

At the time, Oliver supported the death penalty for Judy. He worked to make sure it was imposed. "I was so in favor of seeing Steven Judy die that I carried a handgun to all the depositions that summer, hoping he would try to escape," Oliver said. But over time, he has come to oppose capital punishment. "Even though I have this lifelong indelible image of those three little children - lying out on a cold stainless steel table - I am a staunch opponent of the death penalty at this time," he said. "I have no remorse about the feelings I had then, but I've come to believe that in the final analysis, it's a fallible system," Oliver said, "and as such I think it is ill-advised to entrust the taking of a human life to it."

'It should be more limited'

Gray, then a prosecutor and now a judge, has not presided over a death penalty case. He recalled a robbery and murder case where the ultimate punishment was sought, but jurors ruled against it. "I thought, 'That's all right,' because I think the death penalty has to be used sparingly," Gray said. "Since I've been a judge, there have been cases where I've let the parties know they should rethink death penalty petitions." He believes the penalty of death has a place in our society. "It should be more limited than it is now," he said. "But I know there are times when it is warranted." In 1994, he was assigned a case from Marion County. Gregory Resnover, convicted of killing an Indianapolis Police sergeant 14 years before, was scheduled to die by electrocution in 2 days. Gray reviewed a request for a stay of execution. He denied the request. Resnover was executed.

Judy has final word

Death came quickly for Steven Judy once he halted the appeals process. There was no delay, no stay of execution. No years on death row. Harris, his court-appointed attorney, was there 'til the end. "One of the last things he said to me was, 'You know, this is the best thing,' ," Harris said. "And even though I knew it was probably the right thing to do, it's hard to go through an execution with someone."

He felt an obligation to be there for his client. And a series of phone lines had been established in case Judy asked for a last-minute stay from the governor. "About a half-hour before the execution, he wavered," Harris said. A nervous, chain-smoking Judy offered some advice. "He said, 'If you ever have another client who wants the death penalty, tell them not to do it.' Then he was making jokes again. He said he was going to quit smoking."

Judy was offered a 10-milligram injection of valium. His lawyer urged him to refuse it so he could think clearly. Judy wanted the shot and quickly relaxed. They said goodbye in a small, barred cell furnished with a toilet and sink that didn't work. "We shook hands, he said, 'Thanks, this is the right thing, don't feel bad about it,' and that was it." Harris took a seat in the viewing room.

The next time he saw Judy, he was being led to the electric chair. A black cloth covered his face. He was about 15 feet away, beyond a glass panel. Four guards stood on each side. They strapped him in and attached a metal saucer to his head and electrodes to one leg. A few minutes after 1 a.m., the warden spoke the words: "Commence the execution." After it began, Judy's body stiffened, smoke came out of his head, and he shook violently, Harris said. Witnesses sat in silence, waiting 4 1/2 minutes to make sure Judy's heart had stopped beating so a physician could declare him dead.

One of Judy's last acts was handing over a letter to his lawyer. He asked Harris to wait until after the execution to read it. Judy had said he would admit to other crimes, other murders, he had committed. Harris figured this was the written admission. Inside were several pages of stenographer's notebook paper. Written on the first page was this: "I'm sorry, Steve, but I've decided to handle it this way because I care too much for my foster mom and family. I hope you can understand. Thank you for all you've done for me." Judy signed his name. The remaining pages were blank. "That little son of a bitch," Harris said. Judy's was the first, and last, capital punishment case for Harris. "It's by choice," he said. "I'll never do another one."

Indianapolis News

March 10, 1981 - Michigan City - Minutes after making a surprise telephone call to a former girlfriend he hadn't seen in five years, convicted murderer Steven Judy died today in Indiana's electric chair. Judy, 24, became the first felon to die in the electric chair at the State Prison in nearly 20 years at 12:12 a.m.

Judy's foster father, Robert Carr, Indianapolis, and his attorney, Steven Harris, were the only two witnesses to the execution, other than Department of Correction personnel who helped carry out the sentence imposed by Hendricks Circuit Judge Jeffrey Boles. "He called a girl in Texas that he was really serious about a few years ago," Carr said of Judy's final half-hour. "I don't know why. It just came out of the dark. He hadn't talked to her in five or six years. This was about 25 or 20 'til 12. "They finally located her and got her on the phone... her name is Jeannie. I don't know her last name," Carr said. "He went with her a year or two back in '73 or '74. "I think she was probably the only girl he really loved," Carr said.

Carr said Judy received about 20 telegrams on his last day on Death Row, all of them from people urging him to change his mind and ask for a stay of execution. Judy, he said, remained adamant until the end that he would rather die in the electric chair than spend decades in prison for the April, 1979, rape and murder of Terry Lee Chasteen and the drowning deaths of her children, Misty Zollers, 5; Stephen Chasteen, 4, and Mark Chasteen, 2.

Mrs. Chasteen, a divorcee, was en route to the home of a babysitter with her children before going to her job as a supermarket checkout clerk when she had a flat tire along Interstate 465 near Weir Cook Airport. Judy happened by and changed the tire, but disabled her car and lured her into his pickup truck. Testimony at his trial in Martinsville indicated Judy drove his victims to a secluded area along White Lick Creek southwest of Mooresville where he raped and strangled Mrs. Chasteen and drowned her children in the creek. "I have all the sympathy in the world for the Chasteen family," Mrs. Carr said after the execution. "But Mark Chasteen (Mrs. Chasteen's former husband) has put on a veneer as the grieving father and the grieving husband. He never showed one bit of emotion during the entire trial.

"Most men would have to be physically restrained," she said. "Through the entire thing, he sat holding hands with his lady friend and he showed no emotion whatsoever. "And suddenly he claims to be a devout Christian. But he has made the statement that he would like to be the one to pull the switch. I didn't know that God had granted him that right," she said.

Less than an hour after the execution, Mr. and Mrs. Carr returned to the Howard Johnson Motor Lodge where they and their family have been staying in recent days and told their children Judy was dead. "We just told them it was fast," Carr said. "We told them it was finished and he went like a man and like he wanted to go," Mrs. Carr added. "We told them that he sent them his love."

Carr, who left the prison visibly shaken, said he watched the execution through a glass window. He said he believed Judy was unable to see him through the glass before the mask was placed over the condemned man's eyes. "I kind of looked for him to maybe throw a hand signal or something, but he didn't," Carr said. "They gave him a shot at 15 'til 12. It was like a tranquilizer because all of his muscles were tightening up," Carr said, adding that it was Judy's decision to have the shot. "He wasn't nervous at all," Carr said. "It was just that his nerves were tightening up and he was kind of hyper the last half-hour or so." Mrs. Carr said Judy broke down and cried on at least on occasion yesterday. "Even though the public has never seen Steve Judy cry, I guarantee he cries frequently," she said, still speaking of her foster son in the present tense 90 minutes after his execution. When Mrs. Carr left Judy's cell for the last time she said, "We hugged. We do what you do when you tell people good-bye for the very last time. I'm certain there are very few people who have ever experienced that. "I told him I loved him and he told me he loved me and was sorry he had put us through so much," she said, adding she and Judy were both crying at the time.

One of Judy's last acts was to give his wrist watch to fellow Death Row inmate James Lowery with whom he had developed a friendship while at the prison. Earlier, Carr said, Judy had joked about wearing his watch to the execution to "charge it up." About 60 reporters and cameramen covering the execution were passed through two checkpoints about 11 p.m. and gathered in a small conference room on the second floor of the prison administration building.

As the clock on the conference room wall edged past midnight, the room became noticeably quieter, but there was no dimming of the lights or other indication of the exact moment the initial switch was thrown and the first charge of 2,300 volts passed through Judy's body. The first official announcement came at 12:20 a.m. when Tom Hanlon, administrative assistant with the Department of Correction, stepped to the podium and, voice trembling, said, "The execution of Steven T. Judy, 24, as ordered by the Morgan County Superior Court, was carried out this morning at the Indiana State Prison, Michigan City, Indiana. The official pronouncement of death was made by the doctors in attendance at 12:12 a.m. CST."

At 2:30 p.m. yesterday, Hanlon said, Judy showered, received new institutional clothing and was prepared for the execution. At 3:31 p.m., he was moved from his cell on Death Row to a holding cell in the execution room. "He ordered and received supper which consisted of prime rib, lobster, baked potatoes, salad and dinner rolls. He ate at 8:04 CST," Hanlon said, noting Judy's request for beer with his last meal was denied. "At 12:05 a.m. CST, DOC personnel entered Judy's cell and asked if he had any comments or requests. "He said, 'I don't hold no grudges. This is my doing. I'm, sorry it happened,'" Hanlon said. "He was then escorted from the holding cell to the execution room and placed in the electric chair. The sentence was then carried out. Steve Judy's body was released to the LaPorte County deputy coroner.

Funeral and burial arrangements will be made by the foster family," he said. After the initial 10-second high-voltage charge, Hanlon said, Judy received a 20-second charge of 500 volts. Carr said later he was convinced Judy felt nothing after "three or four seconds" and was satisfied the execution was carried out as painlessly as possible. Asked who actually threw the switch to execute Judy, Hanlon said, "I can only refer you to the Indiana statute which says, 'either the warden or his assistant,'" adding it will never be announced which person carried out the sentence.

At the close of the press conference, Hanlon distributed copies of a statement by Gov. Robert Orr which said, in part, "Now that this difficult ordeal is over, I am at peace with myself because I know I have met my responsibilities under the law and because I believe justice has prevailed."

Henry Schwartzchild, who represented the American Civil Liberties Union in a fruitless attempt to foil Judy's wish to die, told about 200 protesters outside the prison gates before the execution, "The governor, the attorney general, the clemency commission, the judges and the prosecutors involved all have the invisible mark of Cain upon their foreheads. "Judy's consent to his own execution cannot wipe that stain away, for who would think that our political and legal leaders should follow the wishes of a sick and destructive killer? Like Adolf Eichmann, they say they merely did their duty and like Pilate they say, 'The law took its course and the blood is not on our hands.' It has been a contemptible spectacle." "The State of Indiana tonight is winning a very sorry victory over us," he said.

Jeff Allender's House of Checklists

The House of Checklists is provided as an information resource for non-sports card collectors. The lists are not an offer to sell or to buy.

52 Famous Murderers (Mother Productions - 1991)

#17 - Steven Judy - Murderer, Sex Maniac

Notes: Cards are "Mother sized," 2-3/4" x 3-3/4", distributed as a boxed factory set. Artwork and text are completely different from Mother's earlier "40 Famous Murderers" set. Art here is by Bari Kumar and Samantha Harrison.

The Electric Chair.Com

Famous Last Words: "I don't hold any grudges. This is my doing. Sorry it happened." - Steven Judy, electrocuted March 9, 1981, in Indiana for killing a woman and three children.

ABOLISH Archives

"I've got a whole box of bad memories. Anything good never made an impression on me," Judy told reporters before his 1981 execution in "Old Betsy," Indiana's electric chair.

Judy had sought to terrorize his jurors into giving him the death sentence. But Judy took matters a step further: "You better vote for the death penalty," he said, "because if you don't, I'll get out and it may be 1 of you next, or your family."

Find-A-Grave

Birth: May 24, 1956
Death: Mar. 9, 1981

Murderer. He raped and killed 21 year-old Terry Lee Chasteen and then murdered her three children, Misty (age 5), Steven (age 4) and Mark (age 2). Approximately two hours later, mushroom hunters discovered the bodies of Terry Lee Chasteen and her daughter, Misty, in the shallow waters of White Lick Creek. They notified the police, who immediately searched the creek and discovered the bodies of the two boys 100 yards downstream. After his arrest, Judy proved to be a cold, calculating killer, showing no remorse for what he had done. He readily confessed to the murders, and during his trial, indicated to the jury that if he were freed, he would rape and kill again. At the trial, Judy's violent past came up and it was revealed that when Judy was 13 years old, he attempted to rape and kill a woman in Indianapolis, stabbing her repeatedly until the knife blade broke, then fracturing her skull with a hatchet. A week before he killed Terry Lee Chasteen, he was arrested for armed robbery. Judy had been earlier evaluated at the Central State Hospital, and was declared to be a sexual psychopath, yet despite that diagnosis, he was considered sane and knew right from wrong. Judy was found guilty of four counts of first-degree murder, under aggravating circumstances, and was executed in the electric chair at the Indiana State Prison on March 9, 1981. (bio by: Kit and Morgan Benson)

Cause of death: Executed

Burial: Floral Park Cemetery
Indianapolis, Marion County, Indiana, USA

Maintained by: Find A Grave
Record added: Dec 14, 2000
Find A Grave Memorial# 18848

National Review Online

"The Problem with the Chair; A conservative case against capital punishment," by Carl M. Cannon. June 19, 2000 - At a dinner party in Georgetown during the Reagan years, I was seated next to a liberal journalist I didn’t know too well — Sidney Blumenthal, then with The New Republic. No matter what has happened since, he was erudite and charming that night as we discussed the Washington scene. But my mind was largely elsewhere, for that week I had begun work on a story about a man convicted of murder who was possibly innocent. I was preoccupied, not with anything the administration might have been doing, but with the issue of capital punishment.

At some point, I asked my dinner companion his view of the death penalty. “Oh, we’re against it,” he replied. I recall being amused by that pronoun, “we” — Whom did he mean? The Democratic party? The elites? — but eventually I decided he meant the magazine he worked for. I asked him why. “The moral issue,” he said.

I remember also that this remark antagonized me. I do not support capital punishment either, but this was so inadequate an answer that I found myself arguing the other side of the question. I did so by invoking the specter of Steven Timothy Judy.

On April 28, 1979, Judy was cruising down the highway when he came across 23-year-old Terry Lee Chasteen, who was stranded with her kids by the side of the road in her disabled vehicle. Pretending to be a Good Samaritan, Steven Judy further disabled Chasteen’s car by disconnecting the ignition wires, then drove her and her three children — Misty Ann, 5, Steve, 4, and Mark, 2 — to a secluded location. He raped and strangled Chasteen and drowned the children, one by one, in a nearby creek.

Judy was quickly arrested and convicted of capital murder. At trial, he assured the jurors that if they didn’t vote for the death penalty he’d kill again someday. “And it may be one of you next,” he warned. “Or your family.” The jury obliged, and on March 9, 1981, the State of Indiana put Steven Judy to death in an electric chair nicknamed “Old Betsy.” The “moral” aspect of allowing Judy to live eluded the grasp of not just me, but a majority of Americans. Except to the most ideological of criminal-justice liberals — and perhaps to Judy’s fellow inmates at his Michigan City prison — his execution seemed a blow in behalf of civilization.

But if Judy’s crimes were hideous even by the grisly standards of Death Row, what makes his case notable almost 20 years later is that his execution — or rather, the lack of an outcry at his execution — was a signal that a momentous change was taking place in America. Until that night, there had been only three executions in the United States since the confusing 5-4 Supreme Court decision in 1976 invalidating all existing state death-penalty laws. But the states inclined to use this remedy had hurriedly rewritten their statutes to conform with the Court’s requirements, and just five years later here was Steven Judy saying to the guards as he was strapped into Old Betsy, “I don’t hold no grudges. This is my doing . . .”

It was not generally apparent then that a flood of executions was about to begin. Judy’s case seemed unproblematic in that he had not appealed his sentence. In so refusing, he had followed in the footsteps of Gary Mark Gilmore, executed by firing squad in Utah in 1977, and Jesse Bishop, who went to Nevada’s gas chamber in 1979. John Spenkelink, electrocuted in Florida in 1979 after spurning a plea bargain that would have earned him a measly 20 years in prison — he argued self-defense — was the only one of the four to go to his death unwillingly. But it was the business-as-usual aspect of the Judy case that served as a portent.

The night he was executed, liberal activists descended on Michigan City in a familiar ritual: the candlelight vigil. A crowd of some 200 of them braved the wind and rain to be there, but they were not alone. Earlier, at a “Protect the Innocent” rally in a downtown park, Mark Chasteen, the slain woman’s ex-husband, assured a pro-death penalty crowd that he’d “throw the switch” himself. As the hour approached, motorists passing the prison would slow down, honk their horns, and yell, “Burn, Judy!”

On that March night, the United States was heading briskly down a road it had not taken since the rough days of the Great Depression. Not much longer would executions be international news events. In a handful of states, most prominently Texas, they would actually become routine. In fact, within two years, crowds of several hundred Texans would be rallying outside the Huntsville prison on execution nights to celebrate. Battered by a violent-crime rate that threatened the very freedoms we are promised in our founding documents, and angered by repeated accounts of vicious predators who were paroled only to kill again, Americans were calling for a remedy prescribed long ago: “An eye for an eye!” demonstrators would chant.

And who can argue with this ancient wisdom? Well, I will. What if the issue is not an eye for an eye, but an eye for a finger? Or removing the eye of someone you thought put out your eye, but, in fact, only looks like the guy who did? This is not an academic question, and it never has been. And now, thanks to several high-profile cases in which condemned men were exonerated, and thanks to the added tool of DNA evidence, the true horror of the death penalty has made itself plain. The right question to ask is not whether capital punishment is an appropriate — or a moral — response to murders. It is whether the government should be in the business of executing people convicted of murder knowing to a certainty that some of them are innocent.

"Burn, Judy, Burn," by Bette Nunn.

Published in 1981, B. Nunn (Martinsville, Ind.)
Pagination: 232 p. :
LCCN: 81090101
Dewey: 364.1/523/0924, B
LC: HV6248.J793 N86

Judy v. State, 416 N.E.2d 95 (Ind. January 30, 1981) (Direct Appeal).

Defendant was convicted before the Superior Court, Morgan County, J. V., Bowles, Special Judge, of four counts of murder and was sentenced to death. On defendant's petition for determination of status of appeal which had been filed by his court-appointed counsel, the Supreme Court, Pivarnik, J., held that: (1) defendant's waiver of right to appeal from convictions was a knowing, voluntary and intelligent waiver; (2) state constitutional provision that Penal Code is to be founded on principles of reformation and not on vindictive justice does not prohibit imposition of capital punishment; (3) statutes relating to death sentence are constitutional; (4) jury could consider both the fact that murder of one victim was committed while in perpetration of a rape and the fact that defendant murdered such victim's children as aggravating circumstances in deciding to recommend death penalty; (5) jury was justified in finding that no mitigating circumstances existed which would outweigh the aggravating circumstances; and (6) imposition of death sentence against defendant would be reasonable and appropriate. Affirmed and remanded. Prentice, J., concurred in result and filed opinion. DeBruler, J., dissented and filed opinion.

PIVARNIK, Justice.
This cause is before us for review by virtue of appellant Steven T. Judy's "Verified Petition for Determination of the Status of This Appeal," filed by his court-appointed counsel. This petition shows that, on February 25, 1980, appellant Judy was sentenced to death upon conviction of four counts of murder. These charges arose out of the April 28, 1979 slayings of Terry Chasteen and her three children, Misty Zollers, Stephen Chasteen and Mark Chasteen. The trial judge signed the death warrant and ordered the sentence to be carried out. On the day he was sentenced, appellant Judy requested that an appeal be filed, and Kenneth M. Stroud and Stephen L. Harris were appointed appellate counsel. Judy's attorneys timely filed a motion to correct error on April 16, and the trial court denied the motion on May 6. On May 23, Judy's attorneys filed a praecipe for the record with the Clerk of the Morgan Superior Court, and, on August 4, counsel filed the record of the proceedings with the Clerk of the Supreme Court. This Court then granted a petition for extension of time to file appellant's brief. At the time of the filing of the "Verified Petition for Determination of the Status of This Appeal" on October 14, the due date for appellant's brief was October 20.

On October 8, Judy notified his counsel and this Court that he desired to terminate the appeal prior to the completion and filing of his brief; he requested that counsel cease all efforts toward proceeding with his appeal. Judy further indicated to counsel that he wished to waive his right to appeal and to completely terminate the appeal proceedings.

Counsel asserted in their verified petition that conflicting duties, created by the Code of Professional Responsibility adopted by this Court and the nature of the sentence imposed here, placed them in an "intolerable dilemma." One portion of the death penalty statute, Ind.Code s 35-50-2-9(h) (Burns 1979 Repl.), provides: "(h) A death sentence is subject to automatic review by the Supreme Court. The review, which shall be heard under rules adopted by the Supreme Court, shall be given priority over all other cases. The death sentence may not be executed until the Supreme Court has completed its review."

Under this section, then, a sentence of death may not be carried out in this State until there has been a review by this Court. Generally, this provision would have imposed a duty on Stroud and Harris, as Judy's appointed counsel, to complete this appeal and thereby assist in this Court's review. Therefore, they would have violated that duty if they had followed the directives of their client and ceased to prosecute this appeal.

On the other hand, attorneys generally have a duty to act on their clients' requests, and counsel here recognized that they should comply with Judy's request, if that request was knowingly, voluntarily and intelligently made. Thus, as counsel asserted in their verified petition: "Appellant's counsel cannot determine which duty to follow. If the Statute is construed as mentioned and counsel drop the appeal pursuant to Appellant's request they have violated the statutory duty. If the Statute is construed as allowing waiver of appeal in death cases and counsel ignore Appellant's request and file the appeal they have violated their duty to their client." Therefore, to fully protect their interests and those of their client, counsel requested that this Court dispose of this "insoluble professional and ethical problem."

After considering the issues presented in counsel's petition, this Court concluded that s 35-50-2-9(h) precludes waiver of a review of the sentencing in a death penalty case. However, we further found that this statute does not preclude waiver of a review of a murder conviction. Accordingly, this Court set a hearing for October 27, for Judy to appear personally before us so that we might determine whether he did, in fact, wish to waive his appeal of this conviction, and, if he did so waive, whether that waiver was voluntarily and knowingly made. In this opinion, we shall: (1) determine the validity of Judy's waiver of appellate review of his convictions; and (2) review the death sentence imposed by the trial court.

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Judy's response to the legal procedures in this case was much like Gilmore's in Utah; in fact, one might surmise that Judy was aware of Gilmore's activity, as it was heavily publicized, and opted to bring to bear the same results in this case. An examination of the transcripts and record of the trial before the court and jury reveals that the prosecution presented overwhelming evidence of Judy's guilt.

Steven Judy was convicted of murdering Terry Chasteen and her three children: Misty Zollers, age five years; Stephen Chasteen, age four years; and Mark Chasteen, age two years. Hunters discovered Terry Chasteen's body at approximately 9:30 a. m. in White Lick Creek, near State Road 67 and Mooresville in Morgan County. A police search of the creek led to the discovery of the other three bodies. Terry Chasteen was found naked, with her hands and feet bound with strips of material torn from her clothing, and her head covered with her slacks. She had been gagged and strangled with other strips of cloth. The evidence established that Terry Chasteen had been raped and that she died of strangulation, while the children died of asphyxia due to drowning.

Certain physical evidence tended to circumstantially connect Steven Judy with this incident. Tests on a coat found at the scene of the crimes revealed a semen stain. Analysis of this stain indicated that the makeup of the substance was compatible with Judy's blood type and the finding of an "H endogen" in a sample of Judy's blood. Testimony established that, once the geographic location of the discovery of the substance was known, only a very small percentage of the male population was capable of producing semen with the identification qualities mentioned. In addition, two threads of material found in Steven Judy's truck substantially matched the threads of one article of Terry Chasteen's clothing.

The evidence further established that Terry Chasteen had left in her automobile with the three children some time after 6:00 a. m. She had planned to leave the children at a babysitter's house and continue on to her place of employment. When her probable driving route was retraced, her automobile was found parked near the interchange of Interstates 465 and 70 in southwest Marion County.

Several witnesses related that they had seen various segments of the incident. On the day of the killings and the preceding day, Steven Judy had in his control a red and gray truck which several witnesses placed at or near the location of Terry Chasteen's car on Interstate 465. One of the witnesses testified that he saw a blond-haired man, whom he later identified as Judy, standing near a car parked on the interstate with the hood open. Another witness testified that he was driving southwest on State Road 67 and saw a red and gray truck carrying a man, a woman, and some childreN, proceeding in the same direction. This witness stated that the truck was moving at a fast pace, and in a sometimes erratic manner, and that the woman in the truck waved to him when the two vehicles stopped at a traffic light.

Judy's truck was also seen parked near the scene of the killings by White Lick Creek around 7:00 to 7:30 a. m. One witness recognized the truck from having seen it on several occasions at a construction site. Another witness testified that he saw a man near the scene carrying a child under one arm and carrying a bundle, which actually had the shape and size of a child, under his other arm. A third child was walking in front of the man. The witness saw no other person at that time. At approximately 7:30 a. m., a man was seen running away from the creek toward the parked truck. Near that same time, another person saw a man with blond hair backing his truck onto the travelled portion of the highway from this same location. The person who witnessed this occurrence testified that the driver of the truck was alone.

As noted earlier, Judy had possession of the truck in question on the day preceding and the day of the murders. The evidence established that Judy returned the truck to witness Robert Carr in Indianapolis between 8:00 and 9:00 a. m. on the day of the killings. Judy initially denied any involvement in the incident, and asserted that he was with his girlfriend at the time in question and could not remember what had happened. Judy's girlfriend first corroborated this story, but subsequently contradicted Judy's alibi.

At trial, Judy presented an insanity defense and testified at length concerning his commission of the rape and murders. Judy stated that he was driving on Interstate 465 in Marion County when he passed Terry Chasteen's car. He testified that he motioned for her to pull over to the shoulder of the road, indicating that something was wrong with the rear of her car. The two vehicles pulled to the shoulder and stopped, and Judy purported to assist the victims. In the process, he removed the coil wire, thereby rendering Terry Chasteen's car inoperable. When her car would not start, Judy offered her and the children a ride, and she accepted.

Judy then drove the victims to the location of the killings and pulled his truck off the road. He testified that he directed them on foot toward the creek, and that he sent the children down the path ahead of Terry and him. Judy testified that he then raped Terry Chasteen and bound her hands and feet and gagged her. When Terry cried out, the children ran back up the path to them. Judy stated that the children stood around him and yelled. At that point, he strangled Terry Chasteen and threw her body into the creek. Judy testified that he then threw each of the children as far as he could into the water. He stated that he remembered seeing one of the children standing in the creek. Judy returned to his truck after attempting to eradicate his footprints. He then drove away from the scene, stopped and bought a soft drink, and threw the coil wire away. Thereupon, he returned the truck to Robert Carr at Carr's residence. Although Judy's version of the events presented some discrepancies concerning minor details, his testimony very substantially corroborated the evidence presented by the State.

The only defense presented at the trial was a plea of insanity at the time of the commission of the offenses. Dr. Cathy Spath Widom, a psychologist, testified for the defense that she believed Judy had chronic emotional problems. She described Judy as having an antisocial personality disorder, and was of the opinion that he was legally insane. She referred in her testimony to extensive records on Judy's life and mental condition; these records covered a period of fourteen years. During this time he had been examined and evaluated many times as a result of committing offenses at school and in his neighborhood. The evidence established that, when Judy was thirteen years old, he perpetrated a rape, stabbed the victim eighteen times, and hit her with a hatchet. As a result of this incident, he was admitted to Central State Hospital in Indianapolis for evaluation. While he was involved in Central State's treatment program, he became the foster child of a family in Indianapolis. He was discharged from Central State Hospital in 1972 at age sixteen, with a recommendation that he be returned to the juvenile center for placement at the Indiana Boys School. The hospital's evaluation stated that Judy had appeared to recover from his emotional problems and that further hospitalization was not warranted.

Judy testified that he had been committing various offenses since he was ten years old. He asserted that he had been involved in approximately two hundred shoplifting incidents, a like number of burglaries, twenty to fifty robberies, approximately twenty-four car thefts, and from twelve to sixteen rapes. He also estimated that he had been examined by approximately thirty psychiatrists during those years. From 1975 to the time of these offenses, Judy had been out of jail for a total time of approximately four months. During those periods, he testified, he had lived with or had intercourse with fifteen women. Three women with whom Judy had lived testified that he had never threatened or physically harmed them. In fact, Judy was living with one of those women during the week prior to the commission of these murders.

However, other women testified as to various attacks Judy had committed upon them. These incidents involved accosting the victims in their cars and kidnapping, threatening and beating them. One witness testified to being a victim of one of Judy's armed robberies. These witnesses all believed Judy was in control of himself during the incidents and could have stopped doing what he was doing. However, one witness stated at one point that Judy "acted crazy" when he was beating her about the face. Previously conducted psychiatric evaluations classified Judy as having a personality disorder and concluded there was no indication of a mental illness. Two court-appointed psychiatrists, Dr. John Kooiker and Dr. Larry Davis, testified that they had examined Judy and that, in their opinions, he had an antisocial personality disorder. Both concluded that he was legally sane at the time of the commission of these crimes. In fact, the record reveals that every psychiatrist who has ever examined Judy has been of the opinion that he is of normal or above-average intelligence and that he is legally sane. The jury rejected Judy's insanity defense and convicted him on all charges.

After the jury found Judy guilty on all four counts of murder, and the bifurcated sentencing portion of the trial was commenced, Judy ordered his attorneys not to present any evidence of mitigating circumstances to the jury in regard to the sentence they might select and recommend. See Ind.Code s 35-50-2-9(c), (d) (Burns 1979 Repl.). Judy stated to the jury in open court at the sentencing hearing that he would advise them to give him the death sentence, because he had no doubt that he would kill again if he had an opportunity, and some of the people he might kill in the future might be members of the jury. He also directed a similar comment to the trial judge. Then, during final argument in the sentencing hearing, Judy ordered his attorneys not to argue against the death penalty. They complied with his request, except for a suggestion to the trial judge that the constitutionality of the death penalty statute ought to be considered before such a penalty is imposed.

On October 27, Judy appeared in this Court with his attorneys for a hearing on his request that he be permitted to waive his appeal. At that hearing, Judy very freely and openly discussed his situation with the members of this Court. It was obvious to all members of this Court that Judy well understood his situation and the results that could be expected from an acceptance of his waiver. Judy stated that he understood that he had a right to an appeal, that a review of the convictions might result in an order for a new trial, that in that event he would again be entitled to a jury trial, and that, at that new trial, he also would be entitled to a change of judge and a change of venue from the county. He further expressed an understanding that, if he were granted a new trial, he would be entitled to the assistance of counsel and to subpoena witnesses in his behalf. He also understood that he might be found not guilty at a new trial. In addition, Judy stated he was aware that our review of the sentence might result in the setting aside of the death sentence and the imposition of a term of years. Moreover, Judy acknowledged that he understood that a waiver at that time of review of his convictions would be considered his final decision, and would stand, even if this Court were to decide to set aside the death sentence. Finally, he freely admitted that he is guilty of the **101 murders of which he was convicted. Waiver Hearing Transcript at 8-19.

Thus, in response to questions from various members of the Court, he indicated that he was fully aware of all that might happen if this Court allowed him to waive his appeal. He discussed all of the alternatives with the Court and showed that he clearly and intelligently understood them. He responded to one question in the following manner: "I no longer wish any more representation by counsel, any counsel. All right? You know, I feel that it's my right that I can proceed with the appeal." Waiver Hearing Transcript at 15.

Judy further stated that he felt the attorneys in court with him, Stroud and Harris, were "darned good attorneys." He said he has no complaint about them, and, in fact, they are the best lawyers he has ever seen. Waiver Hearing Transcript at 12. Judy also wanted it to be known that his actions did not detract in any way from his feeling that they were representing him competently and were treating him fairly in all respects. He made it clear to this Court, as he had done at the sentencing hearing, that he did not want counsel to make arguments for him regarding the death sentence.

In addition, Judy asserted that he personally did not intend to take any further action on his appeal. In answer to another question from the Court, Judy stated: "What I understand that statute (s 35-50-2-9) to mean is that the Indiana Supreme Court has to review the case. It's not saying that a brief has to be filed on it or any motions filed or anything. Alright, that's final, there. The Indiana Supreme Court can review the case, if they wish." Waiver Hearing Transcript at 18-19. At another point, Judy told the Court that he understands his constitutional rights; in fact, he feels he understands his rights more than other laymen understand them. Waiver Hearing Transcript at 14. The Court explained to Judy that, by waiving his appeal, his convictions would not be reviewed for legal errors, and that the Court would accept that Judy is guilty of the crimes in question. Judy's overall attitude is best expressed by his response to that warning: "I understand all that. It's, you know, the why, you know, of not going on with this appeal, it's within myself, you know. And there's really no you know, I accepted what the court found. You know, I thought I was treated fair, more than fair. I was provided with good counsel and I lost. There's no sense going on with this." Waiver Hearing Transcript at 10.

Thus, Judy's attitude, in short, was that he would like to waive review of the sentence as well as review of the convictions; however, if this Court felt it had to review the sentence, he would accept that, but would take no action toward that review, preferring that it be done as soon as possible. Before the hearing terminated, Judy stated in open court that he would like to formally fire attorneys Harris and Stroud, saying he no longer wished for them to represent him. Judy further stated that he had nothing against these two gentlemen; that they are the best attorneys he had ever seen, but that he wanted the sentence review to proceed with no further efforts on his behalf. Attorneys Stroud and Harris stated to the Court that they also understood that Judy did not want them to act in any way on his behalf, including the filing of any brief concerning the Court's review of the death sentence. This Court acknowledged Judy's dismissal of Harris and Stroud, and advised them that they were released from any further obligation with regard to the review process in his case.

We further find that Judy has made a knowing, voluntary, and intelligent waiver of his right to appeal his four murder convictions. In addition to all we see in the record, much of which having been discussed above, we have observed Judy's appearance and demeanor in this Court, his responsiveness to our questions, and his ability to communicate with his lawyers. We find him to be fully competent to make this waiver. See Gilmore v. Utah, supra. Accordingly, this Court will not evaluate the murder convictions any further; we shall, then, proceed to review the death sentence imposed by the trial court.

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We further find, as explained above, that the trial court in all respects properly followed the required procedures in imposing the sentence of death. There was more than ample evidence in the record to justify the trial court's determination beyond a reasonable doubt that the aggravating circumstances set out in his findings were present. The facts in evidence before the court, together with those presented in the presentence report, also completely substantiate the court's finding that no mitigating circumstances existed which outweighed the aggravating circumstances. Both of these conclusions, and the specific findings to support them, were clearly enunciated in writing by the trial court. The facts evident in the record of this case, which patently show the egregious and horrifying nature of these offenses and the character of this offender, and the trial court's careful compliance with the proper procedures, inescapably lead us to the conclusion that the sentence of death recommended by the jury and imposed by the trial court was not arbitrarily or capriciously arrived at, and, without any doubt, is reasonable and appropriate.

Therefore, we affirm the trial court in its imposition of the death penalty here. This cause is remanded to the trial court for the purpose of setting a date for the death sentence to be carried out. GIVAN, C. J., and HUNTER, J., concur. PRENTICE, J., concurs in result with separate opinion. DeBRULER, J., dissents with opinion.