The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule Page A

criminal offenders, examining bills before the legislature, advocating "court reform, or contemplating the creation of my own corporation, I immediately become conscious of my limited understanding of the law. My life style requires that I obtain a knowledge of the law and the ability to practice legal skills. I intend to be my own man. It's that simple.
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    I could go on at great length to explain that the practice of law is a life-long goal, or that I do not have great expectations that a law degree is a guaranty of wealth and prestige. The important factor, however, is that law fulfills a functional need which my daily routine has forced me to recognize.
    I apply to law school because this institution will give me the tools to become a more effective actor in the social role I have denned for myself.
    T.R.B.
    Ted's personal statement was most erudite and filled with quotes from experts ranging from Freud to the President's Committee on Law Enforcement, and the Administration of Justice Report. He began with a discussion of violence: "You begin with the relation between might and right, and this is the assuredly proper starting point for our inquiry. But, for the term 'might,' I would substitute a tougher and more telling word: 'violence.' In right and violence, we have today an obvious antimony."
    He had not softened his position against riots, student insurrections, and anarchy. The law was right; the rest was violence. Ted stated his current involvement in a series of studies of jury trials.
    "Using computer-coded data collected on 11,000 felony cases by the Washington State Criminal Justice Evaluation Project, I am writing programs designed to isolate what I hope to be tentative answers ... to questions regarding the management of felony cases." He talked of a study he had undertaken to equate the racial composition of a jury with its effect on the defendant.
    Ted's thoroughly impressive application to the University of Utah Law School in early 1973 worked, and overshadowed his mediocre Law School Aptitude Test scores. But, oddly, he chose not to enter their law school in the fall of 1973, and the reason given to the Dean of Admissions was a curious lie.
    He wrote "with sincere regret" a week before classes were to begin, that he had been injured severely in an automobile accident and was hospitalized. He explained that he had hoped that he would be physically strong enough to attend the fall quarter, but found he was not able to, apologizing for

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    waiting so long to let the University know and saying he hoped that they could find someone to fill his place.
    In truth, Ted had been in an extremely minor accident, spraining his ankle, had not been hospitalized, and was in perfect condition. He had, however, wrecked Meg's car. Why he chose not to go to Utah in 1973 remains a mystery.
    There were discrepancies too in his almost flamboyant dossier. Both the study on rape that he told me he was writing and the racial significance in jury composition study were only ideas; he had not actively begun work on either.
    Ted did begin law school in the fall of 1973-at the University of Puget Sound in his home town, Tacoma. He attended night classes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, riding from the Rogers's rooming house to U.P.S., twenty-six miles south, in a car pool with three other students. After the night classes, he often stopped for a few beers with his car pool members at the Creekwater Tavern.
    Ted may have elected to remain in Washington because he had been awarded a plum political job in April, 1973-as assistant to Ross Davis, chairman of the Washington State Republican Party. His $1,000 a month salary was more money than he'd ever made. The "perks" that came with the job were something that a man who had struggled for money and recognition most of his life could revel in: the use of a Select Credit Card issued to the Republican Party, attendance at meetings with the