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April 21, 2008
Posted: 11:03 AM ET
SAN DIEGO, California – When I interviewed Cindy Sommer at the Las Colinas Women’s Detention Facility here a week ago, neither one of us had any idea that she was spending her last days behind bars. She was a free woman four days later.  I traveled to San Diego to interview Sommer on April 13 in preparation for her retrial in mid-May. She had been convicted of the arsenic murder of her husband, a Marine, but that conviction was thrown out on the grounds she received ineffective counsel. The women’s jail looks deceptively small from the outside. The one-story building in rural Santee where visitors can spend 30 minutes with an inmate is actually one of a hidden compound of buildings that houses about 750 inmates. I expected that we would go through a rigorous security screening but, surprisingly, there was none—not even a metal detector. As it turns out, there are no contact visits at the jail; hence, little need for such security checks. Immediately to the left off the entrance hall is the visitors’ room. There is a row of 19 metal stools bolted to the floor. Each stool is in front of a window. A wooden box around the window gives a semblance of privacy. There is a telephone receiver on the wall to speak to the inmate. Our interview was scheduled for 9:15 am. At precisely that hour, Sommer suddenly appeared before me on the other side of the window. She was wearing prison garb and smiling widely. Her face was made up and “camera ready.” We grabbed our receivers but they hadn’t been turned on yet. All telephones were then activated simultaneously and our 30-minute chat began. Almost all the visitors’ stools were occupied so the din from multiple conversations made it a challenge to hear each other. Sommer was remarkably optimistic about her upcoming retrial. She always maintained her innocence. She cried when talking about her children and all the milestones in their lives that she had missed in more than two years’ incarceration. She emphasized that she hoped the truth would come out this time—that she did not kill her husband. The interview ended mid-sentence when the phone lines were cut 30 minutes after they were activated. We just looked at each other and waved goodbye. I thanked her for the interview and said I’d see her in court next month. I returned to New York the next day. Three days later, I was back in San Diego, this time speaking to Sommer as she dined on shrimp with family and friends just hours after her sudden release. Sommer didn’t sleep that night. She sat next to me the next morning on air with In Session. Still reeling from her release, Sommer was exuberant. She said she was angry with the prosecution but her anger certainly didn’t manifest on our air. Watch the interview As I look back on the developments in her case from her conviction in January 2007 to her release last week, lessons come to mind from my years as a DA in Manhattan. A senior DA took me aside during my first year and told me to watch the old Western movie, “The Oxbow Incident,” which deeply moved him. In the movie, based on the book, three innocent men were lynched by a mob when law and order were abandoned. My colleague wanted me to understand the immense power of a prosecutor and the need to reign in a “rush to judgment” mentality. He emphasized that doing justice doesn’t always mean trying to secure a conviction but doing what’s right whether it’s lowering the charges or dismissing them outright. Sommer’s case may not have been a classic rush to judgment since there wasn’t even a criminal investigation until 15 months after Todd Sommer’s death. Moreover, Sommer wasn’t arrested until November 2005, more than three years after her husband’s death. Despite the holes in the prosecution’s case—the most glaring being no link between Sommer and arsenic—a jury of twelve San Diegans found her guilty. She was facing a sentence of life without parole. San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis says the system worked in Sommer’s case. When they recently found more tissue samples of her late husband, the D.A. sent them for testing at a private lab. The absence of arsenic in the tissues led to Sommer’s release last week. The most Dumanis will now say is that there is reasonable doubt. She won’t go as far as Roy Cooper in North Carolina when he declared the three former Duke lacrosse players innocent. But in the eyes of many who followed her case closely, Sommer has now been totally exonerated. – Beth Karas, In Session correspondent Filed under: Beth Karas • Cynthia Sommer |
 
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