The Red Dog

During his trial for the shooting of Alan Simon, Richard Peacock got an anonymous note at the jail. It said in part, "I will get the Red Dog to your kid." Richard Peacock burst out in open court with "Red Dog is a gun! They're gonna kill my daughter!" The prosecution's contention was that Richard Peacock was correct. The defense of course had something else in mind.

On about the third day of the trial, we entered the courtroom to face a 5-foot stuffed replica of Clifford the Big Red Dog. I knew things were about to get very interesting.

The defendant's wife testified that day that Kenny Rogers had won the big toy at Great America by climbing a rope ladder. The dog had spent some time with other prizes he'd won -- a unicorn and an octopus -- in their kids' bedrooms, in a storage space and in the office of their Sacramento auto body shop. She testified that because she had "fallen in love with" Richard Peacock's baby daughter, she and her husband had talked over the years about giving her the Red Dog. (This was the same daughter, it turned out, who was present at Kenny Rogers' property during pot harvest season.)

So, the Red Dog was either a gun with a red handle that had a dog logo on it (prosecution) or a giant stuffed animal (defense). The Red Dog took up residence in the jury deliberation room, the goofy tongue-out grin presiding as the twelve of us discussed. In some ways it was inconsistencies about the giant dog that decided the case. Here is some of what was said:

"That's not just any red dog, that's Clifford. Anyone who has a kid at home would call this thing 'Clifford.'"

"If this was in a kid's room for any length of time, it wouldn't look this clean."

"It sells musty, like it's been in storage longer than they said."

"If it had been stored in an auto detailing shop, even in the office, it would have grime and dust on it."

To us it was unlikely that the Red Dog was this toy.