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and the federal courts. The Steigler case was the longest criminal trial in a state court at the time.
1. Denial of Bail
Steigler was arraigned on Decem- ber 3, 1968. Judge William T. Quil- len did not grant bail on the murder charges, which were capital offenses and not bailable under state law. He granted nominal bail of $1,000 on the assault charge, which was Count V of the indictment. Steigler obtained new counsel, William Taylor and Al- fred Lindh, who filed an application for bail in the Delaware Supreme Court. Their argument was based on the language of the Delaware Consti- tution providing in Article 1, S. 12 that “[a]ll prisoners shall be bailable by sufficient sureties, unless for capi- tal offenses when the proof is positive
or the presumption great . . . .”
The state statute was amended to permit bail on January 8, 1969 — less than a year prior to the murders — “if after full inquiry [the Superior Court] shall determine that there is good ground to doubt the truth of
the accusation . . .”1
The Delaware Supreme Court re-
manded the application for bail to the Superior Court for hearing, holding that: “The result, under our hold- ing therefore, is that the State must go forward with evidence tending to show ‘proof positive or presumption great’. . . . The defendant’s burden is met if the Court in its discretion concludes from the evidence that the State does not have a fair likelihood of convicting the accused of the capi- tal offense.”2
This new requirement greatly ex-
panded Steigler’s right to hear and challenge the state’s evidence before trial. As a result, the Superior Court held a “proof positive” hearing that began December 27, 1968, and last- ed six days.
The Superior Court, after the lengthy hearing, denied Steigler’s right to bail because “a reasonable likelihood of a conviction of first- degree murder existed.” Denied bail, Steigler was committed by Judge Andrew Christie to prison, where he remained from December 3, 1968 through the trial and the lengthy post-trial proceedings.
2. Motive
I entered the case after the proof positive hearing and took a leave of absence from Connolly, Bove & Lodge in order to devote full time to the effort. One of my responsibilities was to prepare the motive portion of the case. While proof of motive was not required for a conviction, it was clear that we had to explain why Steigler killed his little daughter, who was only six, since the jury would ini- tially believe that he could not have done such an incredibly horrific act.
I worked with Detective Roger Thomson of the Delaware State Police for months developing the motive. We contacted Mr. Swert- feger’s accountant who told us that Mr. Swertfeger had given money to Steigler to invest and his client had not received any accounting of what Steigler had done with the money. At the time, Steigler was working as a broker selling stock in various com- panies. The evidence showed that Steigler had been misappropriating money from many clients, including the Swertfegers.
We reviewed Mr. Swertfeger’s re- cords and discovered that he had given Steigler $24,502, which was
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