As an English major at Michigan State University, Cindy Ferris wanted to be a crusading journalist, exposing society's criminals and giving victims a voice.
Twenty-five years later, Ms. Ferris has accomplished that not as a writer, but as an assistant Anne Arundel County state's attorney, representing the beaten, the sexually abused or, in a case that starts tomorrow, the dead.
Ms. Ferris, 45, is co-prosecuting the first-degree murder charges against Scotland E. Williams of Arnold, who police say broke into the $725,000 Arnold home of Jose E. Trias and his wife, Julie Noel Gilbert, both prominent lawyers, in May 1994 and then shot them in the head as they lay in bed. State's Attorney Frank R. Weathersbee will lead the prosecution.
"I really don't know how all this happened," Ms. Ferris says of her 15-year career in the county prosecutor's office. "I was sure I would never pass the bar exam. I was absolutely dumbfounded when I did the first time around. And then I found a job."
She bursts out laughing at the thought.
Last week, as she prepared for the double-murder trial, Ms. Ferris wasn't laughing.
"This is the last big case I am going to do. From now on, I'm going to do the easier ones," she says, launching into a stream of complaints and worries about evidence, lack of a murder weapon and not knowing what the defense will do.
This is typical Cindy Ferris -- in a panic and on the verge of a crisis. Her conversations with police detectives, other prosecutors, victims advocates or anyone else who will listen, often goes like this: "The sky is falling. The DNA is weak. I can't believe how hard this job is. Wouldn't it have been easier to sell cosmetics at Macy's? Why am I doing this? The defense attorneys are brilliant. . . . I know I missed something. This is going to be the case where I completely embarrass myself."
But that's not what other people see when Ms. Ferris walks into a courtroom. According to her colleagues, including those "brilliant" defense attorneys, Ms. Ferris is an excellent litigator, thoroughly prepared for trial. She has a talent, they say, for making a jury relate to the victim. She is described as having an "intense passion" for victims and the justice system. She wins the most difficult child abuse cases in which the victims report the crime years later. Lawyers on both sides of the courtroom speculate that her gloom-and-doom attitude is her only defense against losing.
"That's a little head game we all play with each other," said Alan Friedman, chief public defender. "It's double-secret reverse psychology. But don't buy into that. She exudes self-confidence in that courtroom. She does this to psych herself out. She invests so much in her cases, and she does not want to be disappointed if she loses."
Ask about Cindy Ferris, and people who know her will come up with a closing argument story that goes like this: Cindy is pacing in front of the jury. She is, of course, completely prepared with charts and graphs. She waves her hands in the air as she talks breathlessly for several minutes. Her voice is rising, and finally she stops to take one long breath that every member of the jury can hear.
"I was watching her close one day on a child abuse case," said Timothy Murnane, a defense attorney who has known Ms. Ferris for 15 years. "And her voice actually cracked at the end."
Ms. Ferris, her colleagues say, is the only attorney they know who has mastered the "choke-up thing."
"It always irritated me," Mr. Friedman said. "How do you fight that? But it's real."
For Ms. Ferris, the passion begins building long before jury selection.
On a rainy Sunday afternoon during Thanksgiving weekend, Ms. Ferris is waiting for her star witness in a murder-rape case to arrive at her Annapolis office. She wants to review his grand jury testimony to assure herself that his testimony will go as planned. She is nervous because, in addition to her usual doubts, she has not been able to meet the family of the victim, something she thinks might prevent her from making the jury sympathize with the dead woman.
"Cindy really connects with [victims]," said Maureen Gilmore, director of the Victims and Witness Assistance Unit. "She spends the time needed to help them gain confidence in her and recount their experiences with the emotions that make their stories credible with the jury."
That is what she did when a 22-year-old woman reported in 1991 that her stepfather had abused her many years before.
"That was the hardest thing I have ever had to do," the woman says. "Talking about and describing what happened. But she made it easy to discuss the gory details of my case."
The woman, now 26 and a law school student, says she was so scared that she started to run out of the courtroom when it came time to testify. Ms. Ferris grabbed her arm and whispered in her ear, "You are going to do this."
The woman recalls getting on the witness stand and having "tunnel vision."
"Her face was the only one I saw the whole time," she said.
The woman's stepfather was convicted and sentenced to 12 years.
Although Ms. Ferris' emotional style is what makes her a good prosecutor, it might have cost her a juvenile judge position last year.
"This is where her personality might have hurt her a bit," says Circuit Court Judge Warren B. Duckett Jr., who hired Ms. Ferris in 1980 when he was state's attorney. "I think she would be a good judge and not let her emotions interfere with her job in the courtroom. But . . . she has gotten pretty hysterical in the office."
Ms. Ferris is aware of the label and her reputation with victims, but says she has never been one herself or worked as a victim's advocate.
"I've had a pretty boring life," she says.
The daughter of a career Air Force man and a homemaker, Ms. Ferris was born in Illinois.
The family moved every three years, and she attended high school in Jackson, Mich. Her mother, Marjorie Hartbauer, describes Ms. Ferris as a "perfectionist" who always set high standards.
In 1970, when Ms. Ferris was studing English at Michigan State University, she married William Ferris, whom she had known in high school. Mr. Ferris was in the Navy, and the couple moved around a lot before settling in Annapolis in 1974. Ms. Ferris could not find a teaching job and went to work as a child support officer in the Domestic Relations Division of Circuit Court.
Her husband began attending law school and, on a whim, she decided she would, too.
"It was either that or get a master's in English," she recalls. "I was interested in doing something that was considered at the time a traditionally male field."
She attended night school at the University of Baltimore School of Law. During her third year of law school, she and her husband adopted Christina, a 3-year-old from Colombia.
The couple divorced in 1984, and Ms. Ferris in 1991 married a psychologist.
In May 1979, Ms. Ferris graduated from law school and, by the end of the year, she had passed the bar exam and was hired by the state's attorney's office to prosecute paternity cases in the Domestic Relations Division.
After only two years in that division she persuaded then-State's Attorney Duckett to promote her to the felony division of Circuit Court. It was there that she began to build her reputation in child abuse and rape cases.
"You have to have a cause in life. If you didn't, it seems like you would have a great big hole. You have to have a passion for something important, not just basket weaving."
THE DEFENSE TEAM
Scotland E. Williams, accused of murder in the slayings of Jose E. Trias and his wife, Julie Noel Gilbert, will be represented by three lawyers at his trial, which begins in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court tomorrow. They are:
Craig M. Gendler
Age: 41
Law school: University of Maryland
College: University of Maryland College Park
Background: Partner in the Baltimore law firm of Gendler, Berg and Singleton. Extensive experience in criminal defense and personal injury work. In 1992, worked with Linda Sorg Ostovitz, defending Kevin Michael Briscoe, charged with felony murder in the April 1990 slaying of Pamela Mary Barker during a robbery of ZTC her Columbia home. Briscoe was convicted and sentenced to life plus 30 years in Howard County Circuit Court. Initially a death penalty case, but the death penalty option was withdrawn by prosecutors before trial.
Linda Sorg Ostovitz
Age: 38
Law school: University of Baltimore
College: University of Baltimore
Background: Assistant state's attorney in Howard County from 1981 to 1987. Experienced as a prosecutor and in criminal defense work. Ellicott City practice also handles numerous domestic and family law cases. Was co-counsel defending David Teddy Yoswick of Overlea, who pleaded guilty in 1992 in Carroll County Circuit Court to kidnapping and stabbing Frank Allen Storch, a Baltimore businessman. Yoswick is serving a 40-year sentence.
Michele M. Nethercott
Age: 35
Law School: Northeastern University Law School
College: Sarah Lawrence College
Background: State public defender in Baltimore County and now Baltimore. Expert in DNA and its use in criminal cases. Is expected to play a major role in cross-examining DNA experts hired by the prosecution. Defended Kevin Wiggins, convicted in 1989 and sentenced to death for the 1988 murder of Florence Lacs, a 77-year-old woman who was drowned in a bathtub in her Woodlawn apartment. Worked as a civil lawyer for the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau. Spent a year with the South Carolina Office of Appellate Defense, handling criminal appeals.