Hadley told me in 1991 that he believed the information he received from Zeigler during the Andrew James episode.  It was consistent with what he knew about practices in the fields and camps.

Hadley said that Zeigler was in a position to know what he claimed to know.  "Tommy had amazing contacts in the black neighborhoods," he said.  "I could not have made that defense [of Andrew James] without him.  He knew a lot of good people and a lot of low-lifes.  Tommy went to Atlanta four times a year, on [furniture] buying trips.  If he really wanted his wife dead, he could have had it done while he was hundreds of miles away.  He knew plenty of low-lifes who would have done it for him as a favor."

*

Clearly the state had a case.  It stood up to cursory examination.  At trial, Robert Eagan's obvious skills and the great mass of mostly ambiguous evidence helped to disguise its shortcomings.

The state's case was almost true.  It was a case good enough to win.  But even a winnable case is not necessarily the case.

During my research and writing I discussed this story with a friend who is experienced in investigations, and who also is a committed rationalist.  He believes that our tendency to jump to conclusions, to seek answers on the basis on incomplete evidence, is one of the great human failings.

At some point he sent me an epigram that he felt captured the essence of Florida v. Zeigler.  The quotation is attributed to the nineteenth-century clergyman Henry Ward Beecher:

"Whatever is almost true is most certainly false, and is among the most grievous of errors."