For Richmond Hill explosion attorneys, summer must wait as trial takes center stage

For Denise Robinson, those weekend getaways to a cabin off the grid in Kentucky will have to wait.

For Diane Black, the garden she tends around her Northside home will be a little leaner this summer, after she decided it made little sense to plant things she won't be able to care for.

The two lead attorneys in the first Richmond Hill explosion case will be putting aside just about everything else in their lives this summer to spend the next six weeks in a South Bend courtroom trying a case that — by volume of witnesses, evidence, media scrutiny and expected length — is the biggest of their lives.

Robinson, the lead prosecutor, will be attempting to prove to a St. Joseph County jury that 46-year-old Mark Leonard was responsible for the 2012 scheme to blow up his girlfriend's house for insurance money — a calamity that killed two people and injured others, damaged scores of homes and forever changed the Richmond Hill neighborhood on Indianapolis' Southeastside.

Black, the lead public defender, will attempt to show jurors a different narrative of the case, one that could spare her client — one of five people charged in connection to the explosion and the first to go to trial — from a potential life sentence in prison.

Because of two years plus of media coverage in Indianapolis, a judge moved the case to St. Joseph County — South Bend — in hopes of finding 12 jurors who can bring an open mind to the case. As a result, both attorneys and their respective teams have moved their workplaces to South Bend for the duration of the case. Black's defense team moved last week; Robinson's prosecution team over the weekend. Both teams are now living and working out of hotels.

Their efforts moved into the courtroom Wednesday for some final pre-trial housekeeping and resumes Thursday for jury selection.

Becoming experts in natural gas

More than the challenge of a new venue, the nature of the blast that ripped apart Richmond Hill has forced the two attorneys — each with extensive trial experience — to educate themselves on some new subject areas: thermal dynamics, the behavior of natural gas and the nature of explosions.

"I knew very little about natural gas and how it works, gas systems and things of that nature," Black, the defense attorney, said during a phone interview last week from her South Bend hotel. "I have learned a lot about it."

Robinson, who had to master the science of toxicology in prosecuting former police officer David Bisard, said she knew little about thermal dynamics before Richmond Hill. Now, she's conversant. Learning new things, she said, is one of the best aspects of her job. "Certainly, I don't have a science background," Robinson said. "But I do have an interest in a great many things."

The attorneys have had a long time to prepare.

Robinson got involved in the Richmond Hill case two days after the explosion, when investigators were still considering the possibility the blast might have been some kind of dreadful accident. Eventually, they viewed the cause as suspicious. She worked on the case "virtually every day" until there was an arrest. The 2¹/₂ years since have offered little respite.

Black came along more than a month after the explosion — after Mark Leonard's arrest, after she was assigned as his court-appointed attorney. Thereafter, she began meeting with Leonard regularly. "We start visiting our client and building a relationship and figuring out how a case is going to go," Black said.

Neither attorney was willing to get into specifics of the case during interviews last week — Robinson's from a conference room in the prosecutor's office; Black's via phone from her hotel room in South Bend. They were willing to talk about their experiences leading up to a case that's a step beyond anything they've encountered before.

The prosecutor

Robinson, 53, has been a prosecutor for 25 years, starting in LaGrange County, then Elkhart and for the last nine years in Marion County. In all, Robinson estimates she's handled more than 400 trials. Those include the prosecution of Bisard, the cop in a fatal drunk driving case, but also the prosecution of Thomas X. Hardy, who was convicted in the shooting death of police officer David Moore.

During the upcoming trial, Robinson will be wearing a charm around her neck given to her by Moore's mother, Jo Ann. It features an image of St. Joan of Arc, with the inscription: "This I was born to do." Moore said she feels Robinson was born to be a prosecutor and to handle difficult cases. She said Robinson has a special ability to tend to the legalities while bearing in mind the emotional needs of families of the victims and the community.

"Her exterior can be like a grizzly bear," Moore said. "But she is just very passionate about her cases and how she presents them."

Robinson won't go as far as to say being a prosecutor was for her a calling. But she talks about taking satisfaction in trials and in taking up cold cases. She talks about her progression from handling hundreds of small cases such as burglaries each year to now dealing with two or three major cases a year, some that could invoke the death penalty.

The Richmond Hill case will involve nearly 200 witnesses and 400 pieces of physical evidence. In such a big case, Robinson said she must "Give it to the jury in pieces that they're able to understand and digest."

One of her challenges will be to prove Leonard's guilt even though he and the other defendants were far from the scene when the blast occurred. "I've dealt with conspiracy cases before," she said. "...I think it is explainable to the jury. It will be my job to do that."

The defense attorney

Black, 52, has been a public defender for 19 years, nearly all of it with the Marion County Public Defender Agency. She estimates she's handled roughly 70 trials but acknowledges none has been as media intensive, few have been as complex and none have been nearly as long as this one will be. But she says her co-counsel and support team will help her through.

"I just think that this is going to be a whole new realm," Black said. "We're just trying to make sure we pace ourselves and eat healthy so that we can be ready to go every day."

Black said it is her job to present a story to the jury — an alternative narrative than what prosecutors will deliver — and let jurors make a final decision. To expand her storytelling skills — and to understand what it's like for her clients to be on the hot seat — Black performed a one-woman presentation at the Indy Fringe Festival last year called "Exposure: Dancing With Vulnerability."

She said the stage performance, at The Phoenix Theatre, was a one-time experiment that drew on the emotional and intellectual aspects of her legal work. "What it's like for people to, you know, be scrutinized and for people to look at you and make judgment calls."

Black said she understands that the Richmond Hill neighborhood suffered greatly but she has a job to do and she expects that the community understands that. "The bottom line is to make sure we're as prepared, we've turned over every stone, we've educated ourselves and we go out there and try the best case we can," she said.

Anticipating a lengthy time away from home for the trial, Black didn't dive as deeply into the vegetable and flower garden around her Northside home, which is one of her diversions. "I planted some things this spring," she said, "but not as many as I normally do."

Robinson, meanwhile, says this lengthy trial means that, for the next several weeks, she won't be able to enjoy her favorite escape — weekend trips with her dogs to a cabin in Kentucky's Daniel Boone National Forest that's beyond the range of cell phones. And even after years of trial experience, she says there's stress associated with being the lead attorney in such a high-profile case.

"I have three other attorneys on this case and they are doing fantastic work and working a lot of hours and I couldn't do it without them," she said. "(But) I recognize I'm the face of it."

Call Star reporter Robert King at (317) 444-6089. Follow him on Twitter: @RbtKing.

Attorneys in Mark Leonard's Richmond Hill trial

Prosecution: Denise Robinson

Age: 53

Education: Indiana University, 1983. Univ. of Minnesota Law, 1987; John Marshall Law School, (masters) 2002.

Experience: Fresh from law school she spent a year in corporate contract law in Minneapolis and hated it. Joined a small firm in Albion, Ind., in 1988 and handled wills, divorces, bankruptcies and criminal defense. Became a LaGrange County prosecutor in 1992. Became an Elkhart County prosecutor in 2003. Joined Marion County Prosecutor's Office in 2006, where she is now a Deputy Prosecutor.

Defense: Diane Black

Age: 52

Education: Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis, 1991. Indiana University Law, 1995.

Experience: She started with the Marion County Public Defender Agency in 1996, rising eventually to chief trial deputy.