 |
| Read the Amazing Bio of Barbara C. Johnson at Amazon.com |
 |
| Available on Amazon |
She confirmed his understanding was correct: she’d been receiving counseling for two years.
“And during those two years, the counseling had to do with your allegation you’d been raped by your husband, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“During the two-year period or between the time you alleged the act of rape occurred and the day when the child moved her hands like puppets, can you tell me whether or not you ever discussed with this child the allegations you made of rape toward your husband?”
“Oh, no. I never did.”
That answer was exactly what Bea expected from Denise on the straight question posed by Mathers.
Denise had been wanting to say “I never did” to that exact question ever since her deposition. Only Bea had repeatedly refused to pose the question and give her the opportunity to answer it. Even Aguilar had avoided it like the plague. The true answer would not come out that way. Mathers was not helping matters here; he was adding to Bea’s problems.
“Had you ever taken up the subject of your complaint in any way, shape, or form with the child prior to the puppet event?”
“No.”
Another predictable answer, Bea thought.
“Had you ever discussed the subject of rape with her with respect to anybody other than yourself?”
Bea thought this question was ambiguous and otherwise characterized it as mustard mild when it should be jalapeno. This information could only be shown by getting to the phone calls Denise had with her friends from the AA and rape groups. The phone calls that could possibly have been overheard by Chloe. This was all verboten.
“No.”
“Did you learn of any circumstance wherein she might have knowledge of what rape was?”
“I don’t remember anything.”
“Was there any occurrence you can recall which would have given the child information on the subject of rape or penetration of a vagina or oral insertion of a penis in a mouth or anything like that?”
“No.”
“Do you know whether or not she was aware you were going to counseling during that two-year period?”
“She knew that I was seeing a counselor.”
“Did she know any of the details as to why you were seeing a counselor?”
“No.”
“Did you ever discuss any conversation you had with the counselor with her or any of the
circumstances under which you sought counseling?”
“No.”
“You indicated you had known this particular counselor Tracy for a period of three weeks prior to taking the child to see her?”
“That’s right.”
“Had you seen a counselor prior to seeing Tracy?”
“Yes.”
“And did she become unavailable or did Tracy replace her, is that it?”
“No, I went to Carol Tracy in addition to my counselor.”
“As a further counselor?”
“Yes.”
“When approximately was the alleged act of rape you asserted against your husband?”
“It was in July of 1983.”
“Did you take out any complaint or seek any official recognition of that allegation?”
“No.”
“You continued to live with him as husband and wife for some period of time after that?”
“Yes, I did.”
“For how long a period?”
“Six years.”
“How long?”
“Six years.”
“Am I correct in my understanding that you never went into a district court or sought a complaint in any way, shape, or form against him for that alleged event?”
“I never did, no.”
“Did you take any action with respect to him at all with respect to that alleged event?”
“What kind of action?”
“Well, did you take any action? Did you do anything?”
“I confronted him and spoke with him.”
“And was that the extent of whatever action you took with respect to that event?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have any questions, Ms. Cooke?”
“No, Your Honor.”
“Ms. Archibald?”
“I didn’t hear what you said? Did you take any action? I didn’t hear her answer. She’s been fading out and getting quieter,” Bea said. To Bea, it seemed the quieter Denise became, the further from the truth her answers were.
“I apologize. I didn’t put the speaker on,” Cooke said. She’s been manipulating that speaker all day.
The last question and answer were read back for Bea.
“You are free to question her now,” Mathers said.
Bea’s turn. Denise confirmed going for treatment of her alcohol problem. “I went to my first AA meeting that night.”
“Your Honor, may I mention the divorce trial here outside the presence of the jury?”
“Well, if it is relevant to the issue of the admissibility of the alleged act of rape.”
“Do you remember being on trial on divorce in this very court in March of ‘91?”
“Yes.”
“And do you remember telling the entire story of the rape at the divorce trial? Do you remember that?”
“I remember speaking of the rape, yes.”
“Do you remember Joe Aguilar, your lawyer, asking you and you answering that you were shocked, upset, and angry after the rape?
“That would sound right, yes.”
Denise then admitted she remembered saying she lost the pleasure in life, in things around her, and in doing things with her child. She also acknowledged she had felt depressed, but never sought treatment for her depression.
But she had not discussed the rape with Stanton to the extent she had discussed it at the divorce trial. She only told Stanton that Bill had raped her: “I don’t remember exactly what I told her. I didn’t go into any details.”
That’s strange because Denise claimed to have had a close relationship with Stanton. “You told her enough that after two years of going to her, she said go to the rape-crisis center, isn’t that true?”
“I don’t— I can’t answer your question like that. I don’t—”
“Your Honor, ,ay I discuss the findings from the divorce trial with her? The jury isn’t here. Just for your knowledge so you can make a decision.”
“Go ahead.”
“Thank you.”
“Do you remember seeing Judge Goldblatt’s findings out of divorce court?”
“Yes.”
“And he said you were obsessed? Do you remember the word ‘obsessed’?”
“Excluded. I don’t want to hear anything about what Judge Goldblatt said in divorce court.”
Crazy, Bea thought. He just said “Go ahead.”
“Well then, explain to me and to the Court why six years after this event you went to the rape-crisis center.”
“Did you ask me a question? I didn’t hear the question.”
“She wants you to explain why six years after you were raped, you went to the rape-crisis center.”
“Because I still had effects from the experience and I wanted to understand what had happened and what my feelings were about him.”
“What were the effects from what happened?”
“Excluded.”
Bea argued to Mathers the importance of the effects. He finally relented.
“What were the effects?
“The effects were an inability to trust other people easily. I had lost self-confidence. I was confused about how I felt about what had happened. That’s all, I think.”
“And so you went to the rape-crisis center as a result of those things?”
“Yes.”
Bea addressed the Court. “Your Honor, some of this should be in front of a jury. So I’ll go right to the rape, which you won’t let me put in front of the jury, just so we make a record.” Bea had decided to start from the beginning—the rape—and build up to the effects and confusion which came upon Denise after the alleged rape.
“Oh, all right. Let’s hear the story of the rape if you want.”
My, aren’t we suddenly cavalier!
Still another struggle. Denise tried to change the entire episode in July 1989.
“You asked him to comfort you, isn’t that true?”
“Yes.”
“And then what happened?”
“He raped me.”
“May I read the record into the trial?” Bea asked Mathers.
“Just question the witness, please.”
“Well, she just changed it a hundred percent.” Bea turned to Denise. “What happened after you asked him to comfort you?”
“She’s already answered that question. He raped her,” Mathers said.
“No. It’s different,” Bea told Mathers. Her head was spinning and she could feel sweat dripping down between her boobs. Reading the record would be more expeditious than fighting with Denise to repeat about rape story. Now that Denise had been taught by Mathers that evasiveness, if not lying, was okay, it would take forever. Unhappily, she continued.
It was like pulling teeth. Finally, without asking Mathers’ permission, Bea began reading the rape story from the trial transcript. When Mathers didn’t stop her, Bea continued reading aloud Denise’s testimony from the divorce trial regarding the rape to the point where the marriage started to really disintegrate.
“Now, at that point the marriage, quote, ‘stopped being good,’ unquote. It was good up to that time, is that right?”
“We had some problems.” Denise said evasively, and then would only admit to their having had communication problems.
“Was he ever violent to you or to Chloe?”
Denise feigned ignorance. “I don’t really remember. I don’t know what you’re referring to.”
Picking up the transcript of the divorce trial, Bea began reading Denise’s admission that, with the exception of that fateful Saturday afternoon in July 1983, Bill had never been violent with her.
Mathers interrupted her, “Okay. Ms. Archibald, sit down. Bring in the jury. I am excluding any reference to the alleged rape. I don’t want a word of testimony about that to come into this case. Your rights are saved. We will now proceed.”
She went directly to the nub of the matter, “Your Honor, I have to know clearly at this point—”
“I don’t know how I could be more clear than I have been already.”
“But the bias she has felt for six years over that episode she has construed as a rape.”
“I have made a ruling, Ms. Archibald. I expect you to observe it. If you have any trouble with it, take it up.” He was forcing an appeal. Bill would be rotting in prison. He might not even live through it.
“When you called the voir dire, Your Honor, I was asking her a question. May I get an answer to that question? I read to her from the affidavit, ‘My daughter and I are in fear of our lives at this time.’ I asked ‘What were you in fear of?’ and that’s when you called the voir dire. May I go back to that point?”
“You may. I don’t want any reference to the alleged rape,” the judge told Bea. Then Mathers turned to Denise and said: “If you are unable to answer a question without referring to that, just say I am not able to answer the question.”
Sonofabitch, he’s telling her to lie.
“Okay,” Denise said.
Mathers continued instructing Denise: “If at the time you filed the 59B—or whatever it was—you were afraid of him for some other reason, then you may answer. I do not want anything on the rape to come into this case.” Damn, now he’s given her a hint about what to invent—to fabricate, make up another reason for her fear. Maybe I didn’t hear what he said properly.
“Your Honor, I didn’t hear. Could I have that read back? I’m sorry.” The acoustics in the room were terrible. The DA kept on shutting the loudspeaker off when Bea was examining. There was no reason for her to play around with it. The buses, trucks, and traffic contributed to the difficulty of hearing Denise’s already soft voice.
“I have instructed the witness to make no reference to the matter of rape in this case, subject to what I just said to her. That is the substance of what I just said to her.”
That’s not all you said, Buster.
“Well, how is she supposed to answer that truthfully then, because the rest of what was deleted said that she was in fear of that he would rape me again? We can’t rewrite history.”
“Please sit down till the jury gets back in.”
“Your Honor, I request a mistrial.”
“Motion denied.”
“Objection,” Bea said.
“Objection noted,” Cortland Mathers said.
Other Than the Problem Being Excluded
The jurors had had a thirty-minute break. It was 12:04 when they were escorted back into the courtroom, and the temperature was 95 degrees. There’d been no time after the voir dire for Bea’s dress and jacket to dry out even a little, and she herself was wrung out emotionally and had to be pungent.
“Just before the jury was excused, Mrs. Abernathy, I was asking you what you meant on your affidavit for the restraining order when you wrote ‘both my daughter and I are in fear of our lives at this time.’ I ask you now, Why were you in fear? Can you tell me?”
“Yes. Because I thought with Chloe’s disclosure, Bill might become violent.”
“Had he ever been violent before that you knew of?”
“At this point, yes.”
“When?”
“Objection, Your Honor,” Cooke said.
“Excluded.”
Bea hoped the jury would wonder why Cooke and the judge wanted a time when Bill was allegedly violent kept secret.
“You had to have a basis for thinking that he would become violent. He had never become violent before, had he? He had never, ever laid a hand on you, had he?”
“I’m going to object, Your Honor.”
“Excluded.”
“We’re entitled,” Bea said.
“I will make the rulings in this case, Mrs. Archibald, if you don’t mind.” There was a pause while Bea was thinking.
“Have you got any more questions?”
“Oh, I do. I do.”
“Well, then put them to the witness.”
“I’m just trying to regain my composure, Your Honor.” His nastiness doesn’t let up. “When you married Bill in 1979, was he ever violent to you?”
“No.”
“And in fact, between 1979 and 1983, he took you to dinner and to theaters and walking by the lake up in New Hampshire and it was a very pleasant, fun relationship you had during the first four years of your marriage, isn’t that true?”
“We had some good times, yes.”
“And then Bill worked. He was a physician’s assistant on the surgical team at a hospital, right?”
“Yes.”
“Now, you’ve had some communication problems in your marriage after 1983, isn’t that true?”
“No, we had communication problems before.”
“Did you ever have any other kind of problem beside a communications problem with Bill?”
“I don’t understand your question.”
“Did you ever have another kind of problem besides the communications problem with Bill? You may answer yes or no.”
“Yes.”
“And what was that problem?”
“Objection.”
“Excluded.”
“Other than the problem that keeps on being excluded, did you ever have any other problem with Bill?” Bea wanted to let the jury know that there was more to this than the court was allowing Bill’s attorney to tell through this witness.
“Yes, we had marital difficulties.”
“Marital difficulties. And other than that problem that keeps on being excluded, he never, ever laid a hand on you, did he?”
“Object to the question, Your Honor,” Cooke said.
“She may answer that,” Mathers said.
“No,” Denise replied.
“And as far as you know he never, ever laid a hand on Chloe either, isn’t that true?”
“That’s not true.”
“Well, you said Chloe never told you about this abuse prior, say, in just the time span up until the time you took her to Carol Tracy. She never told you about this abuse, isn’t that true?”
“She told me some things. She told me one time her father had kicked her.”
“Kicked her? Did you know about the karate lessons? That she went to karate every week with Bill?”
Yes, Denise knew Chloe went to karate once a week with Bill for a period of time, yes, but Denise denied she went as long as two years.
“Now, did she ever say her father did anything else?”
“She complained he scratched her a couple of times.”
“This was while they were roughhousing?”
“I don’t know. She just came and told me he had scratched her.”
“You didn’t know whether it was an accident.”
“I don’t know.”
Denise then admitted she had scratched people and had scratched Chloe, but by accident.
“So do you know if Bill scratched her by accident or on purpose?”
“At that time, no, I didn’t know.”
“Do you know now?”
“No.”
“Was there any other way in which he put his hand on the child?”
“I can’t answer. I don’t understand the question.”
“Okay. Let’s name the ways in which he did put his hand on her.” At that point, much of Denise’s testimony covered the familiar ground of caretaking and activities at the Y.
“And Bill was the one who put her into a bathing suit and took the wet bathing suit off, right?”
“No. She had her bathing suit on when she left.”
“Did he bring her home with a wet bathing suit from the Y? Or did he change her at the Y?”
“Yeah, she brought a towel.”
“And you’re saying he didn’t take her out of the wet bathing suit?”
“No, there was just a short drive. I told her to sit on the towel in the car.”
“So even though he changed her diapers, you did not want him to take her out of a wet bathing suit to bring her home. Is that what you’re saying?”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying she went to the Y in a bathing suit. She came home in a bathing suit.”
“Wasn’t it wet?”
“Yes.”
“Are you telling us that he didn’t change her into dry clothes after she swam at the Y?”
“No.”
“Did you not want him to take the bathing suit off her?”
“No, I didn’t think about it. She went with the bathing suit and she went with a towel. I told her to sit on the towel on the way home so she wouldn’t get the car seat wet.”
“And you told Bill the same thing, that Chloe should sit on the towel?”
“Yes.”
“And he pretty much did what you asked him, didn’t he?”
“Concerning the bathing suit?”
“Well, concerning any one of those things.”
“Any one of what things?”
“Well, the bathing suit for one. Let’s start with that.”
“Yes.”
“Are there any other things you gave him explicit rules and instructions for?”
“Any other things concerning what?” Denise asked Bea.
Bea replied, “Anything.”
“Probably at some point.”
“And he did all those things as you requested, isn’t that true?”
“Not always, no.”
“What kinds of things didn’t he do?”
“I’m going to object to that.”
“Excluded.”
There was no sense bringing up the no-touch rule, because without being able to show Denise’s bias caused by the rape obsession, Denise would come off appearing as only a mother who was concerned about the welfare of her child.
Bea paused. She walked over to her table and began writing.
“Do you have any more questions, Ms. Archibald?”
“I do. But I want to speak to my client. And I’m wired for sound, so I have to write it instead. I can’t talk to him.”
Cooke rose. “I’ll turn it off, Your Honor.”
Bea wasn’t allowed to question Denise about her marital problems, her alcoholism, her depression, her obsession, her counseling, her rape, her divorce, her friends from AA, her friends from the rape group. Sit down, Bea, she told herself.
“No more questions.”
Part 34 scheduled to post on Wednesday, September 24th
____________________________________________
