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CHAPTER TEN
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I asked Melissa to watch the video with me, so she did– to my humiliation. But since she was so smart and insightful, I couldn’t exclude her point of view. And I didn’t want to shut her off from my pain. She was the best friend I had.
Letting her in on it was a brilliant idea, it turned out, because she illuminated many things. For one, she said “I could see why you thought she was eighteen”. Phew! That was the keenest thing she could have said. For I had started wondering how I could have possibly thought Corissa was an adult. I’d become too polluted with the video version of Corissa, and it was crowding out my own memories!
She also said that at first glance, she’d thought Corissa was a prostitute. Wow! I still don’ know why she thought that. Perhaps it was because of a hardness in her face. Corissa’s face, I mean. And Corissa did have a hardness in her face– it was true. She was cute, but the hardness was present too. I had thought that was explained by the rage of her situation. But Melissa thought she saw something else. I still think Melissa was wrong about that, though. But it got my paranoia working again. It provoked anew the suspicion of substrata there that I couldn’t know… But how could she have been a prostitute? No, it simply didn’t make sense. And the fact that she’d never seen ejaculate before killed that idea for good. But with that assertion the idea of a set-up could not completely go away.
She pointed out several other things– though I don’t know how she knew them: like that the mores of a mentally-challenged person are different, for one thing: that they lack in shame and guilt… Like that a sexually abused girl becomes “sexualized” as a result of the abuse: by having that “knowledge” thrust upon her before she’s ready– and that as a result she often becomes promiscuous. That’s obvious stuff, really– but I’d never thought about it.
Then she opined that Corissa really had Fetal Alcohol Syndrome! Wow! And wouldn’t that fit in oh so very well– to the family dynamics I had already postulated?
Melissa told me that when she was fourteen she’d gotten into a car with an older man and that he had tried to fondle her.
I asked her why she’d gotten into the car at all.
“Because when you’re that age you do things you’re not supposed to!”
That seemed to me to be a pretty good answer.
And she agreed with me that they were persecuting me out of all proportion to reason. She agreed that they were evil too.
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One day while we were discussing my case Melissa stopped in mid-sentence. She paused and looked off, as though tuning into something in the air. It was just like what E.K. had done that time in Flagstaff. When she re-engaged with me, a moment later, she had reached the same conclusion that EK. had: “I think that this will be okay”, she said. Man, that was great! It was strange, though, that with E.K. that psychic revelation had happened immediately, whereas with Melissa it took a lot of time. Nevertheless, I had two judgments, then, drawn from “woman’s intuitions”–and the verdict was good for me.
But neither of them said exactly what “okay” would mean. And I, of course– just like me– didn’t think to ask.
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Later, despite what Melissa said, I convinced myself anew that I’d been full of shit to think Corissa was eighteen. Or that she was not severely retarded. And so I concluded that I had concocted this whole version of events that I told you about: that I was a schizophrenic, who has conveniently forgotten not just that, but whole violent episodes of my life– and who has substituted innocent tales in their place– so that other criminal episodes were therefore buried in my past. From there, it did not take me long to convince myself that I was some kind of psychopath. I even started wondering where I’d buried all my victims– and how many molested children I’d left in my immoral wake.
That new self-assessment was triggered by a dream. But I’m not sure whether it was a real dream, or just an early morning delusion. In either case, the image was the same: it was the truth being revealed to me- the truth I’d not dared face: that I ordered Corissa to get into the car, and I drove away despite her pitiful screams… I told her to shut up, and in a rage I scratched her belly– as a warning of what I might do… I told her that I would have my way with her, and I cackled as I whisked her, terrified, away. Yes, that was it. That was how it had really happened. And my version of events was just a schizophrenic invention! It was just a brilliant cover story, from my fecund imagination!
That revelation possessed my mind, and paralyzed my self-justification.
But not for long, Thank god. For it did not hold up either– any better than my lies had. Contradictions kept getting in the way, so in the end, I couldn’t buy it. I was too sure Corissa had caught up to me, outside the Library, and had requested the ride. And why on earth would she have done that then immediately protested that she didn’t want to go?! No, my half-asleep psychopathic scenario just did not compute.
Besides, if a person really objected, while I was driving, I think I know what I would do: I would stop the car, or turn around, or ask if she was sure. So my delusion kept revealing itself as exactly that. Phew! Shit: unless– of course– even the events outside the library had been my invention too… And that would mean my version of events inside the library would be suspect too.
Fortunately, the events outside the Library held firm– like a dam against the perpetuation of my own psychotic illusion… Because I couldn’t get past that barrier, to persuade myself that I was wrong. Even Dickie Robinson had confirmed that I’d left the Library before Corissa had. Phew! And I could not doubt that she had asked me for the ride– nor that she later defended me as her friend. So the barrier held. Try as I might, I couldn’t push my psychopathic delusion back beyond that threshold. It kept snaring on the facts.
I couldn’t convince myself that everything I remembered from the library and outside was just a figment of my criminal imagination. Thus, I remained sane… And if I was sane, then that meant I was right: Corissa did not cry out like that.
Thank God for Dickie Robinson: her statement may have saved my very sanity!
But no sooner did I think I had that settled than on another day I had another psychic visitation. Another nightmare conquered me, and it too commandeered my mind. It was that while Corissa and I were on that hillside that she had made that protest there. So I succumbed anew.
I hadn’t thought of that! I had only heard the claim of what Corissa cried– and all along I’d assumed it was supposed to have happened during our departure from the library. But in this new version I saw that it was while I was bounding ahead of her on the hillside that she had cried out like that. Yes– it was while hiking to those water towers that she had objected– in the moments just before I came back down to take her by the hand! Her shriek had been no mere shriek at all. It had been that cry, that “No, no–I don’t want to go”… but in my distance, and in my deafness, I had not understood her! Oh God: she really was a terrified victim. And I really did drag her screaming up the hill!
In time I realized that that didn’t make sense either. For Corissa had smiled at me, and beamed, before we climbed up that hill. Besides, I was only in front of her for a few seconds, so there would not have been time for her to have uttered it even once. No, I was wrong again.
Besides, it was after that that she’d told me not to tell anybody. Phew! And it was also after that that she’d defended me as her friend! Phew!
Again the facts had delivered me from a very good delusion– and the resolution of that had erected a barrier at that end of the encounter too. So my delusion was hemmed in then: jailed, that is, between the dam at the Library, and the obstruction on the hill! My psychotic alter-ego was thoroughly reined in, then: squeezed, he could neither breach the library barrier nor survive the pilgrimage up the hill!
The fear I had of a multiple personality got “arrested”, while going up that hill. The things Dickie said saved me by the library, and the things Corissa had said and done had saved me on the hill! I hadn’t made any of it up!
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But there was still a huge problem, because Mark Fisher had omitted a crucial claim from his report. Or more accurately, I think, he had conveniently omitted it, inasmuch as it would not support his un-abating zeal.
I am talking, of course, about Corissa having defended me as her friend. And unfortunately, not only had he not reported it, but she had not claimed it either– on the video-cassette. Uh oh! That meant that an enormous piece of exculpatory evidence was missing from my deck!
I trembled for another reason too: because what if I had never thought of that scenario, and been blindsided by it at trial? I mean, what if I had not been warned that Corissa would say something of the magnitude of that “No, no” claim, and I had never thought of such a thing either, to refute… and that she claimed it for the first time there, only to find me defenseless, because I could not refute the claim. What if I hadn’t had that eerie visitation, and hadn’t had time to think…and had been caught with my pants down there? Shit! Then I realized that there were lots of other such possibilities out there too: lots of other lies they might make up. So I had to think of everything: to figure out how to defend against any fantasy they might claim.
That was a daunting prospect, too, given the slowness of my mind: given that my every important insight through all this had had to incubate for months! And given that there was still that block of time about which I remembered nothing at all: the drive itself–from the library to the water tower: the block of amnesia that still perched like a minefield between the bookends– of those psychotic scenarios I had managed to dismiss.
It meant that erecting those bookend barricades had not put the matter to rest: even though I had blocked both avenues of escape– for my psychotic alter-ego– his tendencies might still have found reign somewhere in between. How the hell could I say that they had not?
That meant that Corissa alone held the key. Only sweet Corissa could set me free, by revealing what had happened. She was indeed, the only other person who’d been there. But there was no saying what she might claim!
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I e-mailed several other friends that I hadn’t contacted yet, to tell them I was in trouble. I asked them to pray for me, and to know I was in pain. I got some touching responses too. I especially remember the one I got from Cathy, who I’d worked with in Lake Tahoe. She had been the girlfriend of my first housemate there, and we’d become friends too. And like all the women that I am very fond of, she was very smart.
By this time of which I write, she’d left Tahoe, and was living in Colorado. But we had kept in touch. Mostly it was to swap email jokes and stuff, but with occasional genuine exchanges thrown in. Anyway, I told her about my circumstance, and said I feared that I would “never be the same”. Well she emailed me back, full of sorrow for my plight. Much to my surprise, she divulged that she had spent several months in jail– a couple years before. She had been caught with a controlled substance, it seemed, and now she was a Felon! And she said that she too feared that she would never be the same!
But why, I wondered, had she not told me that that was going on at the time? Well hell: I knew the answer, without having to be told. It was because she was ashamed. Cathy was just like me.
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There is no interstate extradition for a misdemeanor charge. That means that if Eric Lind had charged a misdemeanor– and I had left the state– that he could not compel me to return there, from any other state. But this is all information learned much later: I did not know that then. And that knowledge wouldn’t have kept me out of Utah anyway, if it had been a factor. For the idea that I would choose to never return to that red-rock wonderland would draw an incredulous guffaw from anyone who knew me.
Besides, I would have returned to face a misdemeanor, with the lesser stakes it held. It did not seem worth it to be a fugitive for that.
So it was ironic that a misdemeanor wouldn’t have kept me out of Utah, but that a felony would. Or at least the AK one would. Because if that felony stuck at “prelim” it would have sent me on the lam… And if I had gone on the lam, I would have done that overseas. Then I’d probably never see those magnificent slot canyons again. And that’s what would have killed me. Isn’t that delicious? The kind of scenery down there is repeated nowhere else on earth. Those sheer walls, those tamarisk-lined banks, those sub-lime arches, and those natural mazes had possessed me far too long. It had become part of my blood, by then: a vital fluid. And without occasionally fresh infusions of it I’d surely wither up and die!
And when the Glen Canyon Dam gets decommissioned, no force on earth will keep me away from the treasures it will reveal: those treasures falsely imprisoned, and too long hidden from our view.
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I knew that I’d committed an offense, of course, and I understood that I would have to pay a price for it: to be punished, I mean. And I felt genuine and deep remorse. Perhaps I still have not made that clear. But I believed in proportion too, and that meant that a punishment should fit a crime. Since I could not believe a felony had been com-mitted in my case, then as long as they were pushing for a felony, my heels were dug in.
Had they started out by charging this as a misdemeanor, well I probably would have squawked at that as well. I think most anyone faced with a crime wants to fight it. But they did not charge that: so I was compelled to fight. And in that fight I encountered such enormous evil that I even came to think I was fighting evil itself. So I don’t want you to interpret my recalcitrance as a lack of remorse.
Besides, we must not think that extradition concerns had anything to do with Eric Lind’s zeal anyway. If it had, then that’s a problem in itself. It would mean that he was persecuting me beyond what even he thought was warranted- just because I lived out of the state. And if extradition had been his main concern, he could have offered a plea-in-abeyance at any time. A plea-in-abeyance to a felony, I mean. That way he still could have “controlled” me. He could have even asked for the Sex Offender registry, as part of that deal. It doesn’t mean I would have accepted that offer, but the point is he could have offered it, but didn’t. So he wasn’t pushing this thing so hard because of extradition.
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What if I had gone on the lam? I’ve tried to imagine that life for myself. What would I do? Where would I go? Well, to the Monastery, I suppose. But for how long could that be an answer? And what would happen as my parents got old? Or what if they should die?- as they surely will one day. And what about my friends? Well perhaps they would come to visit. But what of my inheritance? Yes, of course I thought of that. How would I even take possession it? I guess that in a monastery I wouldn’t need it anyhow.
But if I fled, I might still be able to fight this thing, from afar. How? In epistolary fashion, perhaps: through letters, that is. By writing to Senators, Congressmen, Governors, and assorted organizations. By doing those I might make some inroads– upon this parallel Utah geology: this convoluted landscape of un-American laws.
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As I said, I never lied to Clayton. I did, however, send him letters full of hypothetical situations. They were of the nature of “what if this had happened, or what if it had been that instead”. That was because I wanted to tell him the entire story, while preserving deniability for him at the same time. See, all along I’d been willing to tell him anything he wanted to know. But he’d warned me at our very first meeting that if I should say something had really happened in a certain way then he could not let me say anything else– if I should ever testify.
I would not perjure myself anyway– having made that vow to God. So anything I said on the stand would have to be the truth. I could dissimulate until that point, though– and I could still help Clayton make for me the best case that he could.
So I sent letters full of truthful revelations, but I couched them in dreams. I’d say “Clayton, last night I had a dream”, and then I’d use the device of relating that dream to divulge the facts. There I also suggested plausible alternative explanations, to account for my behavior- that Clayton could then use to bluff that bastard Lind.
The plausible scenarios were culled from my sack of lies: that I’d merely invited Corissa to sit outside; that I had never intended to take the car; that behind the tower I’d merely masturbated– and that she’d jumped on top of me: or that at the water-tower I’d gotten out and left the car right away.
At the same time, in those appeals, I was trying to imbue him with my point of view. I wanted him to see this event through my eyes: to understand my mind-set, and why I did the things I had done. I wanted him to understand that I was a good and sympathetic person too– and that my behavior displayed laudable motives too.
But not a one of my arguments or appeals seemed to reach him- to penetrate his brain. Clayton was of the opinion that Corissa could not consent. And once he had concluded that, it did not matter what I believed. Or who I was. And he was sure the law– and a jury– would not care either. He was convinced that a jury would crucify me– if they thought I had so much as touched her.
He dug in hard on that point of view, and barraged me with it mercilessly. “I am not going to tell you what you want to hear”, he said, urgently. “She cannot consent: there is strict liability on that point”.
“She cannot consent. She cannot consent”. It sounded like a mantra. But there was no question in his mind about it. “Maybe if she was sixteen”, he said…”or fifteen and not handicapped…” But she was neither, or both, and so she could not consent. In addition, he asserted, I was “in denial” to believe anything else. But I kept believing– so he thought me thick, and stupid, that I could so not hear.
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“The Prosecutor will claim that just by having opened the door for Corissa that you were enticing her”, Clayton said. Incredible! If I had enticed Corissa, then the “lack of consent” element would have been satisfied. But I didn’t know what was more incredible: that they would even argue such an absurd thing– or that he thought they might be right.
He said that if I were his own son he’d advise me to take the deal. And I did actually like that about him: that he thought along those lines, I mean. “But if you insist on fighting this thing”, he said, “I’ll give you the best defense I can”. Unfortunately his voice did not exude confidence, as he said that. Instead he exhaled as he said that, and it sounded like resigned defeat. “But it’s at your own peril”, he added.
He hammered me with the merits of taking the deal: because no prison was assured. “Of course, there’s no saying whether the judge would throw you in jail”, he said. I didn’t know then that Lind could have also asked for no jail too. It just never occurred to me. For some reason I still assumed that jail was entirely in the Judge’s hands. Nor did it occur to me that I might counter-bargain. I assumed all of that was in my Attorney’s hands.
I kept arguing. And Clayton kept rebutting. He seemed exasperated with me.
In one of his rebuttals Clayton admonished me that “juries distrust sophistry… convoluted or intellectually rationalized positions that defy common sense.” In another exchange Clayton told me that I was “too smart– by half”. His voice changed as he said that last word too: It came out as though it had been ushered out– by a gush of air. But his meaning was lost on me. It was he who did not get it, I was sure. And I thought some of his arguments defied common sense too… Like that one about opening the car door being “enticement” had been.
Later he argued that “enticement” could be construed if “you did not oppose a young and obviously impaired girl’s enthusiasm to go along with you”. But to me that interpretation was even more tortured than the first. It had become absurd: first I was guilty because I’d lured her, now I was guilty because I’d failed to oppose her. Bah!
He said it was up to me to have prevented her from jumping on top of me, behind the water tower. But that was tortured too. Was it his argument– or theirs? It seemed like instead of arguing that I was guilty of restraint now they were complaining that I had not restrained her. That omission, apparently, made me guilty of…well, a restraint, I guess.
I remember another exchange that took place in his presence. But it’s hard to figure out when that exchange took place. We’d only been together three times, at that point, and since I don’t think it occurred in his office, then it must have occurred after the aborted PH. But that doesn’t seem right either. It doesn’t “fit” there, I mean. It’s an enigma.
But the exchange is still quite clear. For Clayton abruptly started an interrogation about the events of the crime. He asked “Okay, so you were on Corissa’s left side?” But because of the suddenness of his shift of direction, I assumed Clayton had meant to take things from the top. I assumed, I mean, that he was asking about the events in the library. So I said. “No, I was on her right”. Clayton raised his eyebrows at that, and challenged “I thought you said that you were on her left?” So I assured him that I’d been on her right. And at that, Clayton sputtered. He was flustered. I think he must have thought I was lying– because he had really been asking me about the events in the car!
So my appeals to Clayton were agonizing, and futile, and misunderstood. They consisted largely of trying to make inroads against his timid final judgment– while also steeling myself against his unyielding poor advice.
He was sure I did not understand how serious this was.
And I could not get him to see how misunderstood it had been.
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CHAPTER ELEVEN
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I called Michael Shaw, at his number in St. George. Michael was that other Attorney that Michael Gentle had suggested to me that morning in Kanab: the one who had been too busy to talk to me the day I’d first met with Clayton. But this time I reached him easily– being patched on through directly. We talked for the better part of an hour.
He was 41 years old, and loquacious. He interjected about his girlfriend quite a bit. Then he segued into the topic of young women. He said that sometimes when he sees some particularly stunning teenaged girl, he says to himself “My God– she’s got no business being so sexy, at so young an age”. His point was not confessional, but intended just to underscore a larger truth; that some girls as young as about thirteen are really very pretty, and that for an older man to notice that is not at all unusual. I was really glad he said that, too. Until then, I wouldn’t have dared say it out loud. Certainly not during this ordeal, anyway.
Then we moved on to other things:
I suggested that the prosecutors should have taken some sort of scraping sample from Corissa’s scratches, to check for my DNA. So he educated me about that, telling me that the most likely place for any kind of evidence there would have been under my own fingernails– and not on her belly at all.
But he agreed with me that the lie-detector business seemed dodgy.
I asked him about Clayton Huntsman: whether I could place my confidence in him. To that he just said “I haven’t seen Clayton do anything in years”. And in his words I sensed the hollow din of a truth, again putting into words something I had suspected. My suspicion was that before the cancer that Clayton had been formidable, but that now, in his remission, he had lost something off his fastball. I could understood how that might result, of course, but that did not help me any.
Then I asked if he might take my case, because he seemed so much more responsive. I mean that he seemed to already have a keener and more intuitive understanding of my case than Clayton had. But he would not take it on: he said he wasn’t sure he’d be the best person for the job. Instead he suggested some other lawyers: some heavy-hitters– all of them in Salt Lake City. One was Brad Rich. He named one of Rich’s partners too, whose name I have forgotten. But above even those he exalted the name of Walter Bugden, and his voice even rose in homage as he unfurled that name.
Before he hung up, Michael gave me some very good advice: “Trust your instincts”, he said– but he didn’t mean about Clayton. He meant in proceeding with my case. Then he said- and to my great relief: “Usually these things get resolved in a way that everyone can live with”. I certainly hoped that was true.
But something about the name of Walter Bugden rubbed me wrong. Just hearing it, I imagined someone who wore a bow-tie, and effected a phony country-lawyer sort of mien. Even though Michael recommended him most highly, he did not sound like the person I needed.
So I called Brad Rich.
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To this day I have I have never seen Brad Rich, so I can only tell you about his voice. It was deep and resonant, and conveyed masculine authority. We spoke only briefly, though. He kept the conversation short. He told me he would take a look at my case, but that he’d need a thousand dollars just to do it. I had to think about that.
I asked Melissa what she thought– not just about the thousand, but about bringing in a “heavy hitter”. I explained that it might cost me $30,000: whereas “taking the deal” might only cost me 10. Ten thousand, that is, and that would be for fines. I was loathe to bring it down to money, but what can a person do?
She said that I should do it: bring in a heavy hitter. After all, she reminded me, some people will spend $30,000 on a car. Besides, she said, I only seem to be at all myself when I am up and fighting.
There was another problem concerning money too: for Clayton had taken my money with the understanding that he was defending me against a single felony. Then he threw the misdemeanor in for free, after Eric Lind had added it. But now, he told me, if I should fight the higher charge– he’d need another $8500!
So it could easily reach $10,000 either way. Fighting or folding, I mean.
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I thought it was shitty that the Prosecution could force me to spend so much more money– those dirty-dealing bastards. Well Clayton addressed that matter too: “When they find out someone has a private Attorney, they pile on the charges”, he said. “Or at least it used to be that way”, he added– “until I made a stink about it”. He was tooting his own horn. But hearing that I said to myself “So perhaps he was effective….once”.
“Now they just add one charge”, he said. “And the judges will allow it”. There was that word again– that blanket moniker for all the crap they foisted. So I asked about the threatened perjured claim. They had invented that “No no” claim, I protested. Wasn’t that threatening perjury, I asked? And he answered that one for me too. Believe it or not, such behavior is allowed. “And they have decided that it is ethical”, he added. He was talking about the Prosecutors. Apparently they had gotten together and decided that that tactic was okay. Yes, of course they did, I thought! Ethical means they all agreed to do it!
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I sent Brad Rich the Discovery packet, and a letter, and a check for a thousand dollars. But I don’t know whether I’d told Clayton I was doing that– or whether I’d just told Brad that it was okay to call him. But a few days later I got a call from the two of them. They’d had a little consultation, and decided to bring me in on their conversation at that time. I wished Brad had called me alone though, for I already knew what Clayton thought. Now I was anxious to hear what Brad thought of my case. He said was that “It isn’t the worst case I’ve seen”– but he added that the Aggravated Kidnapping charge made it not worth it for me to go to trial. The stakes were too high, he said, so I should take the deal. Then he said that statewide the conviction rate on “this sort of thing’ was at “about 90%”- and that it was “50% out of this (his own) office”. So my odds were very poor– just as Clayton had said.
Brad said two other things, though, which rang into my ears. First, in talking about Corissa herself, he said “I could see why you thought she was eighteen”. That was huge– and he was the second person who had told me that. Melissa had been the first. Unfortunately, he too thought Corissa seemed pretty challenged, though. But again, he was likely judging that by her stammering episode on the video-cassette.
The second thing he said that was so memorable was when he talked about the Aggravated Kidnapping statute itself: “It’s a poorly written law”, he said, adding “The Utah court has not ruled on it yet”. As usual, I didn’t have the presence of mind to ask him what he meant. That’s typical of me. But just hearing his booming voice, and his delivery, I supposed that he could sway a jury, by saying a thing like that. Anyway, Brad bowed out then, and left Clayton alone with me on the phone.
The consultation with Brad had been much too brief, though, for my thousand dollars. More than half of it had been taken up by Clayton unnecessarily talking: agreeing with Brad, and stressing that the things Brad said were the things he’d already said to me. I formed the impression that Clayton flattered himself to be in exalted company there, and was relishing the consultation. But it was Brad Rich I had really wanted to hear.
Anyway, alone on the phone with Clayton, then, I discovered he was upset. He said that Brad had said I’d all but admitted to the charges: that I had put the two of them in a bad situation, by doing that. He reminded me that he had his own ethical obligation: to not allow me to say anything that he knew was a lie– if should I go to trial.
So we were at loggerheads again. The truth was that I had only admitted to Brad that which I believed I didn’t have to deny. But Clayton couldn’t see that. He just would not understand. Clearly, in Corissa, we were seeing two completely different girls.
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Yes, I was one of these fools who knew better than my Lawyer. But it seemed to me that in several key ways Bradley Rich had known better than my lawyer too.
A “poorly written law”, he’d said. But why? But how? Whatever could he mean? Those words stayed in my head. I’d read that AK law several times, since that day in court with Clayton. But perhaps I had not analyzed it carefully enough. Likewise with the other two laws they’d already charged me with. I had merely perused them all, it seemed– but I had not really read any of them with a cool discerning eye.
That meant that once again I believed myself strictly guilty of transgressions of laws I had not carefully parsed. So it was a repeat of what I had done with that CK charge– which they had started with then dropped. I had believed that they were right, at first. I’d taken their word for it– until I’d read the statute!
Reading all of this you might be amazed by how slowly I reacted to these things: by how long it took me to do the basic things– the obvious things, I suppose. But I do notthink quickly on my feet. And in my state of mind I was much too crippled to think with a clear head, so every new insight required months to coalesce. If you’ve ever been in a similar state, you’ll know what I mean by that. And if you haven’t, then I hope you never are. Unless you are Eric Lind, that is– in which case I hope you scald in hell.
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I barraged Clayton with questions, every time we spoke. But I seldom got satisfactory answers. It seemed like he wasn’t even talking to me when he answered them. It was as if he anticipated what other people might have meant if they had asked that question. And then he’d answer it that way. It was as if he was used to dealing with younger men than I: less educated, perhaps, and with less developed intellects. So he was constantly answering questions other than those I’d asked. Then I’d ask again and he’d tell me we’ve been over this before. It was very frustrating.
Or only piecemeal did he reveal things that I needed to know. But that, I finally decided, was because he didn’t know a lot. Yes, law is big and quite complex. But it also seemed to me that he did not know even some of the really important things– until after I’d prodded him repeatedly, or even told him about them myself: peas-in-abeyance, for example- or the ages of consent: like the circumstances under which a Prosecutor is allowed to add a charge. Or even like– God Almighty– the definition of entice.
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According to Clayton, the D.A. was particularly interested in knowing where Corissa and I were going when we’d ventured up the hill. So I told him once again: that she told me she’d been raped by her father and that I wanted to ask her more questions there. And I related that she’d told me she loves me.
“And did you tell her you love her back?”, he asked me.
“Of course not”, I replied.
But Clayton did not seem to want to know any more. And he did not seem to find any value in my explanations when he asked for them. To him it was clear that I should have rushed her back to the Library: that any other course was foolish. The result was that even though he had asked, he did not seem interested in understanding my motives. At the same time, though, I couldn’t understand why– if my answer was so unimportant– the Prosecutor was supposedly so interested in it.
Maybe he would have had more respect for my motives, though– or would have listened to them, anyway– had I not taken her on a hike. After all, I could have dealt with all those swirling issues– and picked her little brain– in the car. Or back in the library, for that matter. Or on the lawn, in front of the library. But since my motives did not mandate that particular relocation, in his mind, he just shut the discussion down.
And for my part, if that was indeed how that happened, I was disadvantaged by not knowing that that part of the episode was what was being most misunderstood. The true importance of that wrinkle occurred to me only much later, though– after it was already too late. But if indeed the most important question was “why did those motives require relocation?” then I earnestly wished it had been asked of me specifically– so I could have elaborated, without being shut down.
The answer, of course– in case it is not clear– is manifold: that in and around the car Corissa had become a handful– with her pestering and relentless effort to let me drive the car– so I wanted to get away; that before her mother arrived we had an hour to kill– to talk; because I wanted our… penumbra of confidence to be maintained– until I’d picked her brain; because I wanted to be sensitive to her professed feelings– to not discount her profession of love; and because the idea of a hike still seemed like a fun idea– despite the urgency of my resolve. Because I still enjoyed her effervescent company nonetheless.
In retrospect, it seems that for having asked the question, that Eric Lind really was interested in understanding the circumstances more fully. On the other hand, why would Lind have cared where we were going– if the “touching” that so terrified Clayton so was all that could possibly matter? Yeah: maybe he was just looking for more fodder for his persecution.
Nor had Clayton cared about my suicidal musing, penned the morning of the crime. So both ends of my story were cut off from proper consideration. Neither circum-stance was deemed important, I mean– to him. All that Clayton wanted to look at was a truncated transgression. But it seemed that the Prosecutor wanted to see more of the loaf. So it seemed like Clayton was playing Prosecutor, to me then– instead of Lawyer.
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Clayton asked me repeatedly what a 45-year old man and a handicapped 15 year-old girl could possibly have in common? But just in asking that question he kept missing the point. The question could not be answered, according to that paradigm: I wasn’t trying to base my defense on a claim of friendship. And the issue would not revolve around that question anyway, if it went to a jury. It would be decided on the law.
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I have included all these laws, of which I speak, in the Appendix of this work.
That way, I will not have to rewrite them, and ask you to reread them, each time that they are referenced. Okay: with the Appendices you might have to flip back and forth, and for that I am quite sorry. But it’s for the best. And it’s a bit more elegant too: for if this treatment can’t be art, at least it can be professional and dignified.
And if that is not enough, I’ll also employ abbreviations, when referring to the laws. I have employed some already– but for reference sake, it behooves us all for me to have them all in one place.
I must stress these are my abbreviations, and have no legal currency:
AK= Aggravated Kidnapping: a 1st degree felony, with a “minimum mandatory” sentence- of 6, 10, or 15 years to life.
UD=Unlawful Detention: a b misdemeanor, with a maximum of six months in jail
FSA=Forcible Sexual Abuse: a 2nd degree felony with a sentence of 1 to 15 years
Those were the charges I was looking at. But there are other laws that will be cited here as well, and I am included them here too, to save you extra flipping back and forth time:
CK=Child kidnapping, another first-degree felony, for which the “perpetrator” gets 6, 10, or 15 years to life. Those figures are minimum and mandatory, once again.
K= simple Kidnapping, a second-degree felony, with a sentence of 1 to 15 years.
SAM= Sexual Abuse of a Minor: an A misdemeanor, warranting up to one year.
I won’t abbreviate the word “Attempted”, however, as it would quickly get too confusing. That’s because “A” is already a class of misdemeanor, and I have used A to stand for two other words too: Aggravated and Abuse. But you should know that any “attempted” offense is one degree less severe than the corresponding crime would be if it were actually committed. For example, “Attempted FSA” is a third degree felony, since “FSA” is one of the second-degree. And “Attempted SAM” is a b misdemeanor, since “SAM” itself is an A misdemeanor”. Do you see?
Also, the penalties for Attempted crimes are correspondingly lighter too– as they should be– since they are off a lesser degree.
And I call upon you, dear reader, to let me know if this abbreviation stuff is just too tedious of a road to hoe. It wouldn’t be too hard to substitute the longer forms back in
Finally, on this, you should know that for a sentence of one year or less, the convicted perpetrator goes to the County jail. But for anything over a year, he goes to the Big House. That’s prison.
They don’t like child molesters in the Big House. But it’s not like I’d want to go otherwise.
Those are just abbreviations, as I said. The texts of the actual statutes are reprinted in Appendix I. I’ve also included a table of legal definitions, under Appendix II.
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I approached that AK law with the discerning eye of a detective. I had to see what made it tick: to understand what Brad Rich might have meant when he said that it was “poorly written”. And lo and behold, I think I unearthed it!
I saw it as a statute that had two legs, so to speak, supporting a vast table. One leg specified the K “element”, and the other dealt with the aggravating factors. For simplicity, I’ll refer to the K leg the “left side” of the statute, just because we read it first.
And the first odd thing I noticed was that the law enables an AK to occur without a true kidnapping: without an actual K, I mean. For the statute clearly reads “…in the process of kidnapping or Unlawful detention” (italics mine). Furthermore, the UD statute itself include the phrase “…under circumstances not amounting to a Kidnap” (italics mine again). So all that meant that a Prosecutor could construe an AK offense from either a K itself, or from a far lesser charge which, by its own specification falls short of a K. And that state of affairs in itself seemed muddled to me– and inconsistent too.
But that was not the worst of it. For I looked at all the aggravating factors too: those listed on what will heretofore be referred to as the “right side” of the statute.
I saw there a list of acts there were felonious in themselves, or which at least suggested that some of violence was afoot: “hindering the reporting of a felony”; “holding a person for ransom”; “terrorizing the victim”; and “interfering with political rallies”… In other words, they were things which spoke to egregious circumstances in their own right– or to things which might at least supported a perception of Kidnapping.
In any event, the idea of considering one felony as aggravated by another felony didn’t strike me as in any way outrageous- from a legal standpoint, I mean. Nor did it seem unfair to aggravate a felony with a lesser charge. But to construe an AK from a b misdemeanor just threw me for a loop. Especially since it was the offense on the left side of the statute that was supposedly being aggravated– and not the one on the right.
But there was more:
For returning to the “right side”, I saw a category of elements there that specified “…any of the Sexual Offenses … under Title 76, Chapter 5, Part 4”. Those are basically the sex crimes. That list included all the sex crimes ranging from a 1st degree felony rape down to SAM- the A misdemeanor. Once again, that sub-list included several acts that are felonious even in their own right. But it also included the lesser sexual offenses: the A misdemeanors. So the total effect of that was that in order to make the case for an AK– via a sex crime– those bastards could pull the b misdemeanor from the left side– and aggravate it with an A misdemeanor from the right! I was astounded. And I was appalled!
But we aren’t finished yet: for the statute specifies that the actor must be “acting with intent”, to commit whatever offense is on the “right”. And in my layman’s mind, ac-ting with “intent” includes making an “attempt”. For does not attempt implicate intent? It does! (Or does intent mean merely thinking about it? No, I do not think so.) And since an “attempt”, as I have told you, reduces the corresponding crime by one degree of severity, then that meant that even a b misdemeanor– “Attempted SAM”– could be promoted from the “right”. Thus, a “b misdemeanor” plus a “b misdemeanor’ can equal a “1st degree felony”!
Discovering all that, I understood what Brad Rich had said: it was indeed a poorly written law. I wasn’t sure if that particular analysis was what his thinking had been, though. But I couldn’t believe my eyes! It meant that in the state of Utah, two misdemeanors can be parlayed into a first degree felony– and thus command a minimum mandatory prison term of up to life, to boot!! “Poorly written”, hell– it was out and out draconian!
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It’s true that that was not how they applying the law to me. But by the time I was done scouring the statutes, I came to believe that my crime had only been a misdemeanor anyway. And I came to believe that even if everything Corissa had said on the video-cassette had occurred that it still should only have been charged that way: as the SAM!
That faux claim of her “no, no…”protest complicated the picture, of course. But I didn’t believe she’d really made it. (I neither believed that she’d made the actual protest, nor that she’d ever claimed she had) But that fact notwithstanding: when they’d charged me with FSA, her claim to that protest hadn’t even been made! (It wasn’t on the video-cassette) So what was their goddam problem?
I was confused about another seeming inconsistency too. Because it was clear that their zeal to screw me was ravenous: that they were determined to prosecute me out of all proportion to reason. Given that, then I wondered– if they really believed that she had protested “No no” like that, wouldn’t they have charged that AK already– and zealously prosecuted it– instead of merely threatened to?
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I have another point on this, but on this I am repeating myself again. It’s that it struck me incongruous that even in an AK, that the kidnapping side of the equation– the left side, you’ll remember– could be the less serious charge. I mean that I could under-stand- in general terms– that for any hypothetical serious crime that a misdemeanor can be rightly called an aggravating factor. But it seems logical that the most serious crime should be the one that’s being aggravated. Yet in my case, it was the less serious charge being aggravated– and by something way out of its league: a UD was being aggravated by an FSA. So shouldn’t it have been in fact called an Aggravated FSA?”
But ah, you say: rectifying such problems would be quite an unwieldy chore, because it would require rewriting– or adding– several laws. But that’s not the case, because rectifying the problem arising from the two misdemeanors would not be so difficult. The State of Utah would only have to change a couple laws.
I have one last point to make on this, before I move on: it’s a response to someone who might say: ”Yes, I see your point about the misdemeanors, but no prosecutor would actually use the law that that– to parlay two b misdemeanors into 1st degree felonies”. And to that, I can only tell you to look again– and to wake up too. Sorry, but you’re living in la la land if you believe that. And you’re allowing too much unaccountable power to be put in the hands of one person.
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Moving along to the FSA charge, I made some interesting discoveries there too. First was that there was nothing automatically “forcible”, if the “victim” was older than thirteen. But did Clayton even know that? Yes, fourteen is the age of limited consent, in Utah (that’s my terminology). And should we really be surprised by that? There are other tiers in their sex laws there too, pertaining to various forms of activity: penetration, oral copulation, and the like. Those tiers lie at sixteen, or seventeen years old, depending on the activity. But the one that concerns us here is just the FSA– the crime that I was charged with. And the activity that it concerns is merely “touching” anyway: illegal touching, that is.
The Utah laws specify when any such sexual behavior is “without consent”.
None of these specifications, by the way, hold that if the actor is thirty years older than the victim that it’s automatically a forcible act. I just had to include that here. Especially for those of you appalled by the age difference, I want to make that clear. Remember I did say I had an agenda. No, not to tell you that such things should be okay– as some people will surely try to torture my message into– but to imbue you with my outrage– to get you to see why I felt so unjustly persecuted.
I didn’t expect the laws to hold such a thing, either– about the age difference, I mean– although there is at least one stipulation about age difference in their sex laws, as you will see. But a number of people with whom I spoke about this matter seemed to think that that the age difference was all that really mattered. To many people, apparently, that is all that matters– irrespective of the facts.
I still get angry about that too, after all that I’ve been through. I’ve been through the remorse and I’ve been through anger: and that persecutorial attitude still provokes my anger. On the other hand, such people who hold such a view would not sit upon my jury anyway. That’s all that I can say to them.
Anyway– returning to the statutes– from that lengthy list of consent elements, I honed in on three: numbers 1, 6, and 11. They were the only ones I deemed pertinent to my situation. You will find this statute in the Appendix too– reproduced there “in toto”.
1) The victim expresses lack of consent through words or conduct.
I was sure I was all right there. For when Corissa had said to stop, I stopped.
And when her conduct showed that she was less than cognizant, I had stopped again! Besides, on the video-cassette, Corissa hadn’t claimed anything different than that.
6) The actor knows that as a result of mental disease or defect, the victim is at the time of the act incapable either of assessing the nature of the act or of resisting it.
And I was all right there, too. For even in believing she had some sort of mental issue, I believed she was capable of assessing the nature of the act– and of resisting it as well: she had already done by saying no! And it was what I knew which was being held important here! So ha! Besides– and all that being said– her “mental defect” had not seemed severe to me. Finally, remember that the “act” here must refer to the “act” that I was accused of. The “act” in this case was not intercourse. The “act” was touching here.
(11) the victim is 14 years of age or older, but younger than 18 years of age, and the actor is more than three years older than the victim and entices or coerces the victim to submit or participate, under circumstances not amounting to the force or threat required under Subsection (2) or (4)…
I was nervous there: afraid it would be the bubble-burster. Especially after what Clayton had said, about just “opening the door” as their argument for my enticement.
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So I looked up the definition of “entice”. The Utah statutes do not define “entice”, though (and again, how unremarkable!) But several legal dictionaries did define it. The consensus there was that enticement pertained to such things as plying the victim with gifts. It’s a sort of luring of the victim over time, basically. But I had not done that either! Had I let Corissa drive my car in exchange for sex, that might have been an enticement, I speculated. But that did not happen anyway. Nor, thank God, had Corissa said it had- on that video-cassette! The only reason I pondered that scenario was that Eric Lind might think of it too and tell Corissa to claim it.
It meant that opening a car door was not an act of enticement. Not even close. But why hadn’t Clayton known that? For the love of God, had he even read the laws? Had he opened a dictionary?
I thought I knew what coercion was, but I looked that word up too. It means the use of force, threat, or intimidation– exactly what I thought it meant. Therefore it didn’t seem to be an issue either. I had not coerced her. And she hadn’t claimed that I had. So I was fine there too!
The age difference, of course, was indisputable. But by my reckoning, at that point, it was also quite irrelevant. The lack of coercion or enticement made the age element moot.
So all of those were in my favor. And that meant something else, enormously important: it meant that even by her own testimony– on the video-cassette– everything that had happened between us had been legally “with consent”! I didn’t have to contradict a thing that she had said!
And it meant much more, in toto: I mean that the picture was even rosier: for it seemed to me that circumstances even more egregious would still only amount to the lesser charge: that even if, for example, Corissa and I had explicitly agreed to drive up to the water towers for sex- and had done everything there she claimed we had done– that that would still be an A misdemeanor!… As long as I had not enticed her, that is- and as long as I had not believed she was incompetent. If we could argue that far more prurient circumstances would still amount to far less than the Prosecutor was charging, that could only help me, it seemed. And it meant that even Prosecution’s possible future claims to that chain of events need not hurt me either!
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Excitedly I wrote a letter to Clayton, expostulating all that I’ve just said about the elements of consent. I faxed it to him, on the same afternoon.
Within an hour I got a faxed response. But it was an exasperated response, which included his own Xeroxed enclosure. It was a reproduction from a law books– but of the very tenets I’d just sent to him. He sent me the whole list, though, rather than just the three I’d so brilliantly parsed for him. And on that list he had highlighted three tenets of his own- which he told me I must read…
They were numbers 1, and 6, and 11. The same goddam ones I’d singled out for him! So he hadn’t paid attention to my letter. He hadn’t heard a word I said.
But along with that compilation there were two other sheets of paper. Most of the text of them was irrelevant, though, except for a citation in one of its sub-sections, which Clayton had apparently not bothered to observe. It was a Utah citation, called “State vs. Gibson”, decided in 1995. That ruling held that enticement occurs when “…the adult uses psychological manipulation to instill improper sexual desires that would not otherwise have occurred”. I supposed Clayton thought that citation hurt me. But “Bingo!” was what I said. Yes, I exulted in what that citation meant to me– because even leaving aside the question of what sexual desires would be “proper”, It meant that even from the point of view of Utah case law I had not enticed Corissa! Not by opening a car door!
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Clayton’s view was that Corissa’s contacts in the library had signaled an unmistakable sexual intent: not just the rubbing of my shoulders, but the touching on the knee! But I had never heard of a knee-touch being any such thing!
Of course he thought that touch damned me too: that it should have put me even more so on my guard. Obviously, then, he didn’t believe that I thought she was an adult. He didn’t seem to get that had believing her to be an adult—as I did– that it would be defensible behavior to have encouraged that– if indeed, that had been what I’d done.
But don’t get excited: I only mean to point out that even acknowledging that fact– that she had rubbed my shoulders– had its benefits for me. One was that in terms of the “enticement” element I thought it played quite well for me- because if by touching me she had signaled her own sexual intent, then I had not enticed her– not by that case law– because I wouldn’t have implanted desires that weren’t otherwise there. Another was that in going with me after signaling her already extant desires she would have shown her consent. Finally, it might increase the credibility of the claim that the initial “touching” behind the water tower had indeed come from her!
But each of those things had yet to be admitted to—by the prosecution. And for their lack it was still my word against hers.
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I found yet another problem with this confounding quagmire of laws: with this synergy, so much greater than the sum of its parts. Because it contained a conundrum within its own expressions. It was that the AK statute employed completely different concepts of “consent’ on each side of the equation– for the applicable constituent laws, that is, that of either supporting leg. On the right side, the rules were those that I’ve expressed, and as I parsed in the foregoing analyses about “consent”. Those consent tenets, as I’ve shown, intrinsically took accounting of the things I– “the actor”– “knew”.
But on the left side the rules were more vague: citing only the victim’s “mental incompetence”. And there were no guidelines for what that phrasing meant. That meant that- unlike with the allowances explicated for the sex offenses– there were no allowances made here for what I did not “know”. It read as though Strict Liability was circumscribed there. In other words, apparently it did not matter what I knew!
My head spun with all these facets of this law. I couldn’t believe that the Legislature had even considered what they’d done when they had passed that AK law. The goddam thing was convoluted beyond all reason! Now this first degree felony was could be a composite of “b plus b”– with strict liability too!
That’s right, ladies and gentlemen; it would seem that in the state of Utah, even the most benign set of circumstances can lock you up forever: that if you pick up an underage hitch-hiker, for example– not knowing her age– and try to touch her breast– at her invitation– and believing that act consensual…that if she had any form of mental impairment, then you’re a violent felon. Yes, violent: you’re an Aggravated Kidnapper, and a predator to boot.
No, no, no: I’m not saying that attempting to touch a breast is utterly benign. But such a prosecution would be enormously out of all proportion…Isn’t that clear yet?
All that being said and done, I was still convinced there was a saving grace for me: that was that I had not detained Corissa in any way. I had not pinned her, or pulled her, or told her what to do.
She had come with me by choice, and she’d been free to leave at any time. And we were close enough to the Library that she could have easily gotten out and walked back. It meant I wasn’t guilty of that necessary element of the crime either. Realizing that, I was tremendously relieved.
Since that element was missing, then the question of her “competence” should be rendered a moot point– right? Yes, you may be able to build an AK utterly without a K, in the State of Utah but you surely cannot have an UD without a “D”! I exhaled again!
But wait: Oh shit! What about the protest Lind guaranteed she’d say she made? What if Corissa really does testify that she had said “No, no– I don’t want to go!”?
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I decided not to engage Brad Rich. It was another gut instinct. I think it was because in his great booming masculine authority, I thought he’d run me over. Yeah, I think that was it: I thought he’d intimidate me, and take over every aspect of my case. In other words, I was afraid I’d be crowded out of the decision making process, and would give up the fight too easily. But more than that, a booming masculine authority just didn’t match my style. I envisioned beating this thing on merits alone. So Brad was not my man.
I was still in search of outside counsel, though, and since my sister taught at a Law School, she was able to help. I had resisted her help to a large degree, until then, because she’s my sister and she loves me, and she thought that I should take the deal, as I’ve said. But since I was reluctant to take a deal (as you know) I felt I had to resist her advice, lest I be unduly influenced. But when she suggested I go consult with one of her co-workers, who had agreed to see me, I jumped at the opportunity.
Her name was Ruth Shapiro. A former Defense Attorney, she had even been involved in a famous Utah case. If she ever gives me permission I will divulge which one it was, but for now you should know that—just as with Sammy Cargo’s most famous case —her claim to fame was high profile too. And our idea was that Ruth might have some advice for me, and perhaps dig up some useful “info”– through old contacts in that state.
I brought my papers and the video-cassette to her in her office, at the college, one afternoon. In addition to all that Discovery stuff, I included my long letter to Clayton, explaining my point of view. But she was meeting with someone else as I arrived, so I just presented all that stuff to her, and quickly withdrew. She’d need some time to look at it all, anyway.
I heard from her by telephone after a couple days. “You were only trying to help that girl!” she hollered emphatically. And that was music to my ears. That was what I had wanted Clayton to understand. Then she admonished that I had to face this thing: I could not run away. So she must have understood how I felt. Then she gave me a golden piece of advice: “Don’t plead guilty to anything that has sex in it”, she said: “It’ll haunt you for the rest of your life!” I knew that she was right, and I knew I mustn’t do that. A sex-crime plea would be a deal-breaker: I would not deal for a sex crime on my résumé– nor an offender list to boot.
Later Ruth got some information, and passed in on via Leslie. Apparently she called someone she knew in Utah, who knew something about Eric Lind. And he told her– and she told Leslie– that Eric Lind is “a total asshole”. But I knew that already.
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CHAPTER TWELVE
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I found a web-site of Judge David L. Mower. It amused me that a Judge would have a web-site. And the site was itself amusing. Apparently the judge had a sense-of-humor. There was a joke on his site about Gandhi, for example. It said he was a “Super-fragile-calloused-mystic-hexed-with-halitosis”! I liked that. I also learned that he was a Scout-Master. Judge Mower, I mean– not Gandhi. And that seemed good for me. I had, after all, been an Eagle Scout!
So I asked Clayton about the Judge. Clayton assured me that “A more fair-minded man could not be found.” All that was very good news, and none too soon. Nothing else had gone my way, through this whole mess of shit. Maybe Judge Mower was to be my salvation.
I asked Clayton if we could have a bench trial, which means a trial without a jury. I was of the mind that a fair-minded judge would be ideal: that he would be able to put his emotions aside, and rule just on the law. I was sure that by law I was not guilty. But in the hearts and minds of Kanab-area jurors, I feared I might be guilty anyway: guilty via age difference. Guilty via being an outsider. Guilty via outrage.
And Clayton said that we should think about that, but that we’d need Eric Lind’s approval to do that. I did not understand. He explained that in Utah it has already been decided that the Prosecution has as much right to a jury trial as the Accused does. That meant that in order to waive that right, I would need the little prick’s approval. Amazing! Fuck me, that I needed his slimy approval for anything.
I found Eric Lind on some web-site too. I learned that he was married, to a woman named Emily. I liked the name Emily. But I wondered how she could stand him.
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Another of Leslie’s co-workers agreed to see me about my case. His name was Sammy Cargo. All I can tell you about him is that around the College he was a well-loved Elder Statesman.
I went to see him on a Saturday, in his office at the College. The meeting lasted a long time, as he was generous with his time. And I told him the whole story: omitting no-thing- and trusting his discretion. For there were things I had not ever said to Leslie, nor to Jeff. Details I really didn’t want to tell them. It’s embarrassing. But you know what they were.
While I told my story Sammy fixed his glassy eyes hard upon me. I think he meant to simulate the probing eyes of a jury– to see how I’d react.
One of the first things he wanted to know about was the scratch– or scratches. Of course I said I didn’t know anything about them. I said that I was sure the prosecution had made them.
I also told him about the journal entry I’d made that morning of the crime- about contemplating suicide. But he stopped me there, and waved me down. “One thing no judge or jury wants to hear you say is that you used bad judgment”, he admonished.
And when I got to the part about the girl wanting to drive my car he stopped me again. “You should have been alerted then”, he said, ‘that this woman was a minor”. So I explained the surrounding circumstances, but I wasn’t sure he understood. And when I told him why we climbed the hill, he pursed his lips, and paused.
“I’m not sure the young lady knew where you were going then– or why”, he said. And I said “I’m not either”. But for me that was a retrospect. At the time I was sure that she’d wanted to come with me. And I thought my motives had been noble nonetheless.
He listened to the plea bargain I’d been offered. Then he pondered it, and said “It’s not a great deal– but its not a terrible deal either”. I still thought it was an awful deal, though. He explained that as far as they were concerned– down there in Kanab, I mean– that I was some guy who’d come into town to deflower their youth. I’d thought of that too, of course, but it wasn’t true- nor did even that explain their un-abating zeal.
And he advised me to take the deal.
“But I didn’t commit a felony”, I protested. “It didn’t feel like a felony”.
“They all feel alike”, he objected. “And besides- ten years from now you will have forgotten this whole thing”. But I did not believe that.
He asked about my Lawyer, and he offered to talk with him. But he wanted to have Clayton be the one to call him. So I said I’d ask.
Then Sammy told me that he had a former student who was now a Judge in Utah. (Oh, what a piece of luck!) He said he’d call him up, and see what he might learn. I figured he meant that he’d ask his Judge to talk to my Judge, though once again I am not sure that’s what he meant. But he said that it might take some time.
He kept the video too, and said he’d take a look at it.
So I went home, and dug in for another goddam wait: another endless purgatory!
The whole experience was a roller-coaster ride anyway– though the general trend was down. It was as though every small respite– every nugget of hope– was just a precursor to the next demoralizing plunge. It was like my life was obeying the swirling graph that my stomach was describing. Like life was following art, and my stomach was the erratic pencil.
Eventually I heard from Sammy. He had two things to tell me. One was that he’d watched the video. His opinion was that Corissa was more savvy than they let on. I could have kissed him.
He said he had been in touch with his former student- the Judge– and that this is what he learned: that the Prosecutor was aware of “the reputation” of the girl (HER “REPUTATION”?!) , which was why he was not pushing the case too hard. (He wasn’t pushing it hard? Hell: it seemed to me that he was pushing ridiculously hard. In fact I thought he was persecuting me out of all proportion to reason.)
That was all he had to say. I thanked Sammy very much.
I should say, though, that through it all, Sammy had an excellent bedside manner. But Sammy’s disclosure raised new questions too. One was why that SOB Lind was being so recalcitrant: if Corissa had a “reputation”, why would they continue to pretend that she was this naïve young thing– who’d been lured into the bushes? It sounded to me like their problem with the girl extended way beyond me. So what was their freaking problem? The other question was how Sammy’s former student– presumably just by talking to my Judge– would have learned what the Prosecutor knew of Corissa’s reputation. So I wondered who had really talked to whom.
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I left a message on Clayton’s phone, asking him to call Sammy Cargo. But what I got instead was an angry call from Clayton. “Goddam it, Royce– why don’t you just fire me?” he screamed. “You’ve got so little confidence in me…” He went on and on: “I’m not gonna’ phone another Lawyer”; and “Is he even licensed to practice in the State of Utah?” I finally calmed him down. But he never did talk to Sammy.
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I still thought those suicidal scribblings I’d made the morning of the crime should have counted for something. But I wasn’t planning to use them to claim “bad judgment”. Better than that, I wanted to claim “diminished capacity”. For I still had the notebook, in which I’d written my lament. And it did not appear that I had cleverly penned it only after the fact– as indeed, I had not. So my jurors would believe me, I thought, and feel sympathy for me too! But both Clayton and Sammy had already said no to that. And on that point, I was not about to know better than them: I had another concern.
That sprang from something I remembered from an old sexual harassment case, involving Sen. Bob Packwood, of Oregon. During his trial he had tried to make some point or other by presenting one of his own journal entries. As a result, the Prosecution was then able to subpoena all his journals–going back for all the years he’d kept them. At the time I’d thought that that was self-incrimination, but such was not the case. Jeff had explained it to me at the time. It was because the Senator had “opened the door” himself that that subpoena had been allowed: that by volunteering that journal he had entered it into evidence, and thus enabled Prosecution to look at that whole body of evidence. So I figured they could do that to me too: ask for all my journals back to 1981, that is.
Thus, the conflict of presenting my journal became a moot point–and not because of self-incrimination. It’s just that I have too much important stuff in there: creative writings, and a lot of good ideas. Stuff I’d be afraid that scum like Eric Lind would steal.
I know now that agreements can be struck upon such points: that the prosecution can stipulate that they won’t try to subpoena every journal, for example, if for some reason they too want to see just one. But this whole discussion is moot now anyway.
And Utah does not have a “diminished capacity” defense anyway, I learned.
(How unremarkable is that?! I mean, hell: why would they have that defense, in such a fortress of law and order? I mean, why would they have a law that might allow someone to go free?)
And not only do they not have that defense, but they have a very low threshold for competence itself… A low level for the competence of the accused, that is. But is that threshold also low for the victims, I wondered?
They don’t have twelve jurors in Utah either. They use eight. So it seemed like everything was skewed in Prosecutions favor.
“It’s a law and order state”, Clayton told me. And that did not surprise me.
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What else did Utah do differently?, I wondered. Besides using eight jurors, that is, denying bench trials, and parlaying minor sins into 1st degree offenses? Shit! Do they still use the firing squad, too? I know they did in ’77. Ask Gary Gilmore. Ask Norman Mailer.
Norman Mailer, of course, is the famous novelist. And Gary Gilmore was the subject of a Pulitzer Prize winning book that Mr. Mailer wrote. Entitled “The Executioner’s Song”, it was written about the Mr. Gilmore’s famous Utah murder case, conviction, and death by firing squad there, in 1977.
Well as a matter of fact, they still did use the firing squad, in Utah, at the time of my transgression. And though they do not use it any more, two other states still do, as of this writing (July 2005) Technically they use it, I mean. It is still on the books in Idaho and Oklahoma. But they don’t really use it.
(Poor Eric Lind hadn’t figured out a way to make that one of the stakes, for me.)
And several other states now use juries smaller than twelve. But it gets complicated here, because in those states the jury size can vary, depending on several factors. Those include the degree of the offense (felony vs. misdemeanor), whether it is a criminal or a civil trial, and even the level at which the case is being tried. (State vs. Appellate, I suppose)
In fairness to Utah, though, I must point out that at least it still requires unanimity for its verdicts. Believe it or not, not every state does. But the huge majority of states do require it for felony convictions. And all require it for a capital offense.
On the other hand, (almost) every state that uses fewer than twelve jurors still require twelve jurors for a capital offense. But Utah stays with eight.
So aside from that last disturbing revelation, I’d say that Utah’s jury system is not particularly suspect. Furthermore, that that state’s right to refuse to waive a jury trial is probably widespread. I could look it and tell you, but that would take us even farther a field from my story– and I think my points are made.
Well what about teen-aged marriages? I looked into that too. And I learned that in Utah, a girl can marry at 14- with parental consent. Perhaps that should surprise no one! But there a little prejudice leaks out: a little bias against Mormonism. I’ve said enough.
But I learned that there are a number of other states in which a girl can marry at fourteen– also with parental consent. And they aren’t all in the deep south, either, if that’s what you just quipped!
But in all that research and rumination something else unexpected surprised me. And like so many other insights I have had, through all of this, it came to me in a flash. That was that in order to accommodate that sort of marriage age, that it is necessary to legislate a correspondingly low age of consent for all sexual activities. Or that was my hypothesis, at least.
So I looked into that, too. And that does actually seem to be the case.
Ha! Until then I’d thought that Utah would be stricter than almost any other state. Not that I’d ever given it a thought, before I was arrested. But after that- after hearing about their “law and order” mania, I jumped to that conclusion. But I was being naïve– because everything is relative. For example, you could certainly call Nevada a “law-and-order state”, but it has gambling and legal prostitution. So as I thought about it, the whole idea of “law and order” lost meaning. It’s just something that lives in the mindscape—but not to be belabored here.
So Utah is a “law and order state”, Clayton? Of course it is. But that doesn’t mean the laws they make and enforce aren’t convenient to their “culture”.
My point is that at first I said “I’m screwed: why did this have to have happened in Utah?” I wished it could have happened in almost any other state. But when I looked into the comparative sex laws, I saw that they were actually milder in Utah than in neighboring Arizona, or Nevada, or—especially—in nearby California. If I had been merely accused of a sex crime, in one of those states— without this kidnapping complication– then I would have been really screwed. So it was actually better to be accused of a sex crime in Utah. That’s as far as the written law goes. And that’s the theory, anyway. But the proof is in the pudding.
But that AK law complication rendered all that theorizing moot. Oh, I could defend Utah’s sexual consent laws as somehow consistent with their culture, or some such thing– but when they have a law like that AK one that allows them to remove the whole issue from any discussion about sexual consent regardless then it similarly renders any pretense to fairness about their sexual consent laws moot. Sure, they could say: “Look, our sexual consent laws are actually more lenient than most other state”– but that would be a misleading paradigm, wouldn’t it? Because if you’re not an actual Utahan they have ways to make those laws far more restrictive! Perhaps that was the whole point.
I do not endeavor to criticize the dominant religion, though it’s true that I’ve al-ready taken my digs. But in my experience, all Christian sects have their hypocrisies. My own Catholicism, for starters, has an immense amount of blood and politics on its hands. So I’ll leave this one alone. Besides, I have found the Mormons to be warm and helpful people. And yes, I have met them en masse.
But it is a religion of repression, and that’s my germane point. And repression discourages independent thinking, to make my point complete.
So having touched upon that theme, I come full circle… and all of that digression leads me back to saying this: that Mormonism has been known to embrace many otherwise unpopular things, in the sexual arena: things like plural marriages, teen-aged brides and incestuous unions too. And often times those teen-aged brides were younger than sixteen. They still are. It’s part of their history. And that tendency being so well established– so ingrained in the cultural milieu– it has had to be codified– in the legal milieu. Yes, I used that word again. Milieu. Sorry.
Finally there are the politics, woven in with that stuff. For Utah is the most Republican state in the union. And though I’ve seen some amazing artwork there, if art is equated with liberalism, then you will understand what I am saying: that Utah is not a mecca of creative self-expression. And if it were not for the outdoor attractions there, I’d have no cause to go.
