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CHAPTER THIRTEEN
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We are still inside that endless month, sandwiched between September and December: the month that takes so long to tell about, even though at the time it felt like a wasteland of inactivity. It was not a wasteland for Mother Nature, though, as sunspots besieged old Sol, and wildfires ravaged southern California once again. In my insanity I fancied that my repressed rage had lit those fires from afar.
And here I am: reliving this era again– in my masochistic writer’s need to render. But I’m pleased to report it’s not so hard the second time around. If it were, I wouldn’t be doing it– for I will never go through this kind of pain again: not by chance nor choice. And it would be hard to imagine anything that could make me suffer so much again anyway. I like to think I’m stronger now, too, for having survived it. But you never know what life might hold, and I will not ask God or fate to test me on this point. I only know that I could not survive it again.
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I phoned some mental health establishments, in search of information. But it was not to seek relief for my own pain that I did that. It was because I wanted to understand what “mental incompetence” meant. I spoke to half a dozen associations, foundations, and the like, inquiring what it was. Well fortunately the people in those places were very willing to help me. But unfortunately there didn’t seem to be an actual definition that anyone could point to. One woman faxed me some guidelines for that affliction according the California courts, and those were very helpful. And applying them to what I thought I knew of Corissa, I did not think they painted her as incompetent at all.
The guidelines identified a number of diagnostic factors of mental incompetence. Those included such things as alertness and attention; level of arousal or consciousness; orientation to place, time and situation; concentration; short and long-term memory; ability to communicate with others; recognition of familiar objects; and ability to reason logically. It also stipulated that “the mere diagnosis of a mental or physical disorder shall not be sufficient in and of itself to support a determination that a person is of unsound mind or lacks the capacity to do certain acts.” Wow! That was right on the money!
Another woman, at another place– as I told her about the mentally retarded teen, with whom I was accused—was uttered emphatically: “But mental retardation and mental incompetence aren’t at all the same thing”, she urged: “They’re on completely different trees!”. The mellifluous voice of truth had sung a tune into my ear, and as I heard that I knew it must be right. I thanked her very much, and hung up.
At still another place, after hearing my plea, a woman said to me “Who knows– you might be innocent.” I didn’t know why she said that, though, and in my stunned excitement I did not ask. But it was eerily like she’d encountered this sort of before.
Oh, why didn’t I write down who these women were, or what organizations they were with? I can’t understand myself sometimes.
I got on-line too, and looked for definitions there. I found a lot of information, which was no surprise, but even there it was a hodge-podge, and didn’t address it definitively. There was nothing clear-cut, in other words– but there were lots of nebulous definitions such as this:
“An individual is defined as mentally incompetent if he is manifestly psychotic or otherwise of unsound mind, either consistently or sporadically, by reason of mental defect, among which are retardation, schizophrenia or other acute hallucinatory and delusory defects of mind, certain types of epilepsy and other seizure disorders which render the individual coordinated and mobile but of unsound mind, bipolar disorder which results in sporadic psychosis (but not simply mild or moderate bipolar disorder), and other disorders which consistently or sporadically render the individual starkly incapable of maintaining an awareness of and responsibility for his actions.”
A mouthful, yes: but if you think that said that mental retardation is identical with mental incompetence then please read it again. “Among which” does not mean all examples of, for one thing, and in any event, the important reference is to “maintaining awareness of and responsibility for his actions”. That’s what I see there.
Another site featured this choice nugget: “competent decision making may differ between life domains”. That sounded like the nail hit on the head, to my layman’s ear.
By any of these definitions, in any event, I still thought what I had thought before: that Corissa Mumford was mentally competent.
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I learned about something called jury nullification. That refers to a jury’s right to find a defendant not guilty in spite of his actual technical guilt– if they believe either that the applicable law itself is unjust or that the law is being applied unjustly in a particular case. That right was a fundamental one, too, supported by the Founding Fathers. In fact, both Jefferson and Adams had written in defense of it. After all, the purpose of the jury is to protect the defendant against the tyranny of the state!
The tradition in America long preceded even them. For in 1734, a jury acquitted John Peter Zenger of seditious libel against “Her majesty’s” government, even though he had clearly broken the law. Those early colonist’s frequently invalidated laws sent over from Mother England.
Too few people have ever heard of that power though: most citizens still believe a jury’s obligation is to decide guilt or innocence purely on the merits of the law. That’s because these prosecutorial types have succeeded in squelching a jury’s right to even hear about their right of nullification: these cancers who think convictions are their birthright had forced the issue to be fought out in the courts.
In 1972 the Washington D.C Circuit Court of Appeals (US v Dougherty) held that the power of jury nullification is indeed fundamental, and even eloquently said, in its defense: “The pages of history shine on instances of the jury’s exercise of its prerogative to disregard instructions of the judge; for example, acquittals under the fugitive slave law”. Nevertheless, that same ruling held that there is no necessity for the juries to know about it. They don’t have to be told about that power of nullification, in other words!
Learning that, I supposed that any lawyer trying to tell a jury about that right would be sanctioned, or silenced, or held in contempt of court. That is indeed the case. And if my jury could not know they were empowered to do that– then that discovery didn’t do me a hell of a lot of good.
Nevertheless, I believed that if they thought about it, a jury would be appalled by that AK law– and by the way it was being applied to me. That meant I might have to tell the jury myself. And to do that, I might have to defend myself: to act as my own attorney.
When Leslie told Sammy I was researching jury nullification he rolled his eyes.
I didn’t tell her about my plan to defend myself, however– and I’m glad that I did not. It was a hair-brained scheme, I finally decided.* It was hair-brained because I just didn’t know enough– and because I would probably get too nervous to do a creditable job anyway. I was afraid I’d lose my composure and call the prosecutor a piece-of-shit.
*No, not because “a person who defends himself has a fool for a client”—because that isn’t even how that old adage reads. That adage really holds that “a lawyer who defends himself has a fool for a client”– and that wisdom is correct. That’s because a lawyer’s behavior is carefully circumscribed: he can’t say a lot of things in court that he might have to say in order to defend himself well.
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Most of the time talking to Clayton was like talking to a wall. A talking wall, perhaps, with a built-in tape recorder. I found it increasingly difficult to get him to answer my questions meaningfully. I’d ask him a question and he’d answer a different question. Then I’d ask it again and he’d answer the different one again. Then I’d ask one more time and he’d tell me “we’ve been over this”. And too many of my questions got answered with “I don’t know”. At those times I couldn’t be sure whether it was just him not knowing important things, or whether the laws and rules were too unclear. Finally I decided it was both. For this must have been uncharted territory, this schizophrenia of conflicting laws. And nobody really knew a damned thing about the rules.
One thing that was clear was that Clayton was quite concerned. He had met the girl, he told me– after that aborted Preliminary Hearing– and she had impressed him as quite impaired. So he was of the mind that a jury would convict me. “They only have to believe you touched her breast”, he said. But I have already said that to you many times– just as he said it to me many times.
Yes, I understood that he was afraid for me. But I believed his fear had shown all too well– and that the D.A. had perceived that fear as well as I– and that as a result the D.A. thought he had us by the balls!
Then Clayton said something that caught me by surprise. He said it in passing, though, like I had already known it. It was something about Corissa’s “ambulatory problem”. I was taken aback. HER AMBULATORY PROBLEM? Yes, he claimed she badly limped. I gasped! And the roller coaster that was my stomach plunged.
How the devil could that be true, I wondered. How could I possibly have failed to notice that? She had had trouble walking up the hill with me, that’s true– but I had seen that as just a climbing problem. And there I wasn’t even sure she had not been faking it.
Oh, would these new revelations never cease? Was I insane or something? I didn’t think I was– but each time I thought I’d put the matter to rest, it popped its ugly head out at me again. I’m talking about the truth, of course, that kept getting revealed: that I was a psychopath, and I was a liar: that my version of events was just a tissue of psychotic inventions, and that I had deceived myself about her walking problem too. It meant that the truth was that my screaming victim could not have escaped from me after all– and that I had conveniently buried that perception too– deep in my subconscious.
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Melissa had some extended family in Texas. Some distant relatives– or cousins, I think. And one of the girls in that clan was starting to get into trouble. She was sixteen, and had had some sort of sexual abuse issue of her own.
So Melissa offered to take her in for awhile, which I thought was very generous. She thought she could show the young lady a different part of the country, and expose her to some different ways of life: to enlighten her to different possibilities, that is– to the arts, and sciences. And to meet some professional type people.
So the young lady flew to San Francisco, where Melissa picked her up. Melissa wanted me to meet her too. I thought that would be a very strange position for Melissa though: to be amidst a victim of sexual abuse and a person accused of the same. But I did want to meet her relative– and I knew that I didn’t pose any threat.
But I had thought– about the issue a lot. I’d wondered, as I’ve told you, if I was a molester: some self-denied closet predator on kids. That I’d even considered such a thing attested to the general upheaval of my mind. Ultimately I decided that I was not a molester, but the matter of finding some degree of attraction to young woman was still somewhat on my mind. What I mean to say is that I’d asked the question and answered it. And from there I’d moved on to the acknowledgement that some young women really are attractive. Hell: that was no surprise– it’s obvious. But I still haven’t gotten to what I’m trying to say. Let me try again:
A man knows that a lot of teen-aged girls are pretty- and that they have bodies that are sexually matured…And that some of them are sexy too. Damned sexy, occasion-ally. But if he’s healthy, and “normal’, then once he is confronted with that attraction he looks the other way. That’s not just to get her out of his mind either– that isn’t what I mean. It’s because the idea of a sexual liaison with such a young woman just is not especially appealing. That is what I mean to say. It’s not just that it’s “inappropriate” (that much overused word), but that it seems like a completely missed connection anyway: that even as a fantasy such a thing would seem empty, because in such a union there could be no chance for a meeting of the minds. That’s getting closer.
But at the same time, if a man espies a sexy woman from behind, and does not yet realize her age– if her age is not betrayed by something in her carriage, for example– then he might leer for longer than he otherwise would. I’m getting a lot closer here to what I want to say: for when that happens, and then the young woman turns around, for example, and he realizes how young she is, there’s sometimes a moment of discomfort: a little embarrassment, I mean. And then he looks away.
And if he is among friends, he might even make a comment. But it’s “guy stuff’: nothing to worry about– as long as he doesn’t act on that momentary attraction. Okay– now I’ve said pretty much what I was trying to say. I apologize for my long-windedness!
Anyway that very ethos was on my mind as I went to meet Melissa and her cousin on that day. I was by the BART station, in Rockridge, if it matters. That’s in Oakland too. Anyway, as I was looking for a parking spot, I saw two youngish women walking up the street. Both of them had nice figures, and observing them, I thought to myself exactly what I’ve been saying: that looking at those women, a man can not tell whether they are fifteen or forty five years old. And right then, as if on cue, they turned around, to change direction, and I got a look at them. It was Melissa and her cousin: sixteen and forty-one years old!
It proves nothing. But it made me laugh, and it does illustrate a point: that a man likes to look…and most men do have moments of excitement, looking at a young woman. In the presence of an attractive women, most men think of pleasure. Yes we do. That’s definitely a part of it– and don’t let anybody tell you that’s not true. It’s nature very design, fercrissake. Nor does that tendency make us predators, or weirdoes– and it certainly does not make us molesters either. So any “psychology” that pretends that it does needs to back way the fuck off.
I remember reading a “Dear Abby” column once. Or perhaps it was her sister Anne. Either way, a woman wrote in to confess that she found some of her teen-aged son’s friends looking quite delicious. Okay– delicious was my word, but I’m sure you get the point. The woman wanted to know if that attraction was a problem. And Anne– or Abby– said that it was not: that it’s only a problem if she does something about it– if she acts on it, that is. And that’s the way I’ve always felt about this issue too.
I’m going to linger on this issue for another page or so. That’s because I have just found a journal entry of mine that I think speaks to it well. I’ll reproduce it here:
“What do I think when I see attractive underage women? I see lovely blooms: flowers on the verge of young womanhood. I see them as young people moving through a position on a spectrum. I see them as just, perhaps, past infatuation with horses and not terribly beyond playing with dolls– with grown-up bodies besieged with torrents and torments of hormones, yes– but also with sparkling eyes and an endless panorama of dreams. I see them living and laughing and learning to love, aware, certainly of their own new-found powers, borne of their newly-formed breasts, for instance– and aware no doubt as well, of the attentions of the opposite sex: whether those be the languid leers of young boys, the lustful looks of older ones, or the appreciative but diverted glance of still older ones– men now, like myself. (Oh, there are certainly the leering and creepy looks in that litany too, but those just spoil the picture.) I see them as spectacles to behold. I am aware of their physically matured bodies, of course, but I do not desire them like that. It is true that I don’t want to damage them– but more than that is that such a thing strikes me as an unsatisfactory exchange. It lacks connection. It fails to enrich either party”.
But that’s not spoken from direct experience. It’s a speculation, and it will stay that way.
Still unable to put this matter to rest here, and since suspicion about this thing might always fall on me, I want to offer this additional quick observations about the matter– not even specific to this issue, but worth mentioning nonetheless:
Wanting is sometimes much better than having, and merely looking can be satisfying too. There: now I’m done with it!
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CHAPTER FOURTEEN
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Talking to my brother-in-law Jeff, on the other hand (unlike Clayton), was usually an education. And if it wasn’t that then there was usually at least a good quip. Either way, I always appreciated his perspective.
One day he joined me in the hot tub, and we talked about the law. Law in general, I mean– with a capital L– as opposed to the specific laws pertaining to my case.
I said I was astounded that the State of Utah was able to compel a jury trial. It seemed to me that if the right to a trial by jury was our constitutional right, that we should also have the right to waive it. It seemed to me that a right we could not waive was not necessarily a right at all: that it was really an obligation– and that having become an obligation it remained an obligation even where it became a liability.
What about our other rights, I wondered: what about our right to representation by an attorney, for example? Can’t a person represent himself? Or does the state have the right to block that waiver too?
Well Jeff explained that indeed that right is not necessarily ours to waive either: that we were not granted the right to waive our right to counsel– but only the right to have one. If the Court deemed a person unfit to represent himself, for example, then the Court might demand he have a lawyer. And I could see his point there.
Sorry, but having led you to the hot tub, to look in on our discussion, I now con-fess that Jeff will be just a foil here– for my own ruminations. But he did start me on this.
That discussion got me thinking. It made me wonder how that state of affairs might affect all our other rights: whether those other rights are equally provisional, that is. The idea deeply disturbed me, for I had never thought of it all in quite that way.
What of our right to free speech, for example? Could that become construed– in other circumstances– as a mandate to free speech? Could it become a directive, in other words, that we publicly avow our position on every issue? What about our freedom of religion? Could that be twisted into the lack of freedom from religion? Could that putative “right” become a tenet that each one of us have to declare some religious affiliation– as long as the government didn’t favor any particular one…? What about the right to a speedy trial? By reasoning similar to the convoluted reasoning the State of Utah had employed in the jury trial issue, shouldn’t the Prosecutor be enabled to require a speedy trial as well– and even if that course was to the detriment of the Accused?
Think about the right to bear arms: could that become a requirement to bear arms: that everybody must carry them, that is? Think about our right peaceably to assemble too: now imagine being rousted from your sleep, to go the mandatory assembly in the public square. Think of some rabid Eric Lind type nazi enforcing your right there.
Now lets return to that “right to representation” issue- and take it a step further. For the potential twist put on all our rights by such things as that tortured Utah finding could come to mean that you won’t get to represent yourself regardless: even if you are fully competent. And even if you’re the best person for the job.
The implications boggled my mind.
So I cracked open my Constitution. And there I read:
ARTICLE III, Section 2:
“The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury;…”
I was stopped in my tracks at that since it was different than I thought. Damn! It did not express trial by jury as a right, as I had thought it did. It only said that that was how it was gonna’ be. The wind was out of my sails.
But wait: if that’s how it’s supposed to be, then why would anybody get to waive that proviso– under any circumstances? After all, not all trials are by jury– in spite of that stipulation. Why would that be so– unless it has come to be recognized as a “right”, and given a status of something that might be waived…That’s a good question, for which I do not have an answer.
But I did find answers to some of my other posers. That’s because all those other rights I ruminated upon are in the “Bill of Rights”. You remember: the first ten amendments to the Constitution. Apparently for their different placement there they are quite unlike that trial by jury thing. They are more or less a different and more respected category of rights– and as such they cannot be strictly compared. So maybe I was all up in arms for nothing.
But wait again: for the “right to representation” is in the Bill of Rights– and that cannot necessarily be waived, as Jeff pointed out. So if that right cannot necessarily be waived then none of the other rights in the Bill can be considered sacrosanct either. Circumscribed, yes– but sacrosanct, no: you still can’t shout fire in a movie theater.
We have other rights too, besides all those I’ve mentioned: there are Miranda Rights, for example. I remembered that the US Supreme Court had decided that in Miranda vs. Arizona. I was not so smart, though, to know that that was in 1966. In any event, the Miranda Warning– which is recited to us at the time of our arrest—encapsu-lates a host of rights. It summarizes the rights of the criminally accused, that is– like this:
“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an Attorney, and to have an Attorney present during any questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you at government expense.”
(Do they really switch language like that in mid-stream: from “Attorney” to “Lawyer”?)
Aha! Now the question is whether those Supreme Court sanctioned Miranda Rights more secure than those in the Bill of Rights itself? Are they just an extension of those rights, I mean: just a rewording, I mean? Or are they less secure than those in the Bill of Rights? Perhaps they are on equal par. Or perhaps they only pertain to the criminally accused. Yes, that must be it: they’re special rights- applicable only to the criminally accused– for they’re the ones who need them!
But that is true of jury trials too. So does that mean the Miranda Rights are on par with the constitution, but not with the Bill of Rights?
Finally, can those Miranda rights be twisted into special obligations too? Consider, for example, the right to remain silent being twisted into the compulsion to remain silent…
(I know what the cop-think answer would be. It would be a mid-throated utterance that “Well remaining silent is the smart thing to do.” delivered amidst condescending chuckles. And indeed that is the smart thing to do. But that utterly skirts the point, doesn’t it?)
In any event it seemed to me that turning rights into compulsions only opened up Pandora’s Box. So my legal education continued.
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At one point during this endless ordeal someone close to me said to me that I could not fault the Prosecutor: that he was “just doing his job”. Who it was that said that is not important here. Nor is it important here to say I was appalled. What was important was my response to that disclaimer. (And yes, I was appalled.)
I suspect that attitude is a common ethos. Most of us are used to thinking that the “D.A.” is one of the “good guys”: that he stands up for us against a tidal wave of evil… That he represents things that we admire: truth, integrity, and great American ideals… That he has a hard job that somebody’s gotta’ do… And that he does the best he can, against a thankless system– riddled with escape hatches for the godless criminals and their cackling Lawyers. We can imagine the Prosecutor against that backdrop: valiantly doing his job.
And that was how I looked upon it too, I confess, before all of this happened.
But that piece of shit in Kanab was not “doing his job”– unless his job included subornation of perjury, filing charges on faulty premises, manufacturing evidence, and parlaying his prosecution beyond every bound of reason. No, that son-of-a-bitch may have been doing many things– but “his job” wasn’t one of them!
His job was to prosecute in proportion to what the evidence suggested: the bona-fide evidence–and to pursue charges in line with what the evidence showed had occurred.
So I wondered what sort of disease had corrupted his young head. And for lack of a better answer, I decided he must be ambitious: I figured that he wanted to claim “tough on crime”, while he ran for Governor one day– and that in pursuit of that ambition he’d decided it was okay to destroy my life along the way.
Oh yes– and that for all of that, he’s “not responsible” anyway.
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Just what exactly is a “loophole” anyway? Have you ever thought about that question? I think of it as an escape hatch deliberately built into laws– tax laws, mainly– that people seeking to avoid paying high taxes might exploit, for example. In other words, they are politically-motivated oversights built in to certain laws: clever wordings of laws that benefit certain interests.
But why would escape-hatches be built into laws affecting “crimes against the person”? Why would the state legislature have an interest in effecting loopholes that allow what might be called “common criminals” to escape?
My answer is that “criminals” who get off the hook probably aren’t getting off because of some “loophole”: that they’re more likely getting of because they have not committed some necessary element of the crime. If criminal X is found not guilty of breaking and entering because he was never anywhere near the property supposedly broken into, then that is not a loophole. That is an example of a necessary element of the law failing to be established. It’s called innocence– not “loophole”.
There’s another attitude I want to lambaste right now. It concerns a type of argu-ment introduced by: “Well some people might say”. As in “well some people would say tat any adult who touches a minor should be locked away for years.” That sort of thing. But that sort of argument presupposes that everybody is entitled to equal consideration in any disagreement– and that just is not so. Some people are extremists. And some people strongly hold opinions that are simply way out of the box. So what do I say to someone who holds such an opinion? I say their persecutorial zeal and inability to judge degree is deeply un-American, for starters– and that such a zealot wouldn’t sit on my jury anyhow.
All that said, it annoyed me that some people seemed to think that the prosecutor was entitled to some sort of benefit of the doubt: that his behavior could not be harshly judged— even while his attitude towards me was one of assuming the worst about me— while apparently being shielded in that behavior. The double standard rankled me.
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Oakland and San Francisco are separated by a bridge: the Bay Bridge, of course– the one Dustin Hoffman drove across the wrong way in “The Graduate”: the one that partially collapsed during the Quake of ’89. Perhaps you remember that. I sure do! I was in Candlestick Park that day, for an aborted World Series game between the Giants and the “A’s”. But this is not my story.
I already told you that I liked living in Oakland: a lovely city that gets a lot of bad press. But that is not my story either.
I only interject those things to lend my tale a sense of time and place. Perhaps you hadn’t known where Oakland is, but I’ll bet you knew S.F. And now you know that it’s not a very long drive between the two of them.
You already know as well that when I “came home” from Kanab in disgrace that Melissa still lived in San Francisco. So did my friend Steve Doane.
Steve had been the Cook at the New Pisa, during my final tenure there. We were the only denizens of the building. He lived in the basement, though- while I lived on the third floor.
He was 50 years old: a brilliant man, who had lived quite fully, though he’d been in an alcoholic decline for many years. So even during our New Pisa era, he’d been barely hanging on. Then, after I left town and the restaurant closed, he moved into a residential hotel, in the same Italian neighborhood. That’s where I found him, upon my return: barely hanging on.
I told him my story, with some the most explicit details left out: basically the same story I’d told almost everyone else. Then I asked what he thought I should do. He didn’t have a clue. So he suggested that I talk to Vince, the Cop. Well I knew who Vince was, but I hardly knew him at all. He used to hang out at the restaurant, though, and we’d chatted a few times. But Steve knew him a little better– and even happened to have his phone number too! So he gave it to me.
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I called Vince and asked if I could see him. He said sure, so we arranged to meet, at a coffee house in the old neighborhood. When we met I told him I was very impressed that he had agreed to meet me like that, since he hardly knew me. Then I told him what my legal problem was. He listened to me raptly, although I wasn’t even sure what it was I wanted him to do.
“I’d like you to call Mark Fisher”, I said. He did not know Mark Fisher, of course, but I thought there was a chance that one Cop talking to another might make a good impression. I wanted him to try to talk Fisher “down”– from his ferocious determination to screw me. That strategy, of course, presupposed that it was Mark who was “driving” the prosecution– and of that, of course, I couldn’t be sure. But Vince said he couldn’t do that. “For one thing, he probably wouldn’t talk to me”, he said. Yeah, it had been a stupid idea. Another of my grand schemes had come to naught!
But something important did emerge from that meeting. That was that I told him about the threatened new charge, and asked whether that was really permissible. “No, he’s got to have new evidence”, he said. “Otherwise it’s just blackmail”. Wow! So the slimy cocksucker Lind did have to have new evidence to add on a new charge! At least he would have to in the State of California. So I was encouraged again. But was that also the case in Utah, I wondered? Probably not, from what I’d seen.
So Vince was the first person I talked to who knew something about all this business who had agreed with me that adding that new charge seemed improper: that if Eric Lind really had new evidence– to support a new charge– well that was one thing. But if he didn’t … or if he had made it up… Well I would have to check into that further. Maybe I could still get that rodent by the by balls.
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Walking through San Francisco in search of a burrito, I happened upon the office of a Spiritualist. I paused there for a minute, pondering going in. I decided that listening to her couldn’t do me any harm. After all, all other avenues had failed me, so opening myself to a new dimension might benefit me somehow.
Anyway, we sat in her big plush chairs and I told her about my situation. And in response to it, she asked: “Have you thought about paying the girl’s family off?” Yikes: that suggestion hit me on the side of the head. The truth was that I had thought of doing that– of course: in fact I would have pledged them every goddam thing I’d earn for years to come. But how would I have even gone about that? Would I have gotten a friend of a friend to contact them clandestinely? Even then, the prospects for that going wrong and getting me into even more trouble had stopped that idea in its tracks. Nor had anybody from the Mumford camp approached me for money either. It seemed to me that if they’d wanted to they could have approached me in the same way.
Thus far there had been no apparent financial motive. But hearing that suggestion from a Spiritualist reopened that can of worms. It seemed like far too late, though– at that point. Okay: maybe I could have hired a local P.I. to do that bidding for me, even at that point. But I said no to the idea once again. The idea retreated into limbo– from which I thought it would not matriculate.
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CHAPTER FIFTEEN
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Bret and his Rosaleen came to visit for Thanksgiving. So my endless month was punctuated after all– by that precisely dated memory. They were my friends from Portland, you might remember, who I had snuck past after visiting my grandmother in Seattle. I had been the best man at their wedding, several years before.
I first met Bret in Mexico around 1993. That was at an Archaeological garden in Chiapas, where I was traveling with a beautiful young woman named Natalie. He thought she was my girl, then, but the truth was that I was not so lucky. But she’s not important here anyway– I only mentioned her out of misplaced vanity. Anyway Bret came with us to Palenque, and soon he and I were good friends.
On the same trip we also went to a place called Agua Azul, where we swam in the waters, and later he left for Tikal– while I returned to San Francisco to work. I did finally get to see Tikal years later, by the way– but that is not my story either.
Over the years I visited Bret in Portland a couple times– where he worked as a Professional clown– and I even took as road trip with him through the Cascades. He visited me in Tahoe too, on a couple of occasions– once with Rosaleen, his new fiancée.
Bret is a very good man: informed and sensitive, and possessed of a good mind. He’s a very good friend too. In fact, often times I’ve thought he’s a better friend than I deserve. So when he asked me to be the Best Man at his wedding, I was delighted. Unfortunately I was not the world’s best Best Man– and I think my comportment proved my point– that I didn’t deserve him. Basically I wasn’t willing to take an extra day off of work, and so arrived the night after the Bachelor Party. Part of that was that I do not drink, but in retrospect that was a poor excuse. I’ve spent a lot more time thinking about such things since these events in Kanab unfolded.
Rosaleen is a lovely person too. I’m glad they found each other.
The Burton-Wurmses were away that weekend, so the Christies stayed with me in their house. There Bret and I got in the hot tub, where I told him my story. Most of the story, that is, again– for I omitted the usual facts. I told him I was doing that too, so do not think I lied. I still had not had to lie to anybody but my cellmate– and I still believed I did not have to lie to win. But I understood that anybody I told my story to could in theory be subpoenaed.
After telling him my story, he asked me this:
“So are you saying that there was no touching?”
“No,” I said, ”I’m not saying that there was no touching”. And that was the end of that. And then he put his head back, and thought a minute. Then he asked me:
“Could this have been a set-up?”
I had thought of that before too, as I have said– but only briefly. That’s because the idea that it was a set-up had not made much sense. But again it was a matter of hearing someone else address a question– somebody with intuition- that led me to consider it anew. I dismissed it again, though, for the same old reasons: because in order to have set me up, they would have needed a lot of information they could not have had. And there were too many variables there that they could not control. All that being said and done they would have had to have a motive.
They would have had to know that I’d be going to the library that day…and that I’d be
there earlier than usual… and they’d have had to know I knew about that water tower: that I slept there, even, I suppose… and that I’d take Corissa there, given half a chance…Even then they would have had to let her out of their sight for a while– and that was the biggest problem. I don’t believe they would have risked that, for want of knowing me.
But another new question impressed itself upon me then that I hadn’t given enough consideration to before. It was “Where was Corissa’s stepfather George, during all of this?” Corissa said he had driven them all down from Cedar City on the morning of the crime. So where was he-- while “Mom” was working, and Corissa was in the library with me? Why wasn’t he with his “incompetent” stepdaughter?… Could it be that he was out “in the field”: scouting me?
But it still did not make sense. I couldn’t make it work. I was just being paranoid.
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Sean and E.K’s wedding took place in Mexico in late November, as planned. But I was not there. I was too much a basket case to be social like that– or to fly all that way. And my money was running low. So I stayed home and brooded. It killed me not to go.
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I kept thinking about that “No, no….” claim. I finally decided that Prosecution had made a strategic mistake. For I thought about the cadences of everything Corissa had uttered: everything I had heard her say, I mean. And as I thought about those other things, I realized that the “No, no…” claim would not have fit her pattern. Three times I heard her get excited, on that morning that we met. First I’d heard her exclaim about her father. “He RAAAPED me– MY FATHER RAPED ME”, she had said. Then after we’d come down to meet Mark Fisher, she’d demanded “What did you do– WHAT DID YOU DO?”. Finally, on the heels of that outburst, she’d said: “He Raped me– HE RAPED ME!”– that time about me. And each of those exclamations had evinced very nearly the same pattern: they were blurted in two complete parts, with each second part either a repetition, or a near repetition of the first. And each time she had been more emphatic during the second part of the cry. Her voice had gone up, I mean, for added emphasis.
So the claim that she’d said “No, no, I don’t want to go” rang false. And the idea that she’d said it three times rang especially false: for it would have fit her pattern better to have said something like “I don’t wanna’ go– I DON’T WANNA’ GO”. Or “No, no– NO NO”. I was sure of it. So sure, in fact, that if they’d claimed she’d said that sentence only once it would have still rung false. It would have been more believable if they’d claimed she said it exactly twice– and even then, that it was either “No no” or “I don’t wanna’ go”. But not both. No other pattern fit!
But who thought up that lie? And why did they claim she said it “three times”? Surely two would have been sufficient.
My explanation was that three was some sort of magic number to them: that while two cries might not be taken seriously, that three would be unmistakable. Something like that. It’s not a great explanation, but it’s the best one that I’ve got. Or maybe it was a claim catered specifically to me, because of my hearing: that being deaf in my left ear I might credibly deny having heard her say it even twice– but who would believe it if I denied having heard it three times. In any event, it was an over-kill, and might end up costing them dearly: because if she went on to testify she’d really made that claim– and in that way– a good Lawyer could debunk it.
Therefore– Aha!–I perceived an advantage for myself if she did go on to claim it!
And the truth is that I wouldn’t have failed to hear her saying it if she’d said it even once. If she’d said it in the car, that is: because in the car Corissa sat on my right side, (Clayton)– next to my good ear!
In any event, the lie didn’t strike me as the product of Corissa. I guessed it sprang from a conspiracy, for which they could all point to each other, saying “I really believed”.
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Later, another realization seized me. It was that the “No, no” claim didn’t support an AK at all. That’s because Eric Lind already had the constituents of AK without any claim being necessary at all! He had the UD on the left, and the FSA on the right. Therefore that false claim of protest added nothing to his requirements. In fact, the only thing it supported was a charge of simple Kidnapping– which he wasn’t even charging!
Moreover, it seemed to me that by claiming that “..No, no…” that they were really conceding that without it they might not have enough: that they themselves didn’t believe their charges were really warranted. Yet they pursued the damned thing anyway! It was unbelievable, the inhumanity of it all.
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It occurred to me that the “No no” claim would be a mistake for another reason, too. It was that by making it, they would have been conceding that Corissa was not incompetent. That’s because such a declaration would have been an admission that she recognized a dangerous situation– and that she resisted it too. So it seemed to me that Prosecution had to make up their minds too. Did they mean to say that this was a Kidnapping– in which I had taken her away, despite her express desire not to be taken anywhere– or did they want to say that I was culpable because of her incompetence, owing to which she didn‘t have the wherewithal to either assess danger, or resist it? Ha! So the damn law was double-edged for them as well. And I believed that that by making that “No no” claim they’d be sacrificing their “incompetence” position.
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I kept thinking about that “ambulatory problem” too. I was sure I had not seen it. So how bad could it be? Then my dimming bulb flared again: “Wait”, I cried- ha ha- she had run down from the hill! And Mark Fisher had confirmed that fact in his report! She had run out of the Library, too– to catch up to me by my car. So I’d seen Corissa running twice. And if she could run, then how bad could her ambulatory problem be? Or perhaps it was akin to a stutter– that disappears when its possessor sings?
I searched my mind’s eye again. I went back in time, to the Computer room, to the first time I had seen her. But I had not seen her enter! Nor did she stroll around the room. Okay– she had stood behind me, hadn’t she– to rub me on the shoulders? Yes, but that was only two steps away. And she had been behind me then. Then– My God: she’d trailed behind me, too, when I went up to the front desk. Then she ran outside to meet me! Aha!
But surely I’d seen her walking out by the tower- when she had come around the car, or approached with my cell-phone? Or how about on the fateful hill– when she had shrieked because she could not climb? In any event, at least one thing got confirmed for me by that ambulatory disclosure: Corissa really could not climb– at least not unassisted.
It seems like I should have seen her problem, though. But I am sure that I did not. Later a hypothesis for that occurred to me as well: it was that I had not seen it because she’d deliberately kept it hidden– that she had let me think she wasn’t coming with me, but then had followed me to the desk. Yes: that was it! That was why she ran to catch up to me outside too. It hadn’t been excitement at all: it was just a way to hide the problem.
But I couldn’t buy that myself: because surely I would have seen something– if only for a second. But more than that was that there was just too much I was trying to deny: like that I didn’t know she was so challenged; like that I didn’t know she was fifteen. And now it was that I didn’t even know she couldn’t walk right. It was just too many things. And it took me back to being a psychopath. In my imagination.
As always, deciding I was just a psychopath didn’t resolve the issue: I couldn’t just let my mind slip away like that. There were too many unanswered things piling up, for which other people held the only key. And I required answers, just to keep me sane. It meant I had to go to Prelim. I had to go and see what all the witnesses would say. It was imperative to my mental health, to find out what those people would affirm. Equally important was to find out what those people would deny… about the “No, no …”, and about the “He’s my friend”. I also had to hear what those people would say about the scratches. And I had to see for myself whether Corissa really limped!
Above all those, I needed the answer for which only Corissa held the key. It was about the missing block of time. Only Corissa knew what had happened there. I had to hear what she would say!
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Prosecution made a lot of interesting claims along the way. I heard about these via Clayton, of course. One was that to Corissa’s understanding, “all sex is rape”. Later that claim was expressed to me as that Corissa “does not what rape is”. And that was very interesting news to me. Apparently their claim was that though she cried it out while I was being nabbed that she can’t be taken to task for it.
Clayton was as usual deeply concerned. He thought they had me there!
So of course I gave that claim a lot of thought– and before long I identified some potential problems with it too. The first was that she’d also made that claim to me about her father: that he’d raped her, I mean. So it seemed to me that we’d justified in looking into the legal case about her father. We had a right to see what abuse had really occurred there– and to find out what she’d claimed. Their claim that she “doesn’t know what rape is” might be contradicted by disclosures from that case. And we could freely investigate that case, right? And we could introduce it into evidence, right? Well, not necessarily, was the answer. Not if Corissa denies she ever made that claim to me. That was how I saw it: that if I was the only person making that claim it would appear I was making something up to force them to let me pry into that other case. Thus, I suspected that that “gambit” would not be “allowed”.
But wait: we still had Alan Orton! Hadn’t he said “It’s been a long time” when he interviewed Corissa on the video-cassette? Couldn’t that passing comment “open the door” to inquiring about their previous interview– to see if it pointed to a rape?
But what if it was really true– that she didn’t know what rape is? What if it turns out that her father didn’t really rape her at all? Shit! Well it would mean that the one thing that I had believed unequivocably from Corissa’s mouth had also not been true! It would mean that the good motive that led to my arrest had been based on something false. It was as if Judgment Day had come for me– and that I had been caught napping.
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Enter December. I can demarcate December because I know what happened then. I have touchstones to remind me: holidays and stuff. But do not think my mood was any better. No, that is not the salient feature here, to usher this new month. I had not ascended from my existential despair yet. And I was still afraid I never would.
But I decided to get some support– I’d been isolated for too long. Yes, it was a self-imposed isolation, that is true, but I hadn’t felt at liberty to talk about this thing. And I hadn’t felt worthy of most my friends– or even able to go see them. But the isolation had to end, or I would lose my mind.
I looked up my old therapist, Ron Rohlfes, whose patient I had been in San Francisco. That was for a two-year period, in ‘95 and ’96. I had sought him out for issues about my inability to get the relationships I sought. That was a condition that had plagued me. I had been in some sort of therapy several times over the years, with several different therapists– but Ron was the best one I’d seen, and he had helped me a lot.
This time it was group therapy I was seeking. I was in luck, too, because he led one of his own, every Wednesday night. It was a Men’s Group, too, so it sounded perfect. I joined it.
My first night in attendance, I was one of two new members, joining the core group of four others, who had been there for some time. But that count excludes Ron.
In any event, after six weeks the other new guy dropped out, but he’s not important here. What matters is that I felt embraced again, and vital, and had hope again. The support there was quite touching. And I felt valuable to other people, again, because my contributions were appreciated. I thank God for those guys, in that era of my life.
When I talked about my feelings, I felt that they were understood. And I described the disconnectedness: feeling like a phantom– drifting lifeless amongst still vital people. I told them I was sure that I would never be okay again: that God himself had rejected me, and that my life had been exposed as a lie. I said that all the metaphysical cogs had lined up on that day, to crush me: that just when I had found the confidence I’d always sought, I’d had the rug pulled out.
And while I rued my powerlessness, I cursed the dogs who oppressed me. I ex-pressing those angry feelings too: feelings I had too long bottled up.
I also told them that I wanted to be dead: that I wished someone would shoot me- to make it quick, and final. I didn’t mean I wanted any of them to do it though– I meant some stranger on the street.
I wasn’t threatening suicide, though: I made that very clear. I confessed that I’d thought about it, but couldn’t do it, and didn’t plan to anymore. They were glad to hear it.
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The guys in my Men’s group encouraged me to get a job again, and to get some medication. I’d wanted to do both those things anyway. I needed to do them too. So I did. I went to my old family doctor in Belmont, to get the medication. Dr. Buckley had been practicing there since I was a kid. I’d even been to see him several times as an adult– most recently for the Guillain-Barre’.
I told him my sad tale. When I was done, he shook his head, and said: “That seems to be all the rage in the mountain states”. He was talking about sex crime prosecutions, because the Kobe Bryant case was going on at the same time. Then he gave me a bunch of Zoloft, and a prescription to refill them.
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Kobe Bryant wasn’t the only famous person in legal trouble at that time: several other celebrities going through the wringer then. Their names were Michael Jackson; Martha Stewart; Phil Spectre; and Robert Blake.
I’m sure there were others too– as if that wasn’t company enough. But the most famous case of them all, at that time, and perhaps until Michael eclipsed him, was not a celebrity at all– until he got into legal trouble, that is. But once his crime was uncovered, the media elevated him to front-page news. That was Scot Peterson: on trial for the first degree murder of his lovely pregnant wife. And where did that media circus take place? Why, in Redwood city, California, of course: the city of my birth!
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The job was harder to get than the prescription. I knew I wanted to do something undemanding, though, because I was so hugely distracted all the time. So I filled out a bunch of applications at coffee house and bookstores. But nothing came my way– again. During that process, though, I became aware of how many applications ask about felony convictions. It was depressing. And I thought that question would come to dominate my life.
Finally I got a job at a Bakery, down on College Avenue. It was by the corner where I had seen Melissa and her Cousin, that time I’d gawked at their butts. I was a clerk there now, and I worked with people who were mostly half my age: people who still had futures, that is. But I didn’t have a future– all I saw for my life anymore was drudgery and counters to stand behind all day, selling pastries. I could hardly even stretch my legs doing that– and when I did step outside to stretch my legs I always heard about it.
One day a man came in whom I had worked with in a restaurant in San Francisco almost twenty years before. I had been the Waiter there, and he had been the Cook. But I had not liked him, then. I remembered that he was planning to be some sort of Psychologist– and that he swaggered, and wore long overcoats– so I thought he was very phony.
I couldn’t recall his name, but I said hi anyway, and reminded him where we’d met. He said he vaguely remembered it, and was impressed that I’d remembered him– and his professional aspirations. In fact, he said, he was indeed a Psychologist now, and had established a practice not very far away.
As he left, I remember thinking that he had realized his dream– and that it had not made a bit of difference whether I had thought of him as phony. I was confronted with all my dashed dreams then: by the bliss I had not followed, and the talents I had not trained. So I was depressed anew, reviewing my wasteland of potentials. My life seemed over.
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They were all quite proud of me back in my Men’s group, because it took great “courage” for me just to have gone out looking for a job. They were right, and I appreciated the notice. It had indeed felt like great courage. But the Zoloft helped a lot.
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Unfortunately, one night while I was at work, a tour bus crashed into my Subaru. It sustained a lot of damage. The Subaru, I mean. It was a mess. The insurance company wanted to total it, but I would not hear of it– because it still ran well. It was true that it had a badly crumpled door, though: it barely closed anymore, and when it was closed it couldn’t hide an enormous gap between the door and the frame. But as long as it could move, I was determined to keep it.
They offered me a ridiculously low compensation for it, so I vigorously argued. Finally they offered $1950. That was more like it! I said that I would take that only if they would let me keep the car. So they gave me $1900 and let me keep the car. Ha! The money went right into my pocket, for my funds were drying up.
A few days after that I was fired from the Bakery. I had stepped outside during a rush because I had to talk to Clayton. He had called me, and we talked for a long time. My boss took great exception to that move, however, and she cut me a check on the spot.
She didn’t know what was going on with me anyway- because I hadn’t told her. So I don’t fault her. I hated the job anyway.
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I kept asking Clayton about the new charge. I still thought it was bullshit. And I still wasn’t satisfied with his answer. At first all he’d said was that it was “allowed”– as you already know. Then he clarified the matter (in his mind, I suppose) by telling me that a prosecutor could add a charge “for any reason”. I thought that meant the Prosecutor could get out of bed in the morning, and say “I really, really hate that guy: I think I’ll add another charge”. You see, I thought that hatred would qualify as a “reason”.
I labored under that illusion for a good six weeks. Meanwhile I grew to disdain the whole legal system, and to abhor the lies that posed for ideals of Justice. Vince the Cop had called it right: it was just legalized blackmail.
It seemed to me that if a charge could be added for “any reason” that it meant the prosecution’s chicanery could not be impeached. It meant it did not matter that the “No no” claim had been pulled out of thin air– because “for any reason” meant they didn’t even need that claim to level a new charge. Nor did they need any claim at all in order to wreck my life. For them, that claim was just a bonus!
Then, much later in the game Clayton gave a still different response. He said that the Prosecutor could file a new charge for one of two reasons: one was based on new evidence– of course. And that had made sense all along. But he said that he could also add it based on a “new understanding” of the evidence. Well it turns out that that was what he’d meant by “any reason” He’d meant any reason that had something to do with the actual charges. Jesus Christ– the chubby son-of-a-bitch. All that time he’d let me think “any reason” meant no reason at all. But this newer standard meant that Prosecution’s mere whim was not a proper reason! Shit!
That sort of misunderstanding had come to be typical, with Clayton. And that much belated explanation certainly seemed like a better answer to my question– though I’d had to wrest it from him like sorely extracted teeth.
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I gave that new guideline a lot of consideration. At first blush, it had sounded fair and reasonable. But upon further reflection, what the fuck did that guideline really mean? Did it mean that if the D.A. could look in his book of statutes and say “Hey– there’s one that I haven’t thought of!”– and that he can add that too?…Could he then defend that new charge by saying “I did not realize– hence I have a new understanding”? Listening to Clayton, that sounded like the case. He may have even been right about that, too. But why hadn’t he known it sooner?
Clayton notwithstanding, I was still appalled by that “allowance”: for how can anybody challenge the contention that someone else has had “a new understanding”? It seemed to me about as worthless of a guideline as you can get. All that standard really does is enable sleazy Prosecutors to blackmail people. What a crock of shit!
Hence the UD charge, I finally understood. I’d wondered why they’d bothered with that minor charge. Well the answer was that they had added it to set up the AK. Later they could claim the AK was a “new understanding”– though they’d erect it on the latticework they’d put in place from the start! It meant they’d planned it all along! I was sure: from day one they had planned to parlay this misdemeanor into a first-degree felony, if I would not take their deal. yes: they would do that via the UD, already in place– and justify it with their claim to a new “understanding”. They would try their damnedest to lock me up for life!
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My next appointment in Kanab was on an early December date: around the 7th, . I believe. Hell, since I was arrested on D-day then it seemed fitting that I get shot all to hell on Pearl Harbor day! On that date, I was expected to either take the deal or reschedule a Preliminary Hearing. Either way, it meant I would have to drive out to Kanab yet again.
I couldn’t stand it. And as that date approached, I felt violence in my stomach.
My confidence in Clayton was unsalvageable by then. Or it was hanging on by threads, at best. And I just could not take the deal– so I called Walter Bugden, at last.
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CHAPTER SIXTEEN
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Wally, as he’s known, was willing to take a look at my case. But since my car had that gaping hole in it, I didn’t want to drive it to Salt Lake City. Not in December, in any event. I could have rented a car, of course, but for the sake of time I decided it was better to take a Greyhound bus anyway. I figured out that I could take an overnight one, see Wally in the afternoon, then get on a return bus that same night. So that is what I did.
I didn’t tell Clayton I was doing that, of course- seeing yet another Lawyer. He would have had a fit. I didn’t even tell him where I was. But before I went in to see Wally, I called him on my cell, from Salt Lake City. It was a Tuesday, and just about the time I was supposed to be thinking about going to Kanab again– so I had to talk to him about that anyway.
I asked Clayton to arrange another delay. I cited car troubles, which was more or les the truth. So he said he’d see what he could do. Well a while later he called back, and said that he had arranged it. So the next Court date was rescheduled for sometime in January. That was one good thing about Clayton: he got me lots of delays.
Wally worked for a Law Firm that sported his name in the title: Bugden and Isaacson. He had a beautiful Receptionist, too, who I assumed was not his wife. The insides of his offices were modern, too, and light: not oppressed with dark and stuffy panels. After all that time under Clayton’s gloomy umbrella, I was relieved to see such comfort.
Wally was probably not quite fifty. He was almost as tall as I am, and he sported a moustache. He was of medium build, too, though I think he had a slight belly. He had dark hair and eyes (?).
We sat down and discussed my case. He told me he could tell on the phone that I was a very intelligent person. And I could tell by the questions he asked that he too– like Michael Shaw– had a quick and intuitive grasp of the nuances of my case.
Early on I asked him what he knew about Clayton Huntsman. Well he told me that he and Clayton had gone to Law School together. “So we’re sort of soul mates”, he said. Something like that. But when I’d asked him if Clayton was the best man for the job, he indicated that he wasn’t sure. So I thought I was right. Clayton’s era had passed.
Eventually we made our way upstairs, where watched the video-cassette together. I explained that they were trying to paint her as mentally incompetent. “Well she doesn’t come across that way”, he said, quite early in the session. I could have kissed him then. That meant I’d not been mired in self-deception.
But when Corissa stammered, Wally looked hard at me and said “That’s not good” And no it wasn’t good, I agreed– “but she never did that while with me”.
He expressed a concern about me too: that I seemed too much like a “scientist”. He thought I came across as too analytical: like a nerd, or something. He said a jury might not like that.
We talked about the specific charges. He was impressed that I could rattle them off from memory while he was still looking for them in the books. At last I told him about the AK threat. At that– realizing the stakes– he shook his head, and said “It’s just not worth the risk”. He too thought that I should take the deal. I said I could not do that.
That’s what those minimum mandatory sentences do: they make the stakes for defending ourselves too great.
So Wally said he’d take the case: he’d take me “through to Prelim”, that is– for $7500. And if we went to trial after that it would cost $10,000 more.
I didn’t hire Wally on the spot, though, as I had done with Clayton, for I needed time to think. Besides, I had another month before the next Court Hearing, and anything might happen in the interim.
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That made the score 6-1-0: of the eight Lawyers I had spoken to– my family included- six said I must take the deal. Ruth had just admonished me not to plead guilty to anything with sex in it– so I’m not really sure how to score her. The final one– Michael Shaw– had demurred, and sent me looking elsewhere. So he’s the zero, in that score. But it wouldn’t have mattered if twenty lawyers told me to take the deal—because I simply could not take it. I had to go through a Preliminary hearing no matter what. If I lost there I’d flee the country– then I’d probably kill myself one day, for that’s what usually happens– to the ones who don’t get caught.
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I got back to San Francisco Wednesday night and proceeded to my Men’s Group. I told the other men what I’d done. I divulged that it was eerie, in a way: for I had been anticipating that the internal pressure would double if I decided to face that charge– and yet, having done so, I felt strangely calm instead– like I was resigned to my fate.
The group didn’t meet for two of the next three weeks, because of the holidays. But one of the members there suggested that we each write a letter– or a poem– over the holidays to share with the group when we got back. I for one thought that was a wonderful idea– especially since I’d written so much poetry lately.
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So Christmas was upon us. I always did like Christmas, but this one was devoid of joy, for me. Even the Midnight Mass I went to was a bust: for it had started at 10:30– for some reason– and I missed it. And when my old friend Ed Chainey called, all full of Christmas cheer, I was dour, and dragged him down as well.
We celebrated Christmas Day at Leslie’s house. My parents came up from Belmont in the morning. It’s all a blur, though, but I suspect they knew that something was really wrong. They’d suspected that anyway, I’m sure, just because I was living at Leslie’s house, jobless, and nearly incommunicado– and because I hadn’t gone to visit them, for a while.
In fact I’d only seen them once since this misfortunate episode had started. That was in June, when I was on my way back to CRT to go down the river. I remember that well because my Mother had looked at me then, with my crew cut, and exclaimed “You look like a convict”. She had no idea how right she might become.
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When the group met again after Christmas we all read our offerings. Mine was a poem called “Responsibility”:
Responsibility:
An enabler’s mantra
A tautology for the obtuse
Cop-think, basically
A rigid faux decree
They display like merit badges
Or dangle from their porches
And from their participles too.
Eternally laced into each oration
Amongst “but”s and “judgments
And smug declarations
Like rites-of-passage
To adulthood, it.
As though its very utterance-
Its echoed evocation-
Causes secret doors to slide
Heads to nod
Invisible forces to align.
As if its very enunciation
Is the handshake of the initiated
And that for being memorized, uttered,
Cadenced, and pronounced
Needs no further elaboration
(That) for its proper nuance and delivery
They are enshrined’ in the club.
But they don’t know what they mean. Ask them.
Perhaps they mean nothing at all
It’s a game to them, amongst other games
A touchstone, only
A false God, propitiated with a word
If it isn’t obvious what I mean then I’ve at least partly failed. But I was talking about the phony posturings of people who use the word responsibility as a cudgel: people who recognize its utility in their ambitions, but which is a concept they don’t have any real connection with. It’s about people that use the word to divert attention from the hypocritical enablings of their own agendas. That’s it.
I was thinking, of course, of Eric Lind.
When I was finished reading the group asked me to read it again. They liked it.
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I kept on doing research. And I kept on writing letters. I usually finished the letters on the weekends. That meant that almost every Monday morning Clayton had a correspondence from me waiting on his fax machine. I wonder if he started dreading Monday mornings, for that reason.
Some of the letters were long and some were short. But regardless of their length, they all seemed to fall on deaf ears anyway– and they were probably driving Clayton nuts. But I didn’t care. In me he probably thought he’d gotten far more than he’d bargained for. And in him, I felt like I’d gotten far less.
I asked him why Cora Singer hadn’t been prosecuted too. After all, they were claiming that Corissa was incompetence. Surely they didn’t mean to say that her mother had abandoned an incompetent girl? Wouldn’t that be Reckless Endangerment? And what about the fact that when Corissa got in trouble, “Mom” was nowhere to be found?
His answer was that the Librarian’s considered themselves Corissa’s “Caretakers” when her mother wasn’t there. They all watched out for her, that is. So then I wondered if the Librarian’s could themselves be held responsible– and also the City of Kanab– under whose auspices they work!
So I faxed him a short note telling him that I should sue the Library. I said that they should have protected me from Corissa. After all, she had some sort of “history”, and they were claiming she was incompetent as well. Thus, they should have foreseen that something like that would occur. But he blew another fuse over that. He sent a curt note back to me, dripping with exasperation. He said that that suing them would make me look even worse.
At least that disclosure answered another question for me, that I’d started to wonder about: it informed me that Corissa did go to the library regularly. That meant that yet another of my assumptions of the 6th of June had come up short: the idea that nobody in the Library knew her, I mean. God, how I wished that when Dickie Robinson had asked her “So how’s it going in there?” she’d added the name Corissa!
I shared with him my thoughts about something I digressed upon earlier: that it would be stupid of Prosecution to claim that Corissa didn’t know what rape is. After all, she’d accuse her father of it, then she’d claimed it about me. So wouldn’t such an excuse throw into doubt a whole host of things? About the disposition of the case against her father, for one thing. And about what, exactly, she does understand, with respect to all her claims. On that point, he finally agreed with me! That was fairly staggering, because early on he’d been particularly terrified of that putative claim.
Speaking of the disposition of her father’s case, he disclosed that both Corissa and Leon were in counseling, as a result of that old situation. So apparently the disposition of that case was not a factor, anymore. But when I said we should get the files on that case anyway, he pooh-poohed the idea. “It hasn’t got a thing to do with this case”, was all that he could say. Aaaargh! He still just didn’t get it. Or maybe it was me!
I asked Clayton about every possibility that I could think of: about using a Public Defender, (not Hummel) in conjunction with his service; about getting separate trials, for all the different counts; about asking some of the questions at the trial myself…
But none of my ideas impressed him. Nothing registered a blip.
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I decided that Utah’s low threshold of competence could work to my advantage. For if the threshold of competence is low, then wouldn’t that mean that Corissa herself could be held accountable—if she should commit a crime? And if she can be competent enough to be culpable for criminal activity, then surely she could be competent enough to consent to having sex! Ha, ha, I chuckled: I thought I had them hoist by their petard! But it was just more nervous laughter.
Clayton was unmoved by that thinking too.
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I wasn’t sure at what point I was being said to have detained Corissa: whether our whole outing was considered a detention, or just a part of it. But I suspected that Sammy had correctly laid his finger on that nerve. It was that by taking her up that hill I had arguably detained her: that at that point she might not have known “where we were going– or why”. Thus, she must have accompanied me by some force of authority then: I must have made her think she had no choice.
Well there they might have had a valid point. Valid, that is, if it had actually happened that way. But I had not urged her on against her will. Nor had she seemed opposed to the whole idea of the hike. I’d recalled her being enthusiastic, even– and smiling and beaming as I took her hand.
So I sent Clayton another missive. I argued that when Corissa and I had gone up that hill, that I was acting “in loco parentis”: that I was acting as a responsible guardian would have. I averred that I believed that my conduct was necessary to protect her from bodily harm. No, not “imminent” bodily harm, it’s true– but bodily harm nonetheless– from Leon.
He was left cold by that one too.
He said that if I did go to a Bench trial, and tried to in any way blame Corissa, that I would surely antagonize that Judge. In other words, I couldn’t risk telling him my story either. His view was that if I told the judge exactly what had happened, that I’d be “blaming” Corissa– and that my head would surely roll.
Talking to Clayton, of course, one would think that Judges are irascible despots, ever poised for antagonism by the slightest provocation. And I’d seen Clayton cringing before the Judge– so I suspect that he believed that himself. But maybe the Judge was not really such a curmudgeon, I thought. Maybe he just feels antagonized by Clayton. So I grew tired of the admonishment that I’d antagonize the Judge.
Still talking about Corissa, he said that we could hire an Expert Witness. But to do that, he said I should be prepared to spend at least $6000. He mentioned a couple of them he had worked with in the past. Then he said “We might be able to get one who will testify that Corissa is capable of forming some kind of intent”. His voice betrayed him there, for as he said those last four words it gushed with sympathy for the poor pathetic victim. That felt like another knife in my gut.
For the love of God, Clayton: “FORMING SOME KIND OF INTENT”? What was wrong with him?
But the answer was already clear: that Clayton and I had seen two entirely different people, in Corissa Mumford! Where he had seen a pathetic incompetent victim, I’d seen a spirited young woman! Where he was looked for capability to form intent, I saw strong-willed determination. Where he thought we needed to hire cringing mercenaries, I didn’t think we needed an Expert Witness at all. What I needed was an advocate– someone who passionately believed in my case! And Clayton was not it.
I needed a Lawyer.
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Days before leaving for our January appointment in Kanab, Clayton and I discussed Lind’s new deal again. But this time he denied that there was anything in it about a misdemeanor. I was sure that had been in there, though, so I asked him to check again. Well he did so, and then said nope again. So I was encouraged– and perplexed. Had there been a misunderstanding? Another misunderstanding, that is? Or had Lind come down again– but Clayton had forgotten to tell me?
We continued talking about my case for 45 more minutes. I became tempted by the new deal then– for I was close to cracking. But suddenly Clayton stopped and said “Oh wait– you were right”. He meant about the misdemeanor. Oh God almighty, Clayton– it had been in front of him all along! Utterly disgusted, I asked him “How could we have come this far in this conversation without you knowing that?”
His answer was “Well you have it written down too”
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Quite possibly Clayton thought I was insane. Maybe he wouldn’t have been far off either, if he had. But I was also determined: I still knew better than everybody about the merits of my case- and I refused to roll. That’s probably obvious by now. Besides, after having exhaustively researched the statutes, I knew that I was right. You know that too. But I needed to be represented by someone who understood the merits of my case. Out of options, I had to go with Wally.
In January I called Wally again to see if he was still available. He was. So I approached my sister for the $7500 loan. I explained that there might be more.
She loaned it to me, and I straightaway paid Wally.
And then I read a whole book through– for the first time in months. Hallelujah!
