Grif Stockley - Illegal Motion

“Mr.

Cross began his opening statement by rather eloquently imploring you to do your duty in this case and come to a conclusion, witness by witness, whether that person was telling the truth. Ladies and gentlemen, I think it is within the rules that I can tell you Judge Franklin will instruct you, in fancier words, that you weren’t expected to check your brains at the door. Nor is anybody asking you to have a religious experience and decide this case on faith.

Dade Cunningham will swear to you he didn’t force Robin Perry to have sex that October night, and Robin Perry will swear that he did, but in many respects their testimony will be identical. As I go through what I expect the witnesses to tell you, ask yourselves whose version of the events makes the most sense before you bite the bullet and decide who’s telling the truth and who’s not….”

I talk for thirteen minutes and don’t screw up any body’s name or forget any major detail. When I come back to the table, the expression on Dade’s face tells me I made a decent impression on him, anyway. Too bad he can’t vote.

Binkie calls as his first witness Robin’s roommate, Shannon Kennsit. It is a good choice. She is a slightly awkward-looking girl with a manner so engaging that you do not even notice she is as chunky as a jar of peanut butter. Shannon captivates the jury with her admitted weakness for the Razorbacks. Describing the time she first met Dade at the party on Happy Hollow Road, she can’t keep a smile off her round face.

“Robin threatened to give me a tranquilizer to calm me down! I can’t re member being more excited except for the night the Hogs beat Duke for the national championship. It was like going to meet somebody you knew you’d see playing in the pro bowl someday.”

Anticipating the direction I’d like to take this case on crossexamination, Binkie asks about Robin’s feelings for Dade. Shannon unselfconsciously tugs at the side of her mauve sweater to adjust her bra. This girl couldn’t be more relaxed than if we were seated in her room at the Chi Omega House.

“She said she liked him. I asked her once if she meant did she like him as a boyfriend, and she said just as a friend. She said he really tried in class, and she admired that. Lots of players don’t care about school, but she said Dade did, and she was glad to help him.”

As the most important witness (besides Robin) Binkie will call. Shannon is utterly believable, and she describes the moment that Robin’s crying woke her up with such genuine feeling that it is impossible not to be moved.

“She was already in bed when I came in about twelve and didn’t say anything, but about four I heard her crying.

She couldn’t stop, and I turned on the light. She looked awful! She was just crying and crying. I kept asking her what was wrong, and finally she said that Dade had raped her. I thought. Oh my God, how terrible! She’s got to go to the police or the hospital or someplace! But when I said this, she just shook her head.”

I close my eyes, realizing I have been affected by what I’ve just heard. There is no doubt in my mind (nor can there be in the jury’s) that Shannon is telling the truth.

Robin’s suffering was profound, at least to this girl. She has finally made her roommate and best friend real to me in a way that Robin herself has not. Why? All this time I’ve been able to think of Robin as an actress. What if she’s not? I glance at Dade. He is hunched over the table with his right hand over his eyes. I nudge him and he lowers the hand to his lap and sits up straighter, but it doesn’t matter. Nobody is watching him. From behind the podium, Binkie asks, “Why didn’t you wake up your housemother or call her parents?”

“She wouldn’t let me!” Shannon says, her voice anguished

“I wanted to, but she kept saying that nobody would believe that she had met him off campus just to study together. She said she was afraid that her parents would think she had been dating him. They’re real conservative

I glance quickly at the Perrys, who appear slightly dazed. What if I were Gerald Perry? I’d want to kill Dade.

“What happened then?” Binkie asks, like some second banana prompting a talk-show host.

“I continued to try to convince her that she had to go to the hospital. She kept saying he didn’t hurt her, but I told her it didn’t matter. She had to go tell somebody! Finally, about five-thirty she said okay, and I drove her to the hospital.”

“Did you see her that evening before she went over to the house on Happy Hollow Road?” Binkie asks.

Shannon presses her hands together under her chin as if this were a difficult question.

“I sat next to her at dinner that night and she told me later in the room she was going out to that same little house we went to in the spring so she could help Dade get ready for a speech in communi cations the next day. I wish I had said something or gone with her. Then it wouldn’t have happened.” Tears well up in her eyes. From the right sleeve of her sweater, she pulls out a tissue and dabs at her eyes.

I scan the transcript of the “J” Board hearing and her statement but find nothing inconsistent. Binkie asks her if she knows whether Robin had any alcohol before she left the sorority house.

“Not that I was aware of,” Shannon says, “and we were together from about five until she left around eight that night.”

“She smelled like wine!” Dade whispers fiercely in my ear.

I nod, not sure I believe him, since he has already lied to me on this subject.

Binkie asks if Robin described what Dade had done to her, but Shannon wrinkles her nose in distaste.

“I didn’t ask her. It seemed too personal. If she had wanted to tell me, I would have listened, but she was too upset to make her talk about something like that. I knew she’d have to go over it a million times anyway.”

Binkie keeps her on me stand for another ten minutes going on about the details of the time before she took Robin to the hospital, but according to Shannon she did most of the talking. Abruptly, Binkie announces, “Your witness.”

I take my time getting to the podium, wondering how honest this girl will be under crossexamination. I start off focusing on the party she attended in the spring.

“Did you talk to Dade the entire time?” I ask after a couple of preliminary questions.

“No, I talked to Harris and Tyrone and some to the two girls who were there. Tyrone actually wasn’t very nice,” Shannon sniffs.

So far I haven’t met anyone who is a member of Tyrone’s fan club.

“Do you remember if you were in the same room all the time with Dade?” I ask.

“No, he was in the kitchen part of the time talking to Robin,” Shannon says. This was a big event in her life.

She remembers it all.

I return to the table and pick up the “J” Board transcript.

“Do you recall saying in answer to a question at Dade’s disciplinary hearing in November that Robin was, and I’m quoting here, ‘kind of a private person’?”

“Yes, but we always talked about everything,” Shan non insists.

“She never told you the details of what happened between her and Dade the night she said she was raped by.

him, did she?” I ask.

“Not really,” Shannon says, her voice defensive.

“Just that he raped her.”

Suddenly, it hits me that Shannon probably is the type of person who didn’t want to know the details. She may not have ever really asked Robin, and this was why Binkie never got specific with her in his questioning. I tell the judge I have no more questions and sit down be side Dade.

Binkie confirms my suspicion by having no more questions for Shannon. He introduces Robin’s medical records through Joan Chestnut, the nurse from Memorial who saw Robin. Binkie and I have agreed that since Dr.