David Kessler - No Way Out

“I knew that if I followed through with the accusation I’d be subjected to this sort of thing… and…”

“ What sort of thing.”

“Like… this… ”

The tears were flowing again.

“Oh you mean cross-examination.”

“ Yes ,” said Bethel in a little-girl voice, her eyes squinting to dam up the tears.

“But isn’t that my job ?”

“Yes.”

The voice was almost a whine by now.

“So you were afraid because you knew the prosecutor would do his or her job?”

“I was afraid of how he’d make me seem.”

“And how was that Miss Newton?”

“Like a slut.”

“Why do you think he’d make you seem like a slut?”

“Because that’s what they do.”

“They?” asked Andi, raising his eyebrows.

“Lawyers. Defense lawyers.”

“Is it only defense lawyers who do that sort of thing Miss Newton?”

At the prosecution table, Sarah Jensen tensed up. She knew that Andi was leading Bethel into dangerous territory, and she could object. But she couldn’t afford to let it seem to the jury as if she was protecting the witness from being tested. So she held back. With any luck Andi would just create sympathy for Bethel by attacking her in this way.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Oh I think you do. Didn’t the boys in your high school vote you the “slut of the year” in their student magazine poll?”

“Yes,” she cried, sobbing bitterly into her handkerchief. “But I wasn’t like that at all. I wasn’t a slut. It was just the boys being silly.”

“But they evidently thought it was true Miss Newton.”

Sarah Jensen finally rose to her feet like an avenging angel, realizing that she had let it go on too long.

“Your Honor,” this is hardly relevant to the proceedings. The witness objected to the way the boys had characterized her even at the time .”

“That may be,Your Honor,” Andi responded, “but the witness’s past behavior pertains to her veracity.”

Sarah Jensen tried again.

“That may be relevant to the previous rape accusation, Your Honor. But how the victim was characterized by others is another matter. This poll was done in a high school by a group of adolescent boys. It merely reflects the adolescent boys’ mentality . It hardly represents reliable evidence of the victim’s past behavior .”

Justice Wagner hesitated. After a few seconds, she spoke slowly.

“It may not be the most reliable evidence Ms Jensen, but it is evidence.”

“But it is not evidence of a form that permits cross-examination. If defense counsel wants to introduce this evidence, she should call the author of the student magazine article and the rules of hearsay evidence should be strictly applied.”

“That would surely restrict the content of his testimony to the point of rendering it worthless,” said the judge.

“In that case, let defense council call the boys who answered the opinion poll.”

“That would be extremely impractical Ms Jensen.”

“In that case I reiterate my objection to the evidence. If this evidence is deemed to be relevant, then at least it should be admitted in a form that lends itself to the test of cross-examination of its sources.”

“No I don’t agree Ms Jensen. I think it’s important to protect the accused’s right to a fair trial, and that includes testing this witness’s testimony, by allowing defense counsel to put these points to her,

Sarah Jensen sat down, frustrated. Emboldened by the judge’s decision, Andi pressed her advantage home, determined to make up for the earlier debacle about the Justice Compton decision.

“Miss Newton,” Andi continued. “Can you think of any reason why fifteen boys should unanimously vote you “Slut of the year”?”

“Because they’re a bunch of fuckin’ creeps!” she cried sobbing profusely.

“And is it not true, Miss Newton, that you took part in a student charity event dressed as a slave girl?”

“Yes,” she said, continuing to cry. She had been dressed more modestly than a girl — or man — on the beach. But in court it sounded so different from the reality.

“And on another occasion did you not appear as a stripogram”

“It was a kiss ogram!”

The court erupted into laughter, crushing her with the weight of total humiliation. She had tried to put the matter into context, to counter the poisonous seeds that this greasy shyster was sowing. But in retrospect, arguing over the terminology sounded farcical.

At the defense table, Claymore lowered his head and stared at the table in front of him, unable to watch what was unfolding before his eyes. But no one noticed Claymore. The last thing everyone remembered of that session, was Bethel Newton’s face with the tears of humiliation streaming down her cheeks. And amidst all the politics and legal shenanigans, it was all too easy to forget that this was a human being.

But no one looked at Andi, either. If they had, they would have noticed that she too was crying.

“You know that according to Bethel’s statement about Orlando, he assaulted her with one end of a little league baseball bat?”

Andi and Alex were in the car, driving back to the office across the Bay Bridge to finish some paperwork. The atmosphere was tense. They had been sitting there in stony silence until Andi broke the silence with her hint of moral criticism.

“I know,” said Alex, uncomfortably.

“And you also know that Orlando forced her to perform several sexual acts while threatening to bust head open.”

“I know she said he did,” Alex replied, still not giving anything away by his tone.

“And you think she made all that up?” asked Andi, contemptuously.

Alex shrugged. Andi spoke again.

“You know that another girl came forward at the time of the Orlando case and confirmed that Orlando had done the same thing to her?”

“Yes.”

“She said he pulled her hair and treated her like a rag doll, just like Bethel Newton said.”

“So?”

“And he boasted to her about having assaulted other girls and threatened to ‘rearrange her face’ if she told anyone. Do you think they both made it up?”

“How do you know all this?” asked Alex glancing sideways briefly to assess what she was thinking by the look on her face.

“It’s in the report. Pity you didn’t bother to read it.”

Alex’s face was neutral.

“I did read it,” he said coolly.

Alex kept his eyes on the road, but when he turned to check his blind spot she saw that the neutral expression had given way to feint trace of an embarrassed smile.

“You bastard,” she said coldly.

It was too quiet for anger; too lacking in intensity for passion. It was revulsion; the sort of revulsion one might feel towards an old piece of decomposing food. She turned her face to the road, unable to bear the sight of him any longer.

“We’re up against a century-old stereotype,” said Alex, “the black man as sex-driven predator who goes hunting for white women to violate. We have to counter that stereotype any which way we can — even if it means fighting dirty.”

“You’re still living in the past, Alex. That stereotype died with To Kill a Mockingbird . It’s been replaced by another stereotype, and one that’s no less pernicious: the lying woman who consents the night before and then screams rape the morning after.”

“The trial of Elias Claymore crossed an important milestone today as alleged rape victim Bethel Newton was subjected to a grueling cross-examination by defense co-counsel Andromeda Phoenix on the second day of the trial.”