Jodie Picoult - Salem Falls

“Is it unusual to find no lesions or bruising or abnormalities inside a patient who has reported a violent sexual assault?”

“No,” the doctor said. “Sometimes you get bruising; sometimes you don’t. The vagina is made for sexual intercourse and, quite frankly, can withstand an awful lot. Often traumatic intercourse can occur without leaving behind any visible vaginal proof.”

“So how can you tell if someone’s had intercourse?”

“Only by the presence of semen. However, its absence doesn’t rule out intercourse, either. A condom could have been involved. A man might have had a vasectomy.”

“Did you examine any other area, Doctor?”

“Yes. I examined the patient’s thighs and groin.”

“What did you find?”

“With an ultraviolet lamp, I detected the presence of what appeared to be semen.”

“What did you do?”

“I took a sterile swab from a sexual assault evidence recovery kit and swabbed the area.”

“What did you do with it?”

“I put the swab in the paper envelope included in the kit. I wrote my name and the date and the patient’s name on it, then sealed it and put my initials over the seal.”

“Did you take any other physical evidence from Gillian that night?”

“Yes. I did a pubic hair combing and put the evidence in the kit. I clipped her fingernails and collected each one in a separate, sterile white paper envelope, which was also included in the kit. Finally, I drew blood from the patient for a known sample, marked it, and put it in the kit.”

“After you marked and sealed all these envelopes and swabs and vials, what did you do with the kit?”

“I handed it to Detective Saxton, who had brought the patient in.”

“Between the time you collected all of this evidence and the time you turned it over to the detective, did anyone else have access to it?”

“No.”

“Did you treat Gillian?”

“Yes. We gave her a heavy dose of antibiotics to protect against venereal disease, and a pill to prevent pregnancy.”

Matt crossed to stand in front of the jury. “Dr. Paulson, when you first walked into the ER cubicle . . . when you first saw Gillian . . . what did she look like?”

For the first time during her testimony, the doctor’s professional demeanor slipped. “Very pale, and quiet. Lethargic. She was skittish, too, about having me touch her.”

“Is that behavior you’ve seen before in your line of work?”

“Unfortunately, it is,” Dr. Paulson admitted. “In victims of sexual abuse and sexual assault.”

“If there’s no semen in the vagina, Doctor, you can’t tell from a pelvic exam if someone has recently had intercourse . . . right?”

Dr. Paulson regarded Jordan coolly. “No, you can’t.”

“And there wasn’t any semen visible during Gillian’s pelvic exam?”

“No, there wasn’t.”

“Isn’t it also true that you didn’t find any bruising inside Gillian’s vagina?”

“That’s right.”

“You didn’t find any bruising on her external genitalia?”

“No.”

“Did you find bruises on her face?”

“No.”

“Her neck?”

“No.”

“How about her upper arm, or her thighs?”

“No. Only on her right wrist, Mr. McAfee.”

Jordan crossed to the jury box. “You found semen on Ms. Duncan’s inner thigh?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know that this victim had reported to Detective Saxton that she was sexually active at the time this happened?”

“That wasn’t part of my exam,” Dr. Paulson said.

“So you have no way of knowing if that semen you swabbed from Gillian Duncan’s thigh had anything to do with this alleged assault or with some other man she had sexual relations with recently.”

“No.”

“Doctor, isn’t it true that there is no physical evidence that conclusively supports Ms. Duncan’s claim of being subjected to violent sexual intercourse that night? That all we really have is what Gillian said happened?”

“That’s correct.”

“Do you have any way of knowing whether she was lying?”

Dr. Paulson shook her head. “I don’t.”

Whitney O’Neill was a nervous wreck. She kept chewing her fingernails, to the point where Jordan expected them to bleed at any moment. It was a small miracle, in fact, that she’d even made it through the direct examination. “So ten seconds after you left the clearing with Meg and Chelsea, you called out to Gillian?” Jordan said, wanting clarification.

Whitney bit her lower lip. “Yeah, but she didn’t answer.”

“No one had suggested, prior to her departure, that she stay with you? Do some kind of buddy system?”

“No,” Whitney said.

“How much longer after you called out to her did Gillian come running up to you?”

“Um, maybe like another ten or fifteen minutes.”

Jordan walked up to the map Matt had brought. “Do you know how far it is from the edge of the cemetery to the point where you and your friends lit the bonfire?”

“No.”

“Fifty-two yards, Ms. O’Neill. That’s half the length of a football field.” Jordan took a few steps forward. “Do you have any idea how incredibly slow you’d have to walk in order for it to take fifteen minutes to cover fifty yards of ground?”

“I, um, it may-”

“You could have been blindfolded, going backward in crab walk, and it would take you five minutes, at the most.”

“Objection,” Matt sighed. “He’s badgering my witness.”

“Have a care, Mr. McAfee,” said the judge.

“My apologies,” Jordan told the girl, but anyone could see he wasn’t all that sorry.

“Maybe it didn’t take fifteen minutes, exactly,” Whitney whispered.

“Are you telling me that you lied a minute ago? Under oath?”

Whitney blanched. “No. I mean, it just felt like forever. Or about fifteen minutes.”

Jordan shrugged. “You know what? Let’s compromise. Let’s say it took ten. Does that seem fair?”

The girl nodded vigorously.

“While it was taking you ten minutes to walk the fifty-two yards, your friend was supposedly within fifty-two yards of you, being assaulted. Given that extremely brief distance, don’t you think you might have heard something going on?”

Whitney swallowed. “I didn’t. It was too far away.”

“You didn’t hear your friend calling out?”

“No.”

“You didn’t hear branches breaking? Or a scuffle?”

“No.”

Jordan stared at her for a moment. Then he asked for permission to approach the bench. “Judge, I’d like a little leeway for a physical demonstration.”

Judge Justice narrowed her eyes. “Mental browbeating isn’t enough?”

“I’d like to make this particular point a little more realistic for the jury.”

“Your Honor,” Matt said, “it’s completely inappropriate for Mr. McAfee to re-create the scenario that night.”

The judge looked from one man to the other, then to the witness cowering on the stand. “You know, Mr. Houlihan, I’m gonna allow this. Go ahead, Mr. McAfee.”

Jordan took a yardstick from Selena in the gallery. “I’m just going to measure off fifty-two yards,” he explained. He paced his way down the aisle of the courtroom, through the double doors, and into the lobby. Conversation stopped as he continued past the banks of blue chairs and the office of the clerk of the court and a few vending machines. Finally, he rapped the yardstick on the floor and peered down the straight course, to where the witness sat. “Ms. O’Neill,” he called, “can you hear me?”

He saw her nod her head, saw her lips form the word yes.

Jordan strode back to the courtroom. “Thank you,” he said. “That’s all.”