How to Prosecute a Rapist, Part 2: How not to interview rape victims. (Part 1)

So,

I left off discussing how bad the opening statements were. It's bad enough we as a jury couldn't discuss the case, it's worse that we had someone to complain about and we couldn't even do it. But that's the system, we don't control that.

The first three witnesses in the case were Mario Villa's victims. I believe it was the actual victim for this case first, then two previous victims who testified for modus operandi and identification purposes.

For those of you not in the know, apparently when you have a multiple felon you can admit previous crimes, or other previous incidents into the trial but not as evidence counting against the specific charges against the defendant. It only counts for:

• defendant's proclivity to commit such crimes
• defendant's modus operandi (mo, his style)
• identifying the defendant

So, first witness was the woman that this proceeding was for. Sge walked up with tissues in hand, obviously distraught and crying, raised her right hand, and sat down.

The prosecutor (there were two, one younger woman, maybe 35-45, and one older, shorter, and ... someone that preferred to cake on their makeup aged around 50-60) who I'll define as the "older" one got up there, asked her to spell out her name for the ladies and gentleman of the jury and proceeded to question her.

Oh wait,
Your honor, may I approach? I have tissues.
I believe she alre-...
(walks up anyway and places a tissue box in front of her, in the way of us seeing the victim)

Ok, annoying, and I believe the judge felt so also. It was pretty obvious even from that first small act that the only reason for walking up to give the victim tissues was to emphasize that she was crying to affect how we felt about her.

Here are a few words of advice for you attorneys out there:

If you're questioning a victim that's gone through a terrible ordeal and is still strong enough to testify, make sure she has tissues, water, whatever she needs before she gets to the stand.

When you're questioning a victim that's obviously distraught, crying, or otherwise not in a good state, you don't need to show us that. We know. We're people, when one person sees another human being in pain, most of the time they want to reach out and comfort that other person. That goes triple for rape victims. Please don't give us signposts to that fact. WE KNOW SHE IS HURTING. WE FEEL FOR HER.

Anyway, continuing past that little point of legal theater, the older prosecutor went on to question the victim. Except she didn't so much question as make statements in pidgin legalese that require a yes or no answer, then move on while interrupting the witness as she's attempting to give more details. For example:

When I want to ask someone what they did before they arrived home and what their bedtime routine was, whether there was any light on in the house and whether there were any windows open and whether their front door was locked (all relating directly to the charge of Home Invasion, and to the ability to identify the defendant), I'd say

"So, on the night of February 7, 2004, you shopped for groceries and went home, correct?"
"Yes."
"Tell us when you got home, what you did, how you prepared for bed, and went you went to sleep."
"I arrived home around 9:30pm, put away my groceries, went upstairs, got ready for bed, and went to sleep around 10:15."
"Did you lock your door after you arrived home?"
"Yes."
"Did you leave any lights on?
"No, I turned them all off."
"Was there another source of light you didn't turn off?"
"Yes, a street light was directly outside my window, I left the blinds open so that it light shone through."
"Did you leave any windows open that night?"
"Yes, I left my downstairs windows open."

So at this point we've established she got home, lived in a two story apartment, went to bed with no lights on (but had light shining in from a street lamp), and had left a window open downstairs. This question and answering established a nice little narrative for a young woman arriving home after grocery shopping and going to bed feeling safe. This is what the prosecution wanted to show. Then I would have brought out pictures of the front of the first floor apartment, the opened window, the stairs leading upstairs, you know, simple things to illustrate what this guy would have had to go through to get in. I would have asked, "Is this the window you left open? Are these the stairs leading to your bedroom?" Then I would have walked by the jury and showed the pictures to them, briefly, but long enough for them to visualize her apartment.

That's now how questioning occured.

"Did you have the opportunity to go grocery shopping on February 7th, 2004?"
"Yes."
"Approximately what time did you get home on February 7th, 2004?"
"Around 9:30pm."
"What did you do when you arrived home on February 7th, 2004?"
"I put my groceries away."
"Then what did you do?"
"I went upstairs and got ready for bed."
"Did you have the opportunity to turn off all your lights?"
"... yes."
"Did you have the opportunity to lock your front door?"
"Yes."
"After you had the opportunity to turn of all your lights and lock your front door, did you then proceed to go to sleep?"
"Yes."
"Was there any light in your room?"
"Yes, from the street lamp outside of my bedroom."

Then came the exhibits...

"What is this a picture of?"
"That's the front of my house."
"I've marked this as state's exhibit 1 for identification purposes. Does this picture illustrate the front of your house in substantially the same condition as on February 7th, 2004?"
"Yes."
"What is this a picture of?"
"That's a closer picture of the front of my house."
(It happened to be the address numbers)
"I've marked this as state's exhibit 2 for identification purposes. Does this picture illustrate the front of your house in substantially the same condition as on February 7th, 2004?"
"Yes."
What is this a picture of?"
"That's a picture of the window I left open, the one the-"
"I've marked this as state's exhibit 3 for identification purposes. Does this picture illustrate the front of your house in substantially the same condition as on February 7th, 2004?"
"Yes."

This went on for about... 15 to 20 exhibits. Not with any explaining why they were showing the exhibits, and not with showing us ANY of the exhibits AT ALL. The older prosecutor literally brought up 15-20 pictures as exhibits, asked the same damned question every time, and interrupted her witness every time she tried to give a little more information that requested, as in something other than a "yes" or "no".

A few more words of advice to attorneys:

This applies to pretty much any witness, not just a rape victim. But when you're asking questions, I understand (and we as a jury understand) that there are going to be certain things you need to establish that we don't necessarily understand the need for (or we don't yet). But you can ask several questions at once and let the witness speak. Please... ask several questions at once and let the witness speak. Don't just ask questions that require a yes or no answer, especially if you want to emphasize that this witness is a very badly hurting human being who you want us to sympathize with. Treating her like a robot, speaking like a robot, and not letting us hear a narrative does not help your case.

When presenting exhibits, please show them to the jury. We want to see them.

Please don't present 15 to 20 exhibits at once. Spurts of 3 to 5 are a good medium, and it allows us to see pictures as the witness is telling us about events. It also makes sure you don't skip ahead and show us pictures of a bloody tampon on the ground before we've heard the witness testify to that.

When you speak, don't close your eyes because you're trying to remember stuff. Be prepared, look at the witness when you're speaking to them, look interested, look engaged, look like you care.


So, questioning continues in the same style. "did you have an opportunity to..." "I'm going to interrupt you every second to lay out a story in pidgin legalese, please answer yes or no."

Ugh, terrible... and the rape victim is of course up there and she's crying, just wants to tell her story and get off the stand, and we sympathize with her, but we start hating the prosecutor.



So, conversely to the prosecutor's questioning, the defense attorney (Stone I believe) actually did a competent job of questioning the rape victim.
When I say competent I mean he did a great job of:

• not looking like an ass
• being sympathetic, yet still asking quick and to the point questions about specific facts.
• acknowledging that something terrible happened and that he's sorry
• listening to answers, waiting until they're finished to ask the next question
• keeping it brief

While overall I was not impressed with the defense attorney, at this stage of the trial he did a "pretty good job" (tm).


He still probably should have been more picky at the jury selection stage... I just think he wasn't trying. :)


Oh, by the way:
Article on the Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-chicago-rapefeb08,1,3390796.story

The two state's attorney's (I don't know which is which yet) are:

Assistant State's Atty. Patricia Shea
(No picture available yet)
I previously referred to her as the "older one".

Assistant State's Atty. Shauna Boliker

She was definitely the better of the two. I previously referred to her as the "younger one".


Apparently ASA Shauner Boliker is also prosecuting the R. Kelly "pissing on you" child pornography case.

The defense attorney was:

Jed Stone, Stone & Associates, L.L.C.

Apparently he's made some "World Can't Wait: Drive out the Bush Regime" speeches. I'm linking to one here:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5585713256770995112


I say defense attorney because even though they were two, the "second chair" defense attorney, John Curnyn never spoke. I don't hold it against him or anything, but we really only saw Jed Stone in action.

By the way, no one questioned the jury on the way out! none of the attorneys bothered asking us why we did what we did. I know one of the beauties of jury duty is not having to explain a guilty / not guilty verdict, but man... Anyway, I'll get to that in another post. This one's rivaling chapter length and I'm only a few hours into the trial.