Driscoll Trial: Sixth Day

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2009

Trial: Sixth Day

" You’re so funny. You think I’m smarter than I am.”
~ Prosecutor Jody Vaughan, talking to Defense Attorney Ted Coran.

Indeed Jody, perhaps we did.

The morning started a little late. There were high school kids from some sort of field trip filling the courtrooms. Stress was at an all time high. I guess I should have known today would be a day to remember… but I just had no idea. The defense started by showing the jury the video of Melissa’s original statement to Detective Chris Wick. Laughter filled the courtroom, and no, it wasn’t from the kids… it was Melissa herself, on video. Believe me; it is as ridiculous in person as it sounds in writing. Jody of course objected a few days ago, when Mr. Coran made it known he wished to show it, but the judge allowed it as long as we removed any mention of her previous sexual “bad acts”. Fair enough, consider it done. After giving the prosecution a copy of the video, Jody asked the defense to please make a few more changes… she wanted us to remove the part Melissa says her and Patrick Murphy are just friends… and all the laughter. I know most of you haven’t seen this but it is 90% of the video. It shows Melissa laughing about her description of her “attacker”, Melissa laughing about how she got a ride from one bar to another by a complete male stranger she’d met that night before meeting up with Dennis and heading to Kevin’s. It shows her laughing about her “rapist” telling her he will never let her leave. She laughs about telling Kevin she has a husband and a boyfriend…the list goes on and on, but I think you get the picture.

The jury left the room, and the judge asked both sides what their plans were, Jody told the judge she had 3 witnesses left to rebuttal our witness Dr. Terri Haddix, and to talk about rape & sexual assault victims. Mr. Coran said he wanted to ask Melissa a few more questions after seeing the video to clarify her statement… then the defense will rest. Jody’s jaw dropped. Literally to the floor. I knew it was coming and I was staring at her waiting for her response. Her brain short circuited. She’d already subpoenaed witnesses from out of town to rebuttal Kevin taking the stand; she’d been waiting to tear him apart. She wasn’t getting that opportunity. Regardless of what you read, please trust me that this was the best part of the day.

In the interest of saving us tax payers money, and not keeping a hired witness waiting. Jody called Dr. Richard Fixott to rebuttal our forensic pathologist Dr. Haddix. Dr. Richard Fixott, is a dentist and a forensic odontologist in Redmond, OR. He has an extensive resume and frankly, I expected him to have something to say in regards to the “bite mark” on Melissa’s chest. Detective Wick found him at 8:00am yesterday morning. He wasn’t made aware of the case. He said the cluster of bruises could be the size and shape of teeth, but could not be certain on any level that it was indeed a bite. The only thing he would say for certain was that he could not exclude the mark as a bite. He knew that when Melissa claimed she was repeatedly bitten in the same place, she and Kevin were face to face (however, he did not know they were in the middle of sex), he also had no idea the height difference between Melissa (5’3-5’4) and Kevin (6’5) and came up with a way that the bite could have taken place; Melissa, flat on her back, Kevin turning his head to the side and biting with the side of his mouth. (again, the difference in height… Kevin would have also had to have somehow bent his body in half to shrink himself down to that level. Even he didn’t buy his own concocted story. I kind of felt bad for him, he seems like a very smart guy, just got roped into a bad situation. But then it went from bad to worse, Jody had the guy demonstrate on her, how Kevin would have had to been positioned to bite her in that manor!!! (they were standing of course, BUT STILL!!!) The entire room laughed at the sight. Oh dear me… this day just keeps getting better.

Okay, back to the defense, after some arguing and disputing, it was decided that Mr. Coran would be able to recall Melissa to the stand to ask her 4 questions regarding her interview with Detective Wick on March 31, 2009.

1.)Did you tell Det. Wick that you left several things out of your initial report in January? YES

2.)Did you tell Det. Wick it was because you thought the information left out would possibly be brought up in trial at a future date? YES

3.)Did you tell him that you were dating Patrick Murphy at the time of the report? YES

4.)Did you tell Det. Wick you were embarrassed to tell Patrick Murphy that you had unprotected, consensual sex with another man that night? YES.

It is now clearly on record, Melissa is a liar. She lied under oath, and the jury knows it. It’s on record.

Defense Rests, your honor. But don’t be sad my friends, the fun is not over yet. It got better. In the words of Melissa in describing her “rape”, things got “way crazy” in the courtroom.

Deanna St. Germain, a Physician at Kids Center (a child abuse center in Bend, OR) took the stand. She was going to prove that there is no way to date bruises. She spent 3 minutes talking about her qualifications… and it was funny because she never said anything about, I don’t know, GRADUATING MED SCHOOL. Basically, she is a physician and a glorified chiropractor. For the next 20 minutes or so, she regurgitated word for word what our EXPERT, Dr. Terri Haddix said on Friday. She then read excerpts from about 4 articles talking about bruise dating in pediatrics… She had a few posters with the literature written on it, I am assuming to let the jury know that someone actually wrote this and she wasn’t making it up… I don’t know, it was pointless. The most interesting thing that came out of her mouth during this recital was when she stopped reading to clarify to the jury that some of the research came from England, Brittan, Australia etc., and they spelled the word COLOR, COLOUR… and that is not how she spells it. Thank you Deanna, I’m glad you cleared that right up for us. She went on to say that yellowing of bruises has never been found in bruises less than 18 hours, and then read another article that stated 24 hours. HELLO… MCFLY… We are talking about 7-10 hours… and there was distinct yellowing on over a handful… SO, OBVIOUSLY, THOSE ARE INDEED OLDER THAN 24hrs. Jody then asked Deanna, to talk about the stages of a bruise and how it starts, her own witness replied I don’t know, I didn’t read that in an article. You can read that again if you want to, but I can assure you that you read it right the first time. She hadn’t read the answer in one of her 4 articles she submitted to the prosecution so she simply didn’t know the answer. BRILLIANT JODY. Great witness. (Dr. Terri Haddix, did a great job to explain this to a jury and if any of you are curious, I’d be happy to give details… as some of us are aware of the basic lifestyle of a bruise.) The first question of her cross exam was about her education… I mean, she was represented as a doctor when she was called as a witness, and as far as I know, doctors have to go to doctor school, but I guess if her credentials are good enough for Jody, then they should be good enough for the jury. She went on to tell the defense that she doesn’t think she has ever looked at a bruise on a cellular level and if she did it would have been 26 years ago while in college. She also made it clear that she has never testified on behalf of the defense, but has for the prosecution (in another town) around 300 times. Deanna went on to say that dating bruises is an outdated practice. She was quoting something from her “favorite” of the 4 articles, written in 2002, that just said you can’t date beyond a 24hr. increments. However, in an article that was written two years later, it seemed to give a thumbs up to dating bruises, even when not considering the other elements besides the COLOUR. I scratched my head after she was done on the witness stand… For a minute I thought maybe just testified for us?

Moving on, I wish, if just for a second, one of you MRA’s could have been in the courtroom for the next witness. I’m quite certain she is the poster child for all that you despise. I recorded the testimony, but it doesn’t do justice the 3 ring circus that broke loose late this afternoon. I’m still a bit mind boggled WHY ON EARTH Jody called Dara Pearson, of Saving Grace (a shelter for battered women & domestic violence) as a witness for this case. The relevance for what she had to say was ZERO. For some of you, I think that is enough said regarding her testimony, but I must fill you in on what happened… It’s definitely a “ya shouldda been there”, but I will do my best to highlight some of the finer points of the interview. The woman was bat shit crazy and a prime example of why you don’t do acid while pregnant. Every single word she spoke was looong and drawwwn out and followed with a facial expression that reminded me of a rat sniffing out some cheese. Jody asked her to talk about how a typical victim would act after a rape. Dara talked about fight or flight and “freezing” when the person’s brain shuts down and prevents them from functioning or thinking. Jody asked her a hypothetical question about what was her opinion of a victim… excuse me, a survivor… who is seen partying at the bar a month after their rape. I’m pretty sure Jody was doing her best not to jump the table and strangle this woman herself, after the 3rd time she had to re-explain the question… only to find out that Dara understood it the first time… just didn’t realize “survivors were not allowed to go out” was relevant. Jody asked her what her opinion would be if a “victim” was laughing and she said that unfortunately when women choose to go forward to the police too early, they are rushed from their process of healing and are likely to laugh. Laughing about an attack is a normal response. Laughing about being scared for your life is normal. Laughing about describing your attacker is okay. Good Grief. I would like to say that her testimony did not require a cross, but Ooh did she get one. In “essence”, she was ripped apart to the point of destruction and I don’t think Jody even cared. Mr. Coran asked her about her qualifications. She is an “Intern Counselor” meaning she is STILL IN COLLEGE AND REQUIRES SUPERVISION. She has NEVER testified in a rape case before and has only handled about 8 rape cases in the past 6 years. She has never read a word about this case, not the police report, not the interview with Melissa, Not anything. But somehow in all her wisdom and brilliance, Jody thought it would be a good idea for the jury to hear this woman speak. WRONG! She got in an argument with the defense about the pronunciation of a word in order to avoid answering his questions. And when she was allowed to step down from the witness stand, she glared at everyone and stormed out. I’m fairly certain that at this exact moment Dara Pearson is sitting at home poking needles in the eyes of a doll doing some weird séance with all her liberal lesbian friends praying for the demise of mankind. Kinda makes a girl giggle.

In her desperation to regain control of her case, Jody called Detective Chris Wick to the witness stand. She had him re-read Dennis Bakers statement to the police, the one that Dennis stated was inaccurate to what they said, and explained that they made several attempts to talk to him, but he was not forth coming with information and never spoke to them after the initial photo lineup. This was really brief… maybe 5 minutes in total. Team Kevin was left scratching our heads to the relevance of this. Yeah, it didn’t look good for the prosecution that Dennis basically said they fabricated his statement, but it was such a minute detail they were disputing (whether or not he said Kevin was 6’4 -6’5) that I don’t think the jury really cared about it… so why were they making it into a big deal? After some conversation on the matter, we think maybe Jody was trying to leave herself an out if this goes bad for her… maybe she was trying to point out that if Dennis would have given them more information, they wouldn’t have gone after Kevin the way they did. Now, we all know Jody isn’t going to give up… but it was a nice sentiment I guess… and a nice cover for her ass.

At this point, I half expected Jody to call her good friend “Tom Foolery” to the witness stand next, but fortunately for the sanity of everyone in the court room, the prosecution rested.

The defense was ready to go into closing arguments today, however, the judge for his own reasons decided to hold off on them and jury deliberations until next TUESDAY. That was the one shitty thing that happened today. If the jury would have gone into deliberations immediately following Jody’s last witness… I am confident of the verdict. The astronomical amount of smirking, eye rolling, and smiling was a good tell of what they were thinking… I think they were annoyed with Jody for wasting their time with useless testimony and I worry a little the 4 day weekend will give them time to forget what they’ve been hearing and cool off. I strongly feel that Ted Coran has done an incredible job handling this case and the shenanigans thrown his way and have 100% faith in him he will deliver a closing argument that will leave a lasting impression in the minds of the jury… but, I am not going to put the cart before the horse. Kevin is doing as good as can be expected. There was some definite disappointment with the judge’s decision to hold off on ending all this, but I do think some confidence was gained and for that I am grateful. It’s about time Kevin get’s his life back.

This will be the last update until next Tuesday, when I will hopefully be updating you with a simple & sweet NOT GUILTY. Please keep Kevin in your thoughts and prayers for the next 4 days. He can definitely use the support. Once again, and as always, thank you thank you thank you, for all your care and concern and interest. All of you posting, commenting and reading are truly helping Kevin to get through this one day at a time.