I had arrived at this employ almost
accidentally, as I had set my sights on a second career in television
production after leaving active duty with the U.S. Navy after
Operation Desert Storm. I had, in fact, been working as a videotape
operator in North Hollywood in 1992-93 as I awaited the dissolution
of my first marriage only to discover that, with the ex-wife and two
preschool daughters living 1,500 miles away in Missouri, I would only
be seeing my children for maybe three weeks out of the year.
Given my location, the possibility of
becoming the prototypical “Disneyland Dad” loomed large, so I
upped and moved, in true reverse “Beverly Hillbillies” style,
away from Californ-i-ay to Missouri.
As I had expected, gaining work in the
entertainment industry in a place like Kansas City was a longshot and
I was soon scanning the classifieds for other work when I spotted an
opening at a newspaper in Richmond, a town I knew to be a mere two
dozen miles from my children.
I didn’t relish the idea of returning
to newspaper work. My experience in the Philippines with Pacific
Stars and Stripes had pretty much left me sour on the whole print
journalism business. But I’d already made the biggest sacrifice
shifting from the coast, why not see what the job was about?
As it turned out, I went for an
interview and was pretty much hired on the spot (thanks in large part
to an off-hand critique of a photograph) and soon found myself
working the general news beat in Richmond, MO.; pop. 4,545.
I have always enjoyed the irony when
someone discovers a task they enjoy only after being forced by
circumstance to do something they resisted. This is precisely what
happened in Richmond. Despite a meager paycheck, erratic hours
covering almost every municipal meeting known to mankind from zoning
to school boards, and a news team that consisted entirely of myself,
a sports editor and a managing editor I spent more time educating
than listening to, I found myself genuinely enjoying small-town
journalism.
Adding to the irony was that fact I’d
literally begun my working life working for a small-town newspaper,
The Pepperell Free Press. Of course, I was 13 at the time and
delivering the small weekly around town, but it was a community
newspaper all the same.
In Richmond, I soon found myself being
recognized for the articles I’d written in the paper. More often
than not I would be stopped around town by people wanting to comment
on my weekly “One Man’s Opinion” columns in which I’d rant
about issues, interesting people I’d met, things I’d done or
simply anything that stuck in my craw that week.
It was this column that brings me to
the subject of this chapter, the “Jane Doe” trial. (In earlier
incarnations of this tale I used this woman's actual name but have
decided to go with “Jane Doe” for reasons that will become
apparent shortly.)
The whole thing began as a fairly
straightforward, if a bit sad, news story. What happened was that
Jane Doe, a young married woman about 20 years old, had been
babysitting her 16-month-old niece when the child suffered second-
and third-degree burns below her waist. The story that Doe told
emergency room personnel, and later police, was that she had
accidentally immersed the child’s lower extremities in a sink of
hot water to give her a bath and hadn’t realized how hot the water
was.
Her story, if you’ll pardon the pun,
obviously didn’t hold water. For the damage to have been so extreme
(the child underwent several skin grafts and very nearly died in the
process), the water would have to have been very near the boiling
point.
So Jane Doe was arrested and charged
with criminal child endangerment.
As the local community reporter, I was
assigned to cover the trial.
From the start, it looked like this was
going to be an interesting trial. Facts soon came to light that Doe
was also babysitting other children at the time and changed her story
that the toddler somehow climbed up into the sink before the water
had a chance to cool properly.
The police had another version of the
story.
Based on photographs taken of the
child’s injuries, investigators determined there were “splash
marks” along the upper edges of the burns, indicating that the
child had tried to escape the scalding but had been held down in the
water. They also learned that Doe had taken the child to the
emergency room only after placing the child, still naked from the
waist down, in a plastic car seat and the driving to her husband’s
workplace before finally taking the child to the hospital. It seemed
out of place for an adult so concerned with a child’s injuries to
have taken such a roundabout route for emergency medical treatment.
All of the above, of course, was
related in court during the preliminary hearing at which Doe had
entered a “not guilty” plea. As I recall, the courtroom was
fuller than usual largely, I thought, due to the newspaper coverage
of the charges that had been filed against Doe.
Throughout this hearing, Jane Doe did
her best to look the innocent victim.
But I had seen the police photographs
and she didn’t look so damned innocent to me.
At any rate, the charges were sustained
and a court date was set and I dutifully reported all the pertinent
details in the next edition of the Daily News.
Richmond was, quite naturally, abuzz
with the story of the Doe case. Everyone seemed to have an opinion,
but I decided to not hold forth in my own newspaper column until the
final court ruling. Then, and only then, I planned to share my
perspective on the story.
But then things began to get very
interesting. Citing local “media interest” (we were,
incidentally, very flattered), Doe’s attorney had petitioned the
court to try the case in another county. The judge agreed and the
trial was moved to nearby Carroll County, just two hours away.
I have no idea what they hoped to
achieve by this. Most people in Richmond had family members or
friends in Carroll County. But I suppose the defense attorney was
hoping it was being talked about a little less there and stood a
better chance of obtaining a softer penalty for his client.
The court date in Carroll County
arrived and I took a drive over to be there. Carrollton, the county
seat of Carroll County, was similar in size to Richmond, so there
were a number of similarities in the size of the courtroom and the
format of the proceedings. What surprised me was the brevity of the
whole affair.
You see, between the preliminary
hearing the court date, a deal had been struck between Doe’s
attorney and the court. In exchange for Doe changing her plea to
“guilty” to child endangerment, she would be sentenced to 20
years in the state penitentiary with a “120-day callback.”
While I was delighted to learn this
heartless harpy was finally admitting her guilt and facing a
two-decade stretch in state pokey, the “120-day callback” phrase
piqued my reporter’s curiosity. So I called the court clerk and
asked what it meant.
The answer I received galled me.
Despite admitting her guilt in the near-fatal disfigurement of her
own flesh and blood, the “120-day callback” meant that, after
serving 120 days (four months for the math-impaired) in prison, the
judge had the option of bringing a prisoner back into court.
If the judge was satisfied with the
prisoner’s behavior, he had the option of placing the prisoner on
supervised probation for a maximum of five years.
At the end of that period, the sentence
would be considered served.
This meant that Jane Doe, after
criminally mutilating her own niece to the point that the child could
never walk properly and have no expectation of a normal sex life,
would likely spend four months in prison, five years on parole
and then be a free woman.
All this after “accepting” a
20-year sentence for her crime.
I was incensed. My own daughters had
barely begun grade school. Such a fate for them that faced that poor
baby was beyond my imagining.
So I sat down and wrote a column for
the newspaper.
In this column I expressed my concern
that we were witnessing a miscarriage of justice in slow motion. How
the community was essentially turning their backs on the victim of
this crime. How the defense attorney should have trouble sleeping at
night. How it was beyond comprehension that these kinds of deals can
be struck out of sight of the community.
And then I listed the name, telephone
number and mailing address of the judge in Carroll County who
accepted the terms of the deal.
The final phase of the trial process
was the sentencing hearing that took place a full three weeks after
my column appeared in the newspaper. I was, of course, present when
the court convened.
It was all very familiar by now. The
judge in his robes, the stuffy courtroom, a virginal-looking Jane Doe
seated next to her beady-eyed attorney.
We all sat quietly as the judge,
peering over low-slung bifocals, directed Doe to stand and accept her
sentence. But first, she had to admit to the facts of the crime.
It was then that she admitted she had
placed the child in the boiling water.
She told the court that she was
exhausted from watching the children and how the 16-month-old was
crying and wouldn’t stop crying. So, in a fit of anger, she lifted
the child and held her down in the water by the shoulders. Only when
the child’s caterwauling changed to shrieks of howling pain did she
realize how hot the water really was.
She admitted she had dawdled taking the
child for medical treatment, stopping off to consult with her husband
in the process.
She expressed remorse but, for the life
of me, I could not see a hint of anything resembling remorse whenever
I looked into those eyes. All I saw was a mean-spirited little girl
who thought she was going to get away with something.
Then as Doe completed her statement,
something remarkable happened.
The judge, in pronouncing Doe’s
20-year sentence, explained that, as much as he appreciated her
admission of guilt, he could not, “in good conscience,” accept
the terms of the plea bargain. Jane Doe would therefore be sentenced
to 20 years with the possibility of parole after seven years.
It seems the judge had been receiving
some letters and phone calls of late and had experienced a change of
heart.
I relate all the above as a
justification for spending a number of years working at low-paying
jobs at local newspapers in and around Kansas City in the 1990s when
I actually should have been seeking out higher-paying jobs. But
nothing I have done since has brought me the kind of job satisfaction
that I felt when that judge changed his ruling and sent Jane Doe off
to prison for a minimum of seven years.
In closing, let me add this post
script.
Seven years after the Jane Doe trial I
found myself working at another community newspaper and had returned
briefly to Richmond to visit friends. During that visit I was
stalking the aisles of the local Wal-Mart (pretty much the height of
entertainment in those parts) when a young woman came up to me,
greeted me by name and told me that there had been a parole hearing
for “Jane.”.
Now, my memory isn’t the greatest so
I am amazed this woman didn’t comment on the blank expression I
gave her (I had long since put Jane Doe out of my mind).
Yet she continued to prattle on as if
we were the dearest of old friends.
What she told me both surprised and
delighted me.
It seems there had indeed been a parole
hearing for Jane Doe. At that hearing, where it was related that Doe
had been an exemplary inmate for the prior seven years, family
members of the young victim provided testimony to the parole board
about the lasting effect this crime had on the victim. And (God bless
‘em) each and every one of them carried copies of my news accounts
and my opinion column.
The upshot was that Jane Doe would not
see another chance for parole for at least another five years. And
it’s a pretty sure bet these folks will be at that hearing carrying
the same faded news clippings in an attempt to guarantee Doe serves
every day of her 20 years behind bars.
Now, tell me there is any other job on
the planet that can have that kind of impact and I will gladly eat my
hat.
