Gang-rape retrial needs dose of realism

JOSEPH N. BELL

I’ve dealt only briefly in this space with the local gang-rape case

-- I had to fight off calling it the Haidl rape case, a label several

Forum letter writers properly objected to -- mostly because so much

has already been written about it and will continue to be now that

the decision has been made for a second trial.

Then it occurred to me that the continuing vitriolic level of

public anger and outrage is, in itself, a matter worth examining.

Letters to the editor trash the jurors who came within one vote of

exonerating the three young men accused of the crime. The families of

the three defendants are repeatedly blistered. Public protests are

being planned during the second trial.

The anger this case has generated seems to have a life of its own.

It has not abated but increased with time. The participants on both

sides have enthusiastically contributed to this climate. The

defendants and their attorneys have waggled a symbolic index finger

in the face of society, flaunting their wealth with such excesses as

hiring jurors from the first trial to act as consultants to the

defense in the second. Greg Haidl has carried both arrogance and

stupidity to breathtaking heights by using his freedom on bail to

incite a new charge of statutory rape of a victim he allegedly met at

a party his father threw to celebrate the mistrial decision.

Meanwhile, the prosecutors -- who will probably never again have a

case handed them with a videotape of the crime being committed and

overwhelming public support for their efforts to convict -- botched

up the case in many creative ways, but three in particular. They

chose to prosecute charges carrying penalties any law student could

have predicted would never be imposed by a jury. And instead of

breaking the case down into three individual trials in which Haidl’s

behavior and visibility would be dealt with separately, they made the

job of the defense easier by lumping them together. They also were

reportedly overmatched in courtroom technique.

The prosecutors will correct two of these shortcomings in the

second trial. The defendants will still be tried as a group, but the

new charges are much more realistic, and a high-profile trial

attorney will beef up the prosecution team. Meanwhile, at this

writing, Greg Haidl is still at large but under judicial restraints,

most of which should have been self-imposed a long time ago.

Since I continue to be one of those angry, outraged people, I

decided to turn to my friendly, neighborhood shrink Joseph Pursch, to

ask why the community level of rage over this case continues to have

such strong legs?

He said such cases touch people in a wide variety of emotional

places “that make it almost impossible to get through their anger to

an objective view of what happened. This is especially frightening to

the parents of female children because it tells them they can no

longer expect that men -- and especially the peers of their children

-- will exercise either the strength or good sense to back away from

inappropriate sex that can escalate to sexual abuse.

“It also greatly upsets parents who really work at teaching their

children of both sexes responsible social behavior to see the

immature, spoiled children of the wealthy and powerful consistently

getting away with the opposite,” he said. “And that resentment grows

when the parent is a public official.

“It grows even more when the perpetrators become convinced that no

matter what they do, nothing bad will happen to them. You and I --

and hopefully our kids -- don’t do the things that entitlement

junkies do because we learn to tie our behavior to consequences. But

such junkies have learned from personal experience not to worry about

accountability because they have repeatedly gotten away with similar

behavior. So they do whatever they feel like doing.”

The testimony in our local gang-rape trial was full of examples of

such behavior. And as I read the daily accounts in the Pilot, two

questions began to nag at me with growing persistence.

First, have the parallels between the behavior of these three

defendants and the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in

Baghdad been apparent to anyone besides me? I’m aware that the victim

in the rape case was present by choice and the Abu Ghraib victims

were prisoners. But in both instances, the people holding the power

used it to humiliate victims. And in both instances, those in power

enjoyed this demeaning of another human being so gleefully that they

photographed it to share with their friends.

And, second, if the personal history of the victim in the local

rape case can be exhumed and trashed in open court, why isn’t the

antisocial behavior of Greg Haidl of equal significance in showing

motivation for his actions?

These are impractical and emotional questions that will have no

place in the new trial. Instead, once again, Pursch says “people will

be dealing with their own fears and saying that the victim could have

been my daughter. Or me. And agonizing over the propriety of putting

an alleged victim -- especially if she is underage -- in the position

of co-conspirator by asking if she could possibly have consented to

this sort of behavior.”

One question will surely be answered in the rerun of this sordid

mess: whether the lesson of accountability will penetrate the lives

of these three defendants, whatever the result. If any of them have

shown contrition or recognition that their behavior was

reprehensible, it has not been apparent in published reports. This,

of course, is the primary responsibility of their parents and not the

society in which they live.

Society enters the picture only if their behavior is criminal.

That’s what the second trial will once again address, hopefully from

a more realistic perspective.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.