Life without Parole is a long time for Joanna Madonna

No police officer has ever stopped me on the street and frisked me. I've never been singled out by authorities because of how I look or who I am. My few encounters with law enforcement have been uneventful and non-threatening. But I have to admit, I see the justice system with new eyes after Joanna's conviction for first degree murder. 

It all feels arbitrary and unpredictable now. 

There was plenty of forensic evidence about the case. The prosecution presented every last item and photograph, with hours of testimony by professionals in one capacity or another. That's as it should be. Science. Facts. 

Underlying all the visible, measurable evidence lay interpretation and innuendo. In that realm, the prosecution was relentless. For a case in which two people were the only ones present, one of whom was beyond telling his story of what happened, the prosecutor relied on not just physical evidence, but calculated prejudice and character assassination. 

Jose Perez died in 2013. In order to make her case, the prosecutor was eager to point out that Joanna, though sober for 23 years, had a history of drug and alcohol abuse. That this was her third marriage. That each of her three daughters had a different father. That the trauma of three rapes in her teens and twenties were never reported to authorities, implying that she made it up. That she had had two abortions.

I don't repeat these because I want to cause Joanna or her family even more pain. The pain is out there on Youtube and nobody in this case escapes it. What struck me throughout the testimony, and especially during the closing arguments, was that Joanna was on trial for not meeting the feminine ideal. It was "slut-shaming" in its most hideous form. She might as well have been stripped naked in the courtroom and branded with a scarlet letter.

Was the fact that she had been raped germaine to this case? Yes, actually it was because it long ago set her up for PTSD. Unfortunately, that was not addressed by expert testimony, so the jury was urged to think that she was simply a "loose woman" with irrational behavior.

Much of the narrative of this case involved the ins and outs of addiction and recovery. As the jury was selected, each potential juror was questioned about their familiarity or experience with addiction. Most claimed to have none, or only tangential knowledge through friends of friends or distant family members. 

A jury of her peers.

The case also revolved around the difficult topic of intimate partner abuse. Not the kind that puts people in the hospital, the subtle kind. The psychological, controlling kind that often is found in a relationship between people with troubled pasts. The kind of abuse that arises from "chronic, habitual, pathological lying" as one of my exes used to call it, in reference to himself. It's a perfect dance until it escalates. Then it can turn ugly, or deadly.

None of the potential jurors said they had personal knowledge or knew anyone who had experienced intimate partner abuse. 

A jury of her peers.

In the end, the jury had a menu of choices. It wasn't all or nothing. They had 4 choices of a verdict, with diminishing consequences attached. They chose First Degree Murder in three hours. Joanna was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole and whisked off to prison.

I suppose you can take the Pollyanna view that at least she's not on death row. But the death penalty wasn't an option in this case. This is a sentence which satisfies the need for revenge, not only for the terrible death of Jose Perez, but for his wife's failure to be June Cleaver. It leaves the jurors with a clear conscience that justice has been meted out and they didn't have to be responsible for anybody's death.

Life in prison without possibility of parole is a death sentence. It just takes longer for it to play out.

Joanna, my friend, took another person's life. She told her story at length on the witness stand. She told of fear and blind panic as she felt like she was going to die. She claimed self defense and the jury didn't believe her. She has had trouble in her life, not unlike the trouble that millions of people have as they grow up and navigate adulthood. She overcame much of it. She had no record. No one claimed that she was a violent person, a danger to other people. 

We have a justice system based on retribution and punishment. It's not surprising. We have a society awash in violence, anger, and victimization. The "justice" system is an out-picturing of our collective id.

I'm learning about the movement for restorative justice. You can too.

Read about it here.

I Never Called it Rape

Fifty years ago today I was raped. I had just turned fifteen. It was my first sexual experience. 

We didn't have the word for date rape at that time. I thought it was my fault. I lived with not only the private shame, but was pilloried at school when my "boyfriend" of a few days bragged about it to all his friends. My father was called into the principal's office (he was a teacher) and told to get control of his daughter, or the whole family would be sent back to the States without him. I had publicly disgraced myself and my family and it was ALL MY FAULT.

I believed that, through two marriages and umpteen relationships. I believed that, through an addiction to  alcohol and drugs. I believed it through bouts of depression, years of therapy, consciousness raising and fist-pumping feminism. I lived with shame and defiance, bringing to all of my intimate relationships a need for power and control. I rarely let my guard down. I couldn't really trust that I wouldn't be hurt or left or held up to ridicule, so I simply closed off and held myself apart. I didn't talk about it for years, because I was too ashamed. 

The prevailing myth 50 years ago was that girls were in charge of NO. But (wink, wink, snicker) NO didn't really mean NO. It might mean maybe. It might mean sweep her off her feet and don't give her a choice. It might mean go ahead and push the limit and see what happend. Whatever the outcome though, it was the girl's fault for not enough NO. I hope it's not still that way, but I fear it is.

My 14-year-old self was awash with hormones and feelings. Aren't most teenagers? I was tantalyzed and curious, sizzling with fear and excitement. I loved the attention and affected a worldly persona I'd picked up from the movies and watching adults around me. I thought if boys liked me, it was because I was attractive and exciting and smart and sexy. I was very young. 

Those are characteristics of young adolescents, boys and girls alike. It plays out differently, but people of that age don't know what they're doing. They are, though they would protest long and loudly, kids.  By the time I turned 15, I wanted everybody to think I had it all figured out, and sometimes I even believed it myself. But I didn't.

The boy-child who got drunk and wouldn't stop was bigger than I, stronger than I, full of hormones and brashness. Nobody had taught him that no means no. Nobody had taught him that another person was involved, that he didn't have the right to use his strength to force himself on me. And I thought that since I let him in the door and kissed him, I had led him on beyond his control. If he disregarded my protestations and cries that he was hurting me, it was my fault for ----- what? Flirting? Wanting a boyfriend? Kissing?

I finally dealt with this rape and its long-lasting effects with a trusted therapist only three years ago. It's appalling how long it took for me to forgive my teenage self for being a kid. It's sad how many years I spent messing up one relationship after another, seeking a sense of self in other people.  

Rape at any age is a transgression that has repercussions far beyond the incident itself. I still find myself wanting to minimize it sometimes, even though half a century later I can follow the threads back and see what happened. I don't regret my life. I do regret that I spent most of a lifetime beating myself up for somebody else's actions.

 I don't dwell there. I don't relive it or keep the memory fresh. But now, at last, I acknowledge that it happened and it was not my fault. I have nothing to be ashamed of.