Wild Justice Part 36

"We do need to restrict this hearing"

"Dr. Denton has been waiting nearly three hours to give her testimony."

The chair shrugged and muttered under his breath. What would Simon Murrain advise. I need time to think about it. Aloud he said, "The committee will recess to discuss this."

Everyone was told to leave the hearing room except the committee.

When they were alone, Henry made it clear. "We must limit this hearing only to the evidence we presented."

Jane, with grave misgivings concerning her future at Belmont, rose to the occasion. "I think we need to hear this. We should at least appear to be giving her a fair hearing."

"She's already had that," snapped back Henry. "This hearing is expressly for confirming the findings of the first doc.u.ment examiners. Nothing else."

a.n.u.se, who had watched the others leave the hearing room unexpectedly sided with Jane and urged caution. "Perhaps we should hear her, Henry. Those d.a.m.n reporters are still out there.

If we don't let her testify, it will be the lead story in tomorrow's paper."

"Still there, are they? Bothersome creatures! Well, that puts a different face on it." He sat for a moment in thought.

He'd had his orders. They were to wind this up fast.

"All right. We'll hear that witness, however, I am declaring this hearing closed as of right now. Her testimony will appear to be heard by the panel and will be in the minutes to keep the Attorney General and the press off our backs.

"But make no mistake, any of you." He looked around at all the committee members, his face stern and his voice threatening, "We meet tomorrow at nine o'clock right here to sign this report that you have already seen. I'll redraft it to indicate that we have had this additional testimony, but essentially, it will read the same. Is that clear?"

Chapter 34

The hearing resumed.

Dr. Stacy Denton was sworn and Diana thanked her for waiting so long.

"Would you please state your qualifications as an expert witness?"

"Yes, but first I must ask that you waive the privilege of confidentiality."

"Of course. I absolutely waive the privilege of confidentiality so that you may respond to my questions and those of the panel."

Stacy then delivered a long list of professional qualifications having to do both with mental health counseling and organizational consulting.

As she was giving the requested information, Jane wished the panel could hear of the immense prestige Dr. Stacy Denton had acquired throughout the university community over the years that she had been a part of the Counseling Department.

Not only was she widely acclaimed, she was genuinely liked and successful as a person, in the department she directed.

At the age of 42, she had shown abilities in her field that most did not acquire until their later years. This caused some annoyance for her since she was constantly besieged by other counseling agencies all over the country, to come to them.

Jane remembered that when she had felt the shackles of threat surround her, and realized that she really had no voice or will on the committee, she had called Stacy. Of course Stacy could not tell her that she had counseled Diana at the time she was first charged.

She could only listen to Jane's anguish at her own impotence.

It was only after Diana had called to ask Stacy if she would be willing to sign an affidavit for the federal court action, that Stacy could see a way to do something. She offered to also appear as a witness at this final Belmont hearing if it were felt she would be needed.

Few people of her stature would have waited outside the hearing room as she did, knowing that the committee might not even hear her testimony.

She testified that she had seen Diana professionally several times and that in her years of experience and training she had learned techniques to determine behavior.

"I saw no evidence that Diana was lying, dissimulating or faking.

I should say that in my position here, I see many people who are in trouble and there is a pattern to these reactions. She exhibited what we in the profession call the typical victim reaction.

"In subsequent visits, I did a more thorough mental status exam.

I used all sorts of techniques that uncover whether a person may be unconsciously suppressing the fact that she wrote something, or did something.

"I believe that she could not have been lying." Stacy said succinctly.

"She was too upset, too shocked, to really fake me out."

Henry carefully distorted her words in the recommendation the committee later signed and sent to The Pope to read, 'the psychologist found that Diana Trenchant had a genuine victim response and truly believes herself to be innocent.'

A far, and exceedingly prejudiced, cry from the actual testimony of the psychologist. In fact, in the six page doc.u.ment, he devoted only ten lines to Diana and her witnesses testimony-- one short paragraph!

Diana asked Stacy if she could, without violating confidentiality, tell of similar cases at Belmont where a faculty person had been accused of wrong doing.

"It happens quite frequently, perhaps as often as once a month-- certainly a regular event. And in none of these cases which might involve repeated incidents of drunkenness, s.e.xual hara.s.sment, and, well, I can't go into details, but these are serious areas of misconduct that I'm referring to--not something as insignificant as seven SmurFFs! In none of these cases was the person ever told to resign or face a termination for cause hearing. The problem was handled by the proper department head. Either a warning was given or appropriate disciplinary action was taken."

When Diana asked if the committee had any questions, Jane, in an attempt to demonstrate the proficiency of this expert witness, once again bravely ventured forth asking Stacy to delineate some of the techniques used in this case and how she evaluated them.

The psychologist did this clearly and precisely, giving the methods used and how Diana reacted. It was very illuminating testimony and totally ignored, except by the women who had hoped that it might cause Henry to listen.

At one point, a.n.u.se tried to twist Stacy's words around so it appeared that she was been saying that Diana had denied that there was any trouble with any person in the department.

Stacy Denton set him securely and competently back on his heels, leaving no doubt in anyone's mind that she was no person to try those tactics on.

Chapter 35

When Stacy had been excused, the chair was ready to adjourn.

On the advice of her attorney, Diana requested that it be on the record that, a.n.u.se, one of the panel members had acted throughout the hearing in a manner prejudicial and threatening to Diana and to her witnesses.

Henry was livid with anger. "You are out of order. You are making statements about people on the committee that has nothing to do with this. Your comment will not be entered and the committee will disregard it."

How typical of that woman to state the obvious, he fumed inwardly.

Always before, while ruling, he had kept his cool and at least glanced at the panel members for a.s.sent or dissent. This time he ably demonstrated that the show of democratic procedure was only that-- a show. d.a.m.n her. She had unglued him that time.

In any event, Diana was refused permission to enter the evidence she had that would have shown that a.n.u.se was biased.

Next, Diana reviewed the poor performance given by the doc.u.ment examiner.

"He testified that he could not make a decision on the first set of exemplars sent him. Then when he was sent twenty years' worth of doc.u.ments containing the handwriting of multiple individuals, he claimed that he disregarded most of it. She went over all of the individual letters in the 'suspect'

evaluations that Avery had not been able to match with anything in the writing he used as standards. "This shows that there were as many non-matches as matches in his presentation."

The panel listened pa.s.sively, then Henry asked if that was her final statement.

"No," she answered. "I shall read that now." She picked up the paper which had been written mostly by her attorney and edited by her. It was designed to get the legal points on the record so that they could be presented later in a court of law.

"We are at the end of another hearing and it is a grim page in the rights of faculty members of this university.