Wild Justice Part 8

Jane jerked upright in her chair and stared at Lyle aghast.

Was he really accusing Diana of that level of control over medical students? Preposterous--one woman, all by herself, had influenced hundreds of medical students over a period of years to do as she dictated. There's more to this than I've been told. . .

this isn't about forging seven SmurFFs. What on earth is going on here, she pondered. . .

Finally, Henry noticed Janet who had been trying to get his attention for some time. "We'll take a ten minute recess and when we come back, Trenchant may cross examine Dr. Stone.

You may leave the room. I'll summon you when we are ready,"

he ordered, taking in Janet and Diana with the same disdainful glance.

The committee huddled and Lyle Stone joined them. So much for impartiality.

Janet and Diana left, both breathing an audible sigh of relief as the door shut behind them. Stopping at the soft drink dispenser, the court reporter glanced around carefully then said sotto voce, "What a farce. Unbelievable."

Chapter 9

The ten-minute break had stretched to twenty before Henry and the panel finished going over their notes to make sure they had brought out everything that Mark, the university attorney, had advised.

Diana and Janet were called back and Diana began the cross examination of her department chair, Lyle Stone.

She asked him first to confirm a sentence written in his memo to the dean and which he had testified to before the break.

"Yes," Lyle answered, "I did write in the memo to the dean and also testified that I gave you all of the doc.u.ments used in the handwriting a.n.a.lysis."

Diana held up several sheets of paper from the evidence packet on the table. "I have found doc.u.ments dated nearly twenty years ago in this material the committee has introduced as that sent to the doc.u.ment examiners. These were not in the material that you gave me.

So your a.s.sertion that I was given all of the doc.u.ments is incorrect."

Henry searched quickly through his copy of the evidence that had been sent to the doc.u.ment examiners as standards.

Good G.o.d, he thought. What is this creature doing?

Come on Lyle, don't let her get the best of you.

Ah, much better, Henry observed happily to himself as Lyle started tap dancing around her question. Instead of yes or no, he would repeat at length some of his previous testimony with added embellishments and avoid answering.

By persistent questioning, Diana established that he had stapled her brief note to one of the 'suspect' SmurFFs before it was sent out for a.n.a.lysis. But it was like pulling teeth. He kept reiterating that it was stapled to a 'suspect' evaluation, so it would not get lost.

Patiently, she repeated her question, finally wearing him down.

"Were the doc.u.ment examiners given this evaluation with the note stapled on it as one of the 'fict.i.tious' critiques?"

"Yes, they identified that critique as having been written by you."

"No distinction between the note and the critique was given them-- according to their report, is that correct?"

"I guess so, yes."

Using a sketch of the NERD office, Trenchant ran Lyle back through his previous testimony of how the blank critiques, the SmurFFs, were given out, how they were collected and what happened to them afterwards.

From her intimate knowledge of the operation, she was able to reveal most of the lies he had told of this process when the committee was questioning him.

Jane was listening carefully. Slowly, there evolved the information that this whole evaluation process was sloppy and unreliable.

That it had indeed, been this way for years. Given that, she thought, how could he claim that such a high reliance was put on SmurFFs when a.s.sessing faculty for reappointment?

Lyle admitted that students had scant desire to complete SmurFFs.

They considered it a useless effort since little or no attention had been paid in the past to their comments.

"To force compliance," he explained, "students were told that unless their name had been checked off on a list in the secretaries' office, they could not receive their grade for the course from the dean's office. Most students bring in completed evaluation forms, place them in the box provided and check off their names. Some merely come in and check off their names, eschewing the forms," he finally admitted with obvious reluctance.

This certainly puts a different light on things, Jane noted as she jotted down the information being squeezed out of Lyle by Diana. She carefully registered in neat script:

1. That the blank SmurFFs were left out in the open for days, sometimes weeks so any body could have had access to them

2. That the completed SmurFFs left in the box, supposedly by radiology students, were separated and given to each instructor; the course critiques went to Ian and Randy

3. No tabulation of the number of critiques was carried out

4. Anyone could come in (etc.)

5. Since the critique form (etc.)

6. Most of the submitted critiques were not dated

The accused was left out of course planning meetings when Ian and Randy met with Lyle, contrary to what he had just told the committee.

None of the doc.u.ments he had sent to the a.n.a.lysts contained anything detrimental to Ian Heathson, as claimed in his memo to the dean. She re-read what he'd written in the memo, "These fict.i.tious student critiques were very detrimental and personally injurious to two junior faculty members."

Under Trenchant's quietly relentless cross examination, Lyle became fl.u.s.tered. First he claimed that perhaps his language had not been perfect in that phrase but what he meant was that, "manipulation of critiques in general would be detrimental to any faculty member."

Trying to bring him to the point, Trenchant read from a signed, dated student critique that had not been deemed 'suspicious' by Lyle. It had been submitted during the same period as the 'questioned' critiques.

"Quote: 'I think Randy needs to be more than one page ahead of the cla.s.s in understanding the material. How can you teach what you do not know? I was also offended by the so-called anthropological function' (he gave) 'of the female b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

I am familiar with some of the literature which support the statement in the handouts,' (in a lecture, Randy had emphasized that the primary function of the female breast was to attract a mate) 'but was not aware that THE NAKED APE, PENTHOUSE MAGAZINE, PLAYBOY MAGAZINE and so forth were regarded as competent medical school publications. The underlying tragedy of this incident is that it demonstrates the ease with which non-scientific hypothesis are disseminated without any thought. This, I think, is a poor reflection on the department and the faculty.' Unquote."

Diana continued, "This is what I would call personally injurious but I do not see this student critique among the 'suspicious' ones--the ones sent out for a.n.a.lysis."

Henry started to sweat along with Lyle who was becoming increasingly uncomfortable, his tone hostile. He dodged and refused to answer directly a question asking if he always sent suspicious critiques for handwriting a.n.a.lysis, claiming that in this case, one of his junior faculty had asked him to.

Jane picked up on an item of special importance, and extremely relevant, underlining it several times on her note pad.

Because of the negligent handling of the critique process, there was no authentic chain of custody maintained! In addition, neither the SmurFFs alluded to as 'suspicious' nor the so-called handwriting standards were ever authenticated.

According to the testimony she had just heard, each of the so-called 'suspicious' critiques had been discovered when the finder was alone. Furthermore, Lyle could give no proof that any of the 'suspicious' SmurFFs he claimed were found, had ever been placed in the return box provided for the students.

In fact, except for the few critiques that were signed, there was no evidence that any of the nearly two hundred uncontested critiques relating to the radiology course were even submitted by the radiology students!

Jane was simply astounded. In all of Lyle's testimony, he had offered no witnesses or evidence that could confirm his testimony that students had been manipulated by the accused. Witchcraft was insinuated, but never proven.

Henry was rapidly becoming unglued. Noting Lyle's declining control and fearing an incipient outburst, Henry interrupted and declared that they would now take a lunch break. How could that idiot sit there and let himself give away that kind of detail on how SmurFFs were handled in his department? Henry knew that this was having a deleterious effect on the panel and he knew that he'd better set things straight while there was still a chance to cover up.