gordonzola

Department 26 at the Hall of Justice. I’ve spent too much time here in the last year. It’s where I served my jury duty before I got excused. Twice. It’s where I’ve watched the proceedings, mostly postponements, in the assault and hate crime trial of the man who beat up my friends.*

Jack Broughton plead guilty to the felony assault and hate crime charges on May 13, ending a 21 month legal ordeal. At the sentencing hearing, my friends finally got to tell the judge how the crime had affected them: the pain, the post traumatic stress disorder, the missed work, the fear, the personality changes, the clinical depression, the loss of freedom and safety, the inability to be present for family and children, etc. Despite the fact that other lawyers in the court, there for unrelated cases, were fighting back tears at this testimony the judge didn’t seem to care.

It’s truly a mark of the limits of identity politics when you have a lesbian judge presiding over a hate crime trial, a lesbian attorney defending the man pleading guilty to assault and hate crime charges, and a white, straight, guy prosecuting the case like he’s on a mission. My friends described the beating which, in addition to the serious emotional damage, left one bleeding and unconscious on 11th Street and the other with severe pain throughout her body. They contrasted the many ways they have been, and continue to be, held prisoners by the assault and the way in which Jack Broughton will not be. Because even though this was the sentencing hearing, everyone knew in advance what Broughton would get: home detention for a year and three years probation. No jail time whatsoever.

I’m not a fan of jail. I think it can be a finishing school for haters and abusers to learn new tricks. The concept of rehabilitation is more of a joke than anything despite the under-funded attempts by some. It’s also clear that if Jack Broughton wasn’t working class, the case against him would likely have ended very differently, My friends, also working class, had community resources** that Broughton didn’t, and a mostly clear cut case, but someone with the money to spend could have made this lengthy ordeal even worse.

So really it’s a question of punishment. It’s not so much that I don’t agree with the judge’s ruling that Broughton, and possibly society, will be better served by attending anger management classes at the VA and not going to jail. It’s the unfairness that he can continue with life when his victims could not. He can stay in touch with his children while my co-worker had to withdraw in many ways due to her depression. He can continue to work while both women he beat up had to take extra student loans due and drop work shifts due to their inability to function normally for months after the beating. He can still walk the streets in his large, strong body feeling safe in a way that my friends no longer can and in a way that would be unlikely if he was in jail.

In a tearful statement that became necessary after the moving testimony of the victims scared his defense attorney, Broughton blamed all of the events on alcohol and actually said, "I’m just so sorry so many other people had to be involved in my epiphany." Judge Kay Tsenin seemed to agree because when the prosecuting attorney asked that Broughton’s counseling include classes on sensitivity training, she said that the racist, anti-gay, and misogynist things he was yelling as he kicked my friend’s bleeding unconscious body were "the alcohol talking" and denied the motion.

Many observers felt the judge could use a little sensitivity training herself. The incident started when Broughton’s girlfriend*** hit one of my friends in the face and swung at her again, missing, but trying to do damage. My friend decked her and put her hands up to say, according to her testimony (from my memory) "ok enough". Judge Tsenin redefined this, for the record, as making a "safe" sign which seems like a celebratory thing to do. I honestly have no other interpretation for this but as the judge filing this away in her head as "something Those People must do after beating someone up", justifying her translation of this action into something which makes no sense whatsoever.

But at least it’s over. And it ended with more serious consequences than my friends feared at the beginning when the first DA dropped the hate crime charges and seemed reluctant to prosecute at all. Though he hurt them, in the end Broughton fucked with the wrong people. He attacked people who grew up in San Francisco, are rooted in their multicultural communities and families, and able to speak powerfully in their own defense. They and their friends**** were unwilling to let the case drop and put all the pressure they could manage on the DA and judges to not ignore what had happened.

Without that pressure, I doubt things would have gotten even this far.



*I wrote previous entries about this here and here . Seeming contradictions are explained by the defense attorney and the judge changing during the last 21 months.
** Community United Against Violence did an amazing job of support, legal consulting, and mobilizing people to attend trial dates. Anyone with extra money could do worse than donating there.
***Who, rumor has it, has pending domestic violence charges against him.
****I can’t remember the LJ name of the BAR reporter who was there for every moment of the legal proceedings, but this was the same person who took all those great pictures at City Hall of the weddings. Anyone?

Just because it’s a hate crime trial, doesn’t mean there aren’t humorous moments.

When we entered the courtroom yesterday, ilipodscril noticed an empty seat behind Jack Broughton. He sat down behind him and breathed heavily on his neck for the next 15 minutes while we awaited the preliminary trial to continue.

When it did continue, and with my friend Mariah on the stand, the defense attorney continued his fascination with words unfamiliar to him. "Yvette referred to you as ‘her girl’, can you tell me what that means?"

""Uh, it’s a term of affection. We’re friends."

Evidently the day before when Yvette was on the stand he had spent a long time trying to understand what exactly "my girl" meant. Most likely he was trying to insinuate that they were lovers, highlight the strange ways of the queers, and underline her "ghetto" phrase. During the above interaction the audience starting laughing and the judge looked annoyed.

Defense Lawyer had been working the angle that Broughton and his girlfriend had been made to feel unwelcome at the event. The day before, while questioning Yvette, he had asked her to estimate the amount of straight people, gay people, women, men etc. to the point that the judge said, "Do you think she took a survey?"

Yesterday Defense Lawyer asked Mariya, "You referred to this in your statement as a ‘queer’ event. What does that mean to you?" He stumbled on the word "queer".

Mariya, not missing a beat, said, "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, and Others."

The defense lawyer, looking cheaper and less effective by the day, also kept confusing the names Yvette and Jean, (Jean Earl being Broughton’s girlfriend who started the incident by hitting Yvette while Broughton and Earl were being removed by bouncers for making homophobic and racist remarks and looking for trouble.) Mariya, keeping her wits about herself amazingly kept answering the actual questions. Defense Lawyer, thinking he had gotten her to contradict herself would pounce on it, only to be reminded by the judge or DA that he had mixed up the names. Again

But my favorite part was when the defense lawyer asked some confusing question and Mariya asked him to rephrase it. He just kept switching it around in confusing ways until Mariya finally said, "You know, I’m a literature major at State and you keep using a double negative which makes me unsure of how to answer the question. Can you rephrase it without a double negative?"

The DA chuckled and even the judge smirked. Most of the cross examination dealt with such groundbreaking information such as, "In your statement you said you were three feet from the door. Couldn’t it have been five feet?" The defense attorney skipped by the part where Broughton stood above Yvette, already likely unconscious, kicking her and calling her "faggot and/or "dyke"

The Judge ruled that all charges would stand and that the date for the real trial would be set in two weeks. I’ll keep you posted.

I went to a hate crime trial on Thursday. One of my best friends (M), and her friend (E), got badly beaten last August and finally it appeared to be heading forward. I took the day off work to be part of the crowd and to make sure the judge knows that people are watching this case.

And it worked, at least so far. CUAV has strategy planned for events like this, and they really came through. Because signs and obvious protest material are not allowed in court, they had the supporters of M and E wear red and pack the court. Though the preliminary trial wasn’t supposed to begin until 9 AM, the court was overflowing by 8:45. Every seat was filled, people sat in the aisles, cops and lawyers had to fight to get in.

And it made them all really nervous . All the people who spend every day in those rooms at 850 Bryant are used to working without an audience. The whispering started immediately. "Who’s case is this?" "What’s going on?" "I didn’t know there would be press here."

I had been warned about the judge and that proved to be accurate. One defense lawyer in an unrelated case moved for aquittal in her case because neither the prosecution or witnesses were in court at the appointed time. "Good try," the judge said, "but usually the defense lawyers are the ones absent, so forget it. We’ll try again in an hour."

"I take offense to that," lawyer said.

"No reason to take offense. It’s just a statement of fact." Judge replied.

"Uh oh," I thought.

Because it is the court system we sat around and waited. The best part about that was that Jack Broughton, the abusive homophobe from Walnut Creek, had to stand alone in the crowd, completely surrounded by a sea of red-dressed dykes, fags, trannies, family members and supporters of the victims. Over half were people of color. Hopefully his buttons were being pushed pretty hard. He might not have felt threatened physically, by it couldn’t have been comfortable for a white boy who likes to beat up queers and Latinas. I helped start the whispering that informed everyone who he was.*

At about 10 AM they cleared the courtroom of those without seats. At 10:15 they moved the case to a different courtroom, (and to a different judge!) because they were so many people in attendance. We marched down the hall to a courtroom about 5 times as big.

And waited some more.

Around 11 AM the new judge finally came into the room. Jack Broughton’s high-priced and oily lawyer asked for another postponement. It seems that since his last postponement, it turns out that over 400 people were at the event when the incident occurred. He couldn’t possibly have had time to interview them all. For some reason he acted like this fact has just been discovered for an event that happened seven months ago. New judge gave him (at least) another month despite the objections of the prosecutor.

So after 2.5 hours of hanging around, it took about five minutes to dismiss us all until next time. When the postponement was announced, M and E’s supporters didn’t leave. We went to the edge of our pews and waited. Jack Broughton and his lawyer, who had been waiting for us to exit, eventually gave up and had to walk the gauntlet of stare-downs. Even the court proceedings stopped while he walked the 50 ft. of 3-deep outraged queers (and friends) to the door. The bailiffs and testifying cops were nervous and on edge. While brawling at the cop shop is a bad idea, one false move would have started a 75:1 beatdown.

After a post-court meeting and hugging session** we went to the beach and celebrated M’s 30th birthday. Nice place to spend the morning of your b-day, huh?

Locals who want to be informed of the next court date, e-mail me at gordonzola@livejournal.com. There’s a lot of sitting around time, but it’s for a good cause. We need to fill the bigger courtroom next time.



*It was good that M had told me who he was. I was staring down some completely unrelated bald white guy with a goatee until she did. Poor innocent indie rocker!
**Which the defendant was not invited to.