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July 6, 2012
July 6, 2012
as
The gravity
of abuse
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street roots
street roots
ry
Brandy, 29, plays
with Ian, 2, in early
April 2012. She
recently o b ta in ^ a
protection order that
prohibits Richard
from seeing her and
their son u n til June
2013.
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Part IV: Three Strikes
The conclusion o f our series on one family's
struggle to survive domestic violence
BY ROSETTE ROYALE
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
The caller
“ f \ 11- What are you reporting?”
“I need to talk to a police officer. I
got really beat up.”
“OK. Where are you?”
Brandy Sweeney sat in the lobby of Hope
Place, a shelter for women and families at
3802 S. Othello St. in south Seattle. It was
April 29, 2010,11:31 p.m. She’d been
physically assaulted by her boyfriend,
Richard James Duncan, in an apartment
three blocks away.
Immediately after the assault, Richard
grabbed his jacket and ran. After waiting 90
minutes, Brandy bundled up Ian, their infant
son, and raced to Hope Place. The security
guard there lent her his cell phone.
“How bad are you injured?” the operator
asked.
“I don’t know,” Brandy said.
“I can send someone to look at you. What
did he do to you to assault you?”
“He hit me in the face.”
Brandy’s left check was swollen, and a
purple hematoma formed under h er left eye.
A cut lined her lower lip, a red mark visible
on her throat. Brandy tried to explain her
injuries, but her sore, bloody lip made it
difficult to talk.
“We’re going to have police and medics
come out and take a look at you, so we can
document this.”
“OK,” Brandy said.
The operator gathered Brandy’s personal
information. “Was there anyone else in the
apartment with you when he assaulted you?”
Brandy told him her son, Ian, was there.
“Now did Richard, uh, assault your son at
all?”
“No,” Brandy said. “He just hurt me.”
The operator took down Richard’s
description, Brandy having said he’d left on
foot
“And how long ago was that?” the
operator asked.
“Like probably an hour and a half or so,”
Brandy said. “I don’t know. The cops are
here right now.”
“I’m going to go ahead and release you
from the line so you can go talk to them.
OK?”
“OK, thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” the operator said. “Bye
bye.”
“OK,” Brandy said. “Bye bye.”
The security guard at Hope Place had
given Brandy an ice pack, which she held to
her face. The police asked her, if she could,
to recount the assault: She had been hit so
many times, she’d lost count She thought,
maybe, Richard had knocked her
unconscious. Brandy remembered being
knocked to the floor, strangled, kicked. He’d
taken the rent money, broken her cell
phone. A phone jack in the apartment only
provided Internet
Police photographed her injuries. Medics
arrived, and they thought Brandy’s right
cheek might be broken. But before an
ambulance sped her to a hospital, Brandy
gave police Richard’s description. When
AZ
Rosette Royale is the assistant editor o f Real
Change News, Street Roots' sister paper in
Seattle, Wash. “The gravity o f abuse” grew out o f
a three-month 2010 Seattle University fellowship
to study family homelessness in Washington
state. The fellowship was funded by the Gates
Foundation. A ll quotes, thoughts a nd feelings o f
individuals stem from interviews, personal
correspondence, police reports and court
documents. Research fo r the series lasted 22
months.
J llB B i
responding to a call of domestic violence
assault, Seattle police officers must arrest
the alleged perpetrator. Now they knew what
Richard looked like.
All they had to do was find their suspect
The suspect
An area check began for a suspect with
the following description: white male, bald,
goatee, tattoos, around 5 foot 6 inches, 180
pounds, black shirt, black pants, black jacket
Searching for Richard, three officers
responded to 4222 S. Othello S t, a squat
gray apartment building across the street
from a construction site.
He wasn’t in Apartment 21, but Brandy
and Richard’s roommate, Francisco Mitchell,
was. Richard and Francisco worked general
labor at the construction site. After work
that evening, Francisco had gone out for a
beer, came home, heard screaming from the
hallway and opened the door. That’s when
he walked in on “them fighting,” he said.
Richard ran to Francisco, saying Brandy had
stabbed him, but Francisco took Richard’s
keys and kicked him o u t
Police performed a sweep of the building’s
perimeter. Nothing. On foot, officers
backtracked in the direction of Hope Place,
moving toward the intersection of South
Othello Street and Martin Luther King Jr.
Way South. On the northeast corner was a
restaurant-bar. They searched inside for
Richard. Nothing. They entered the Safeway
near Hope Place. Nothing.
With their leads running out, the officers
started to return to their squad cars, but one
of the officers heard a noise in the bushes
west of the building. “It sounded bigger than
our usual Rainier Valley cat,” one officer
remembered. The officers, now four in
number, decided to investigate.
They made their way through a small,
open field near a taco truck. As soon as the
officers approached the bushes, they could
tell someone was there, lying on the ground.
One officer swung out to the le ft They drew
their guns. None of them could really see
the person on the ground, so they shined
their flashlights. White male, bald, with a
goatee, tattoos, black pants. “He fit the
description to a T,” one officer said later.
The officers identified themselves. Come
out, one said, and lie down on the ground
with your hands on your head.
Richard lay still.
Two officers went crawling in after him
and pulled Richard o u t He resisted. One
officer stretched out over Richard’s legs,
while two others took hold of his arms. They
■
P H O T O S B Y K A T E B A L D W IN
pulled Richard’s arms behind his back. One
officer snapped on the cuffs.
It took two officers to hoist him from the
ground. After reading Richard his Miranda
rights, they escorted him to the squad car,
and an officer drove him to the south
precinct for booking.
Suspect apprehended.
The shelter
At Harborview Medical Center, CT scans
revealed no fractures or dislocations in
Brandy’s face or jaw. She received a
prescription for 800 mg of ibuprofen. But
the pills only touched the physical pain. To
address emotional well-being, an ER social
worker speaks to all assault victims. Brandy
told her social worker she wanted to go to a
domestic violence shelter.
In King County, at least 20 agencies or
shelters assist women facing domestic
violence. Every shelter the social worker
called was full. A shelter in Snohomish
County, north of Seattle, had space, but it
didn’t take clients at night Still, she gave
Brandy a list
Brandy was tired, sore and frightened.
Travelling in a taxi with Ian, she rode to the
only place where she knew she could stay:
Apartment 21.
Francisco told her she could stay as long
as she w anted... but the rent: They had to
cover the re n t The day following the assault
was Friday, payday, so Francisco got
Richard’s check, and Brandy signed it —
she’d done it before — and used the money
to help o u t
But on top of the $1,050 rent, there was
still a security deposit to pay off. Brandy
contributed some of the money she received
from the federal program TANF, Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families. She used her
food stamps to feed herself, Ian and
Francisco.
Sometimes she also fed their new
roommate, a guy Francisco had invited to
move into the apartment to help with the
bills. When Richard had lived there and he’d
fought with Brandy, she’d locked him out of
the bedroom — so Richard had removed the
doorknob. Brandy now felt a little
uncomfortable in the apartment, with a man
she didn’t know and no lock on her bedroom
door. Maybe, she thought, it was Vest to
move. But where?
She could only think of one place: Hope
Place, three blocks away. Before she’d first
moved into the apartment, Brandy and Ian
had stayed in a room there. That’s why she
had run to the shelter the night of the
assault It felt safe.
x
She interviewed with Hope Place staff to
ask about living there again. In June, six
weeks after the assault, she and Ian moved
back to the place where she would finally put
the abuse to an end.
The case
But the end of the violence marked the
beginning of a court case: The State of
Washington v. Richard James Duncan.
After booking him, officers transported
Richard to the King County Jail. At his
arraignment on May 12, Richard heard the
initial charges against him: assault in the
second degree - domestic violence, for the
alleged strangulation of Brandy, and felony
harassment, for a drunken outburst Richard
made to officers in the squad car. At a
subsequent hearing, bail was set for
$150,000.
As the case developed, a state prosecutor
realized the attempted April 29, 2010,
strangulation of Brandy wasn’t Richard’s
only assault against her: in mid-August 2009,
he’d been arrested for domestic violence
assault in the fourth degree, a misdemeanor,
that occurred in a Seattle motel when
Brandy was eight months pregnant; three
months later, he committed another assault
in a Renton transitional housing unit but he
had evaded police. That equaled three
assaults, two of which had occurred when a
no-contact order was in effect, which
required he stay 500 feet away from her.
Along with those assaults, he had two
outstanding arrest warrants.
And the prosecutor discovered more.
Richard’s criminal history from Nevada
included convictions for assault with a
deadly weapon in 2005, possession of a
stolen vehicle in 2002 and a domestic
battery charge in 1998, plus others.
The prosecutor felt if the court released
Richard, he’d commit another violent
offense. At a subsequent hearing, the
prosecutor asked for increased bail. The
judge agreed.
The court raised Richard’s bail to
$500,000.
The decision
randy started to raise Ian alone in Hope
Place. Operated by the Union Gospel
Mission, the shelter offers housing to
women and their children. Brandy and Ian
had their own room, and, as summer
progressed, Ian went from rolling on the
floor to crawling to pulling up on furniture.
At Hope Place, every woman, whether
Muslim, Jewish, Mormon, Protestant or
Catholic, participated in an individually
crafted curriculum imbued with a Christian
flavor. Chores in the morning, classes in
recovery, morning devotions, Bible study
and more. During Brandy’s first stay there,
before the April assault, she had taken part
because it was required. But by summer
2010, while Richard sat in jail, Brandy
participated because she felt called. By
then, she had found God.
This separated her even more from
Richard. He practiced Odinism, a belief
system that honors the Norse god Odin.
Richard discovered Odinism in the Nevada
prison system. But his fellow Odinist
inmates also subscribed to white supremacy,
and, falling in with them, Richard had
acquired prison tattoos that proclaimed his
beliefs: a swastika, a likeness of Adolf Hitler
and, spelled out across his upper fingers,
"SKINHEAD.” Brandy, part Shoshone-
Bannock Indian, was never drawn to
Odinism’s racist b e n t She knew their
different spiritual beliefs would keep them
at odds.
Shortly after the assault, a domestic
violence advocate linked to the state
prosecutor’s office asked Brandy a question:
If the case against Richard went to trial,
B
would she testify against him? “I told her I’d
pray about it,” Brandy recalls.
She mulled it over for weeks before
deciding she’d testify, though Brandy
doubted it would ever happen. “I was
thinking, ‘If I were him, I would probably
take a plea agreement,’” she remembers.
Perhaps state history gave her
confidence. Back in 1993, Washington voters
had passed an initiative providing that a
persistent offender convicted of three
serious felonies could be sentenced to life in
prison — with no chance of parole. The first
such legislation enacted in the country, it
became known as the three-strikes law.
A state prosecuting attorney reviewed
Richard’s complete criminal history. In
Nevada, Richard had been convicted of
assault with a deadly weapon, a serious
felony. A potential first strike. He’d also
been convicted of attempted battery causing
substantial bodily harm in Nevada, another
serious felony. A potential second strike. If
Richard was found guilty of the second-
degree assault against Brandy, it would
qualify as a serious felony conviction. A
potential third strike.
That meant, if the prosecutor’s office
could ascertain that the Nevada convictions
were on par with Washington convictions for
similar crimes, a prosecutor could argue
before a judge that Richard had earned his
third strike. Of course Richard’s defense
team could challenge. But a judge would
decide if Richard’s sentence would be life.
Richard could avoid a potential life
sentence in prison, however, if he took a
plea bargain. But he surprised everyone,
even himself. He didn’t opt for a plea.
“He went for it,” Brandy recalls.
Richard wanted a trial.
The wait
Time leading up to a trial travels at two
speeds: neutral and overdrive.
In June, a few weeks after the judge set
bail, a guard escorted Richard from the jail
through a sky bridge to King County
Superior Courtroom E-1201. He sat in a
holding cell until a prosecutor called his
name for a hearing. His defense lawyer
asked the judge to continue the case to a
later date; the judge granted the motion.
The whole process lasted barely five
minutes. Richard signed his court
documents with an “X,” so his signature
could not be linked to any court documents
he’d signed in Nevada, then returned to his
cell, his mind revved up on one word: life.
In July, in August, then in September, too,
he repeated the routine: the hearing, the
signing of documents, the waiting. Life, life,
life.
Brandy pushed the trial and her potential
testimony out of her mind. It wouldn’t
happen. She concentrated on Ian and
contacted Karen Ciruli, a woman who had
assisted her during Ian’s birth. They
celebrated Ian’s first birthday at Chuck E.
Cheese’s. Brandy went to church and prayed
with her good friend Morgan Price. They
raised their hands to God.
Since Richard couldn’t afford legal
counsel, he was assigned lawyers from
SCRAP, Society of Counsel Representing
Accused Persons, a nonprofit public defense
law firm. Attorneys Matthew Pang and
Alison Warden would handle his case.
Richard met with them for maybe five, 10
minutes at a time. More hearings, more
waiting. Life.
The state chose deputy prosecuting
attorney (DPA) Stephen Hershkowitz. He
m et Brandy and talked to her about what
could happen on the stand. Brandy prayed.
Before Christmas, she and Ian moved out
of Hope Place and into a barren two-
bedroom in south Seattle, her church
providing furniture, a Christmas tree, gifts.
Brandy rarely thought about the assault.
More hearings, more waiting, more
worrying, more praying.
And then, more than 13 months after the
assault, the trial was on the docket. Brandy
would testify. Richard faced life in prison.
No more waiting.
The Trial: Day 1
_ nday, June 6, 2011
The State of Washington v. Richard
James Duncan was heard in King County
Superior Courtroom W-928, Honorable
Judge Mary Yu presiding.
Sitting at the defense table, Richard,
wearing a button-down gray shirt and slacks,
looked pale, gaunt. He’d lost almost 40
pounds since his arrest, worrying about a
life sentence. But by the trial’s start, he was
reconciled to what fate would prescribe.
The morning began with counsel
discussing what information would be
included in the trial. Since DPA Hershkowitz
knew a defendant could only be tried on the
charges in a case and not judged on his past,
he wanted to exclude evidence pertaining to
Richard’s felony convictions from Nevada.
Excluding this evidence meant the jury
would never know that Richard could face a
third strike, with a potential life sentence, if
convicted. Judge Yu granted the motion.
In the afternoon, potential jurors entered
the courtroom, the judge informing them
what selected jurors might experience. She
emphasized that when defendants opt for a
jury trial, they’re voicing an important
message: “They are saying they trust you.”
She added that a trial is a very methodical
process, a deliberately designed process. A
human process. “And it’s not perfect,” Judge
Yu said.
Then she outlined the final charges
against Richard:
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See ABUSE, page 10