June 1, 2016
Page 15
Tried and Convicted by Mistake
C ontinued from p age 5
women, all of whom claimed in-
nocence and none of whom had
criminal records of any kind. All
four cooperated fully, believing
that they had nothing to fear be-
cause they were innocent -- and
all four were convicted based on
the testimony of the two girls and
medical testimony that the shape
of their hymens conirmed that
they had been abused. The ilm’s
title means to draw a parallel to
the Salem witch trials, and it’s a
compelling comparison.
Rodriguez was tried irst, hav-
ing been arrested shortly after
giving birth to her son, and after
a trial characterized by homopho-
bic slurs and innuendo about her
lifestyle, she received a 37-year
sentence. The three other wom-
en, Rodriguez’s former girlfriend
Kristie Mayhugh and domestic
partners Anna Vasquez and Cas-
sandra Rivera, were tried together
and received 15-year sentences.
All maintained their innocence
and refused to plead out.
All of the women served sig-
niicant time; Rodriguez was be-
hind bars for the 17 years of her
son’s childhood, and Rivera had
to leave her two children in the
care of her mother for the remain-
der of theirs. One can scarcely
imagine the trauma they all en-
dured, and the impossibility of
making sense of their experience.
It was many years before a biol-
ogist in Ottawa took an interest
in the women’s cases and began
visiting and corresponding with
them. He eventually convinced
others to look at the cases, and
ultimately the Texas Innocence
Project succeeded in getting them
reopened based on discrediting
the medical evidence submitted
against the women. The cases
crumbled further when one of the
two alleged victims, Stephanie,
fully recanted her original story.
The ilm walks carefully
through the stories of the women
and grapples with the perplexing
senselessness of their lot. Stepha-
nie, now in her 20s, recounts how
her father and paternal grand-
mother coached her to tell the
story she did at age 9; one can
scarcely imagine the courage it
would take to acknowledge such
a thing. The women are still in the
ight for exoneration; they had to
present their exoneration case
to the same judge who tried the
group of three in the irst place,
and he ruled that they were enti-
tled to a new trial but not exoner-
ation, evincing more concern for
the medical expert’s professional
reputation than for the grievous
losses experienced by these four
apparently innocent young wom-
en.
So what do we do with cases
like this? The irst thing we must
do is sit with their stories; we
must learn to listen well. This
ilm left me with many ques-
tions, but it provides a careful
window into a story that, in the
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end, can’t be explained away.
The ilmmakers have spent the
time needed to present this case
in a way that honors its troubling
complexity.
These events happened in Tex-
as, but that does not give those of
us outside of Texas any basis for
consoling ourselves. Rather, this
story is a window into how badly
things can go wrong in our jus-
tice system, particularly when the
defendants are from marginalized
communities, as these women
are. It depicts a dramatic exam-
ple of how, once we have decided
who is the perpetrator of a crime
-- and that a crime occurred at all
-- all of the energy goes toward
proving that we are right, even in
the face of signiicant evidence to
the contrary. In these particular
cases, it is very hard to see how
a presumption of innocence was
a robust concept.
We must sit with such ques-
tions if we have any hope of
actually upholding, in any case,
the values our justice system pur-
ports to serve. You can watch for
release information at the ilm’s
website, southwestofsalem.com,
and on its Facebook page.
Darleen Ortega is a judge on
the Oregon Court of Appeals and
the irst woman of color to serve
in that capacity. Her movie re-
view column Opinionated Judge
appears regularly in The Port-
land Observer. Find her movie
blog at opinionatedjudge.blog-
spot.com.
Obituary
In Loving
Memory
James H. Brown
James H. Brown was born
March 27, 1943 and died May 14,
2016.
He is survived by his wife,
Mary Brown; daughters, Edith
Michele Brown and LeAnne Ma-
rie Owens; and son, Eric Howard
Brown.
There will be public viewing
on Thursday, June 2, from 4 p.m.
to 7 p.m. at Terry Family Funeral
Home. A funeral service will be
held on Friday, June 3, at 10:30
a.m. at Bethel AME Church, 5828
N.E. Eighth Ave., with military
honors following at Willamette
National Cemetery at 1:30 pm.
Arrangements by Terry Family
Funeral Home.
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