Real Life Type Update: The Trial

I’ve been quiet for a little while now because I was going to testify in my case. I felt like I couldn’t blog about it, but it was also so much on my mind that it was hard to think of other things to talk about. Today I’m going to tell the whole stupid story from beginning to end, and hopefully it will be out of my system and I can go back to our regularly scheduled vegan program.

First of all, since I’ve talked to some people who read my blog on the phone or in person lately and this topic has come up, I want to straighten one thing out. This case was a second degree assault case stemming from an incident that happened more than a year ago where I was hit from behind (in my car) by a van. When I asked for insurance information the people fled the scene of the accident. While I was trying to write their plate number on my hand the male driver purposefully struck me with the van to prevent me from getting their information and then sped off. Despite this I managed to write down the entire plate number.

This case was not about the sexual assault I’ve referenced before which happened years ago and in which I never pressed charges, partially out of fear of this kind of hell.

As far as physical injuries go I was sore after being hit by the van, I complained of aches and pains for a week or so, but I was not seriously hurt. There were no hospital visits or medical bills. I’m ok. My decision to press charges in this matter was not about my being hurt but based on a careful consideration where I felt that if I did nothing this individual would feel hitting people with vans was the way to get out of responsibility in car accidents, that he might continue doing so, and someone else might be seriously injured or killed.

At any time had the defendant in this case offered a sincere apology, I would have wanted the whole thing dropped. I was never after money, I just felt that what happened was very wrong and it seemed like the right thing to do was to press charges.

Immediately following the incident I was short of breath and my asthma inhaler had been knocked out of my hand and run over and destroyed. I knelt down on the pavement feeling dizzy and unable to catch my breath. Moving or walking or even talking at that point in time felt impossible to me. A very kind young couple stopped to help me. The woman seemed to know something about asthma and was able to coach me into breathing although I was still not breathing well. They got me sitting in my car and stayed with me. I was two blocks from my house when all this happened so as soon as I could speak I dialed Sean and screamed into the phone “come help me, come help me.” Sean finally got me to say where I was and rushed over. Once he was there the couple and he persuaded me to call 911, I believe Sean dialed it on my phone.

After I dialed 911 we stayed in the intersection waiting, but when the police didn’t come for about 20 minutes, we called back to say that we were in danger of being struck by traffic and we were going to go to our house and wait for the police there. The police did not come for 2 hours.

We asked the couple if they had witnessed the accident. They unfortunately had not. They just drove up in time to see me having trouble breathing, kneeling on the pavement and stopped to help. We thought that they would therefore not be witnesses and thanked them for their help and let them go on their way.

There was a lot of traffic that day, but they were the only people who stopped to help me. I’m sure many people witnessed the incident, but none of them stopped. Which is hardly unusual in this area actually, many of my friends have stories of being in trouble and nobody stopping to help.

When the police came, 2 hours later, the first thing spoken by either officer was the older of the two said “You’re not from around here are you.” I asked what he meant by that and he put his hand over his mouth, laughed, and then said “Oh nothing.” I knew perfectly well what he meant though, I just resented it greatly. I felt that he was implying that since I was white I shouldn’t live in this area or expect to be safe here. Of course many of my (non-white) neighbors have told me stories of getting no help from the police. My neighbor Anita went into a diatribe the other day about the police for example.

The police took down the information I gave them and the rookie officer said “We’ll run the plates and if there’s a match we’ll go talk to the guy.” The older officer immediately added “Yeah, if he’s home.”

At that point I felt fairly certain that the police would not investigate this at all.

That evening on our way to dinner my husband and I drove around our neighborhood and found the van that hit me. When we got home my husband pulled information on that house and found that the owner had a long criminal arrest and conviction record including drugs, weapons, domestic violence, burglary, and assault. In his record was a physical description that matched the one I’d given the police.

We still wanted to be certain, so the next day around noon my husband drove over to the house and asked me to sit in the car and watch so I could identify anyone who came to the door. He knocked on the door and a woman answered. The woman had been the female passenger in the van when it hit me. My husband asked for the guy, the woman said he wasn’t home. He said “[Name] hit my wife yesterday and drive off; I’d like the insurance information.” The woman said she would be right out. She returned with what seemed to be insurance papers in her hand, and came out to the street where we were parked. She started taking picture of the damage to the vehicle. Then she said “You know, she drifted backward.” Sean told her not to lie, that he knew that didn’t happen. She said, “Well, there was no reason for her to stop”. She then started to get really nasty and said “do you people even live around here? I live here in this neighborhood.” Then for some reason she latched onto the idea that we were lying about being married and kept saying “He isn’t your husband, he’s just some boyfriend.” Which seems entirely irrelevant, but that’s what she did. She was screaming and trying to take pictures of us, and started yelling that she was going to find out where we lived and come to our house. Sean called the police. When they arrived he explained that the person residing there had hit me and hit the car and drove off, and he wanted her insurance information. The officers started harassing Sean, asking him why we were investigating the accident, to leave it to the insurance companies. Sean said he had the right to the information, they told Sean he was harassing them by asking them for their insurance information, and said “How would you like it if someone came to your house and asked you for insurance information?” Sean said he would expect that to happen if he committed a hit and run. They said it was harassment, Sean said he was a lawyer and knew this was not harassment. They then left without assisting us.

So that was that.

Having now confirmed the identity of the driver we gave this information to the police, along with an affidavit they could use for charging, and a copy of his state arrest and conviction record. For some days we called and tried to follow up. The police played games with us, claiming that no officers by the names I had been given and wrote down existed. Then they said a detective had been assigned to my case. I insisted and got the name of the detective. I called him. He said that not only had he not been assigned to my case, but no such case existed and the police were not going to do anything.

So I went to the magistrate and filed charges on my own. I then met with a prosecutor and when he pulled the record of the driver. He felt they should prosecute him given his record.

Then this guy and his family, in an effort to find out where I lived, followed me one day when I came home from work (I lost them that time), and followed me on another occasion me when I walked my dogs. I was terrified. I called 911 but they told me they couldn’t help me. I had been getting away and hiding and then calling because I was afraid of them. We were extremely stressed that they would do something to us, the house, or the dogs (when they are let outside).

From that point on the case got continued a few times. Once he couldn’t attend his own trial because he was incarcerated in Virginia. The next time, on the day of trial, the attorney requested a jury trial so the case had to get transferred to the higher court. The next time he was sick. I finally decided my case would never go to trial and I felt ok with that because at least he’d stopped following me. I’d had a quick education in how nobody would ever help me and I was anxious just to be safe.

So I was surprised when my case was scheduled again for trial and even more surprised when it didn’t get continued yet again. I was called to court and went dutifully, but I also expected the case to settle prior to trial, that he would plea to some lesser charge, get probation and the whole thing would be over.

If we went to trial I was prepared to lose as I expected him to put his whole family on the stand to lie for him. I thought they would just say that they never hit me with the van and the jury would believe three against one and that would be the end of it.

I had not counted on an unethical defense attorney Anna Aita.

So my case did go to trial. The prosecutor was very nice, but she was new to the case. I’d met with two prosecutors previously, but none of the information I’d given them was passed on to this new prosecutor. She had little time to prepare for trial while the defense had over a year to prepare.

The proceedings during my testimony were odd.

First, nearly every single thing I said Anna Aita objected to, sometimes twice within a sentence. Her objections kept getting overruled and I sensed impatience in the jury. My husband (a lawyer) explained to me later that this was a strategy to make my testimony incomprehensible amid so many objections. Nobody could follow anything I said because the whole time I was being incessantly interrupted with “Your honor, I object” and “over-ruled.” Sometimes she asked to approach the bench and so my testimony was disrupted by five minutes of arguing in whispers up at the bench. At one point I heard the judge say to her “If you do this again I’m really going to embarrass you for it.” But still my testimony was destroyed.

Direct was fine, but on cross Anna Aita seemed to be testifying as opposed to asking questions. She would say things like “Isn’t it true you confronted my client and demanded money from him?” This was in fact false. I had not been face to face with the defendant since the day of the incident—I had only seen him since then sitting in a van that was following me, and then later in court. She also said “Isn’t it true Ms. Davis that you’re only here today because you plan on suing my client?” This was also false; we had never planned to sue him. I was sore and upset, but that’s not the kind of injury that can be easily quantified monetarily.

What made this especially insulting was that we spoke with Aita the first time we were in court, she asked us what we wanted, whether we wanted money for the car or any injuries, we explained that his insurance paid for everything and “he doesn’t owe us anything.” We explained that we were only trying to do the right thing, that what he did was both rude and dangerous, that he could kill someone doing that, and that we therefore thought it was important to bring charges. My husband also explained to her that we were not looking for any specific outcome, everything was up to the prosecutor.

When we were finally there on the last trial date as final plea negotiations were taking place, the prosecutor asked us if we were OK with a “Stet” (where the case gets suspended), community service, and restitution. It was such a weird request, we asked “Restitution for what? We don’t need restitution.” As to the rest, my husband reiterated that we were deferring entirely to them, it was their case to do whatever they wanted. On the court date before then (continued because he was allegedly sick), Sean even told a supervising prosecutor (whom he had known for years) that they could do whatever he wanted, including dropping the case. We were tired of the whole affair. The prosecutor said he understood, though he hated to see the defense win with the strategy of getting so many continuances. Sean again said it was up to them, they could drop it if they wanted, or we would continue to come to court as many times as needed.

Aita was well aware this wasn’t about money, but we later realized that false claim that we wanted money was her planned defense.

Further weirdness in the testimony. She made a big deal of the fact that my husband is a lawyer and kept sneering calling him “a personal injury” lawyer. I made clear that while my husband has done some traffic accident cases, he’s by no means “a personal injury lawyer.” He does general practice like family law, child support, criminal, traffic, writing wills, that kind of stuff.

Then she got really insistent on the idea that the car in the accident wasn’t my car but actually belonged to my mother. In reality my mother has never even sat inside that car. It’s our car, my and my husband’s car, my mother didn’t go with us to pick it out, she didn’t help us with it, she would likely not recognize the car if it passed her on the street.

Then my testimony was over and I had to leave the courtroom but was told I needed to come back the next day.

The next day I waited patiently outside the courtroom for hours. Then the prosecutor came out and said I needed to produce my car registration. I didn’t have it with me, so I had to get the plate number and rush upstairs to have someone run the plates, to prove I owned my car. The defense was still insisting it was my mother’s car. Weird. But that took up a lot of time and probably further confused the jury.

I watched the guy’s wife go in to testify and come back out minutes later. Then his son went in and stayed a long time. I had been expecting them to call me back for rebuttal testimony, but they never did. I had no idea what was happening in the courtroom. I wasn’t allowed in until closing arguments.

I was not at all prepared for what I saw during closing arguments. All I can say is that it was worse than the original assault. Anna Aita repeated her claims that I could not be trusted because I’m married to a lawyer. She also alleged that I was drunk at the time of the incident (I was not and I could have refuted that if I’d been given a chance and my husband and the police officers all could have testified that I was not drunk). She further told the jury that there had been no hit and run because the guy had given me his information (prior to this everyone involved, like the guy’s wife and the insurance companies all agreed there had been a hit and run and he’d been at fault—if I’d known they’d say this I could have requested records from the insurance company). She claimed that I never called the police because it didn’t happen (I did call the police; it’s not my fault they didn’t do anything, but I DID call). She claimed (amazingly) that her client and his son had no motive to lie but I did (um, staying out of jail is probably a motive). She reiterated that I was drunk (when she made these allegations the court clerks and the court reporter made faces of shock and horror). She also claimed that if I’d been hit by a van I’d be badly injured (it was at a low speed, I’m resilient, I don’t know---you’d think if I was inventing this whole thing I’d beat myself up or something to make it realistic, but I was being honest, I was sore but not badly hurt). She even had the nerve to tell the jury that *I* was the one who committed hit and run, that, as he client and his son testified, they gave me their information, but when they asked me for my information I got in the car and drove off!

After this I felt so badly beaten up that I left and did not wait for the verdict. But the verdict was not guilty. Later I learned that the prosecutor called the wife to testify but she refused (she claimed marital privilege and could not be forced to testify), which should have been a huge red flag, but oh well. My husband says that she probably couldn’t testify consistently with what her husband and son were saying because she previously gave a statement to the insurance company.

All in all it’s ok. This was a minor case and the defendant so threatening and scary that I’m just as happy if I’m off his radar, though I hate that he just terrorizes people over and over.

More than anything I’m shocked and horrified at Anna Aita. I expect a defendant to lie to save his ass. I expected a son to lie to protect his dad. But Anna Aita is a despicable person who knew the case she was presenting was bogus. I feel like she could have defended the guy without going on this all out unethical assault on my character. Really, even lawyer’s wives deserve protection. And I wasn’t drinking, at all, hadn’t consumed alcohol to the point of intoxication in about a decade, rarely have a glass of wine with dinner, and probably hadn’t had a drink in several weeks at the time of the incident; it was a Saturday afternoon, I was just going out to get groceries. But all this affected the jury and made them think I’m a bad person. I hate to think what she’d do if I’d been raped, she’d probably smirk the whole time while saying I was the one who committed rape, that my husband is a personal injury lawyer and I’m just trying to get money. My husband thinks she violated some ethical rules in what she did, in having her client and his son commit perjury, in basing her defense on something she knew was false (i.e., that we wanted money), in making groundless objections solely for the purpose of disrupting my testimony, and in disparaging an entire category of lawyers. (As for her knowing what she was doing was wrong, I overheard her tell a prosecutor before the trial started, “Promise me you’ll still speak to me after we’re done.” An advance apology of sorts, probably not given by a lawyer planning a spirited defense, but one planning to present a case full of lies and a character assassination of a victim of a crime.)

The only thing I can say about this whole experience is that I would be reluctant to ever ask the police for help again and I certainly would think twice about ever pursuing charges for anything. The whole court experience and all the delays and continuances as well were worse than the original incident. I’ll never forget the malicious sneer Aita had on her face during closing arguments when she turned and met my eyes and gestured at me while telling the jury that I had been drunk during the incident and that’s why I didn’t call the police. Aita actually knew perfectly well that I’d called the police from the accident scene. I’d testified to it, it was in all the insurance reports too. I’ll just never forget that horrible look on her evil face.