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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Mind Over Murder podcast.

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Speaker 2: My name is Bill Thomas. I'm a writer, consulting, producer,

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and now podcaster. I am now trying to use my

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experience as the brother of a murder victim to help

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other victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book

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on the unsolved Colonial Parkway murders, and I'm the co

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administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together with

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Kristin Dilly.

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Speaker 3: My name is Kristin Dilly.

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Speaker 4: I'm a writer, a researcher, a teacher, and a victim's advocate,

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as well as the social media manager and co administrator

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for the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook page with my partner

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in crime.

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Speaker 3: Bill Thomas.

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Speaker 5: This episode of Mind Over Murder contains subject matter which

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may not be suitable for all listeners. Listener discretion is advised.

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Hello and welcome to Mind Over Murder. I'm Kristin Dilly

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and I'm Bill Thomas. We're joined today by Sarah Winman

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here to talk to us about her amazing new book

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that can sent a lanemark trial and the decades long

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struggle to make spousal rape a crime. Stara, thank you

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so much for joining us again. We appreciate you being here.

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Speaker 3: It's good to be back. Thank you so much.

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Speaker 2: We have to figure out when was the last time

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you were here. It's a couple of years ago.

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Speaker 3: Now, was it for Evidence of Things seeing my last anthology?

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I think that's it was.

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Speaker 2: It was, and we had a fantastic conversation, although somehow

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I didn't discover until just this moment that you're actually

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from Ottawa, Canada.

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Speaker 3: That's true if I am Canadian by birth and sometimes

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by inclination, but I'm also a very proud American. It

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cuts both ways.

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Speaker 2: I think we're going to try to show everybody that

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Canadians and Americans can get along just fine.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 5: Absolutely, Sarah and Bils just mentioned the last time you

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were here. Where we're chatting about your previous books and

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the true crime genre, including evidence of Things seen.

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Speaker 3: Refresh our listeners.

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Speaker 5: On those just in case they want to buy one

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for their crime loving family member this holiday season.

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Speaker 3: Sure So Without Consent is my third book of nonfiction.

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My first two were The Real Lolita on the real

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life case that inspired the great and forever controversial novel.

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My second book, Scoundrel, is on essentially a wrongful exoneration

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of a convicted murder of a teenage girl ended up

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convincing very prominent people, including William F. Buckley Junior, that

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he did not commit the crime, and he was released

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from prison from death row and then came very close

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to killing another woman just a few years later. So

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that book tracks the whole arc of that crazy story.

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I've also edited several anthologies, and the two that are

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probably most relevant for your listeners, most recently and most

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evidence of Things seen True Crime and Era of Reckoning,

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which collected essays and features about true crime but looking

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at larger systemic issues. And it was a follow up

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to Unspeakable Acts, True Tales of Crime, Murdered, Deceit and Obsession,

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which came out in twenty twenty, which asked the question

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what did true crime look like in the aftermath of

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the first season of Cereal when this moment, which has

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now lasted well over ten years and been trenched true

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crime as a real bona fide genre. And that book

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is actually a favorite among my students.

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Speaker 5: So I have a couple copies on my classroom shelf

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and they're always if they're looking for a good piece

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of like long form fiction that they can read in

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just a couple of minutes when we've got ten minutes

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at the end of class.

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Speaker 3: I'll always tell them, like, go get that one. That

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one's really good. Thank you, And that's exactly why I

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put it together, and also evidence of things seen. What's

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interesting too, is that at the time I've put those

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anthologies together, there used to be an annual anthology called

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Best American Crime Reporting. We'm ceased, but now it's been reconstituted.

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I forget the exact title, but the first volume just

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came out this ball, so it's essentially doing what Best

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American Crime Reporting did and to some degree what my

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two anthologies did as well. Oh that's very cool.

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Speaker 5: All right, I'm gonna have to get that title from

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you so that we can put it on our list,

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our holiday list. You're here today to talk about your

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newest book, and it is about a rather troubling topic,

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which is marital rate. So again, for anybody who may

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have a sensitivity around this type of issue, we would

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encourage you to maybe let this be an episode that

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you skip for now, but please do eventually come back

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to it once you've learned a little bit more about

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the book. But let's go ahead and actually talk about

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marital rape. The definition does seem self evident, but define

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what that is for us in a legal sense.

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Speaker 3: I think it's important to first state that this was

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called into question because for centuries, the very idea that

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a ma could rape his wife was not considered to

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be a legal It was essentially a legal fiction because

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the idea, according to common law, is that once a

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woman married her husband, she was his property and he

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essentially had the perpetual right to consent no matter what,

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whether this was sex that she wanted or sex that

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she did not, because her sole purpose was to be

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a wife and therefore property. But it took until the

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early to mid nineteen seventies for activism to really get

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around to changing rape orform laws generally, and then looking

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at the laws with respect to marital rape, because so

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many state laws had exceptions where they would talk about

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sexual assault or rape and there would be a line

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essentially I'm paraphrasing here a man a woman other than

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his wife. The essentially the assault could happen to a

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woman who was a stranger, be an acquaintance, but if

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there was any relationship that was marked by marriage and

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a contract or a civil ceremony that therefore whatever happened

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in the marital bedroom was not considered to be a crime.

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And of course these activists were like, this is ridiculous,

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These exceptions should be gotten rid of. So starting in

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nineteen seventy five, and interestingly enough, South Dakota was the

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first state to get rid of their marital rape exception.

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That wouldn't last because it was that one blipit of

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time when South Dakota had a democratic legislature and women

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who were like, we need to change, we need to

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reform the rape laws. So seventy five, South Dakota is

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the first, and then over the next couple of years, Iowa, Delaware,

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and Michigan changed their laws. South Dakota repeals theirs, and

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they wouldn't put it back until nineteen ninety. But a

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law comes Oregon in nineteen seventy seven and they get

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rid of their marital repe exception and reform the laws.

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And this sets up the case that's at the heart

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of my book Without Consent, which was called Oregon versus Rideout,

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which was the first time that a woman who was

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still living with her husband charged him with rape, and

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it led to trial so just for readers to excuse me,

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just for listeners to note, by the time this trial

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starts in December of nineteen seventy eight, Oregon is just

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the fourth state to make marital rape of crime, and

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that there was still such a long way to go. Canada,

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my home country, would not make marital rape of crime

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until nineteen eighty two. I think France wouldn't until the eighties,

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and many Western countries were still under their own idea

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of common law. That it just took a lot of

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time and a lot of rethinking to change this idea,

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and understandably such a big change, and with a trial

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that was about to become a big media spectacle, a

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lot of people couldn't wrap their heads around it. And

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that was the back draw for Oregon versus right out.

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Speaker 2: Before we go to Oregon versus ride out, one quick question, Sarah,

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the handful of states that you just mentioned didn't strike

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me on a first listen as being necessarily the most

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progressive or lefty or whatever. I'm not trying to make

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this a political conversation, but what do you make of that?

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In other words, these were middle of the country, fairly conservative.

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In a number of examples, what do you think the

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origins were of those decisions by legislatures to change marital

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rape laws on a state by state basis.

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Speaker 3: That's a really good question, and I think it's just

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a it's a question of which activists were agitating and

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adding the attention of which legislators, and also that there

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were specific legislators who could put a bill forward in

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their state House or state Senate, and if they were

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particularly passionate about a cause, that could go a long way.

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I mean, for example, we think Iowa is a red

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state now, but it wasn't always right. And in the

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nineteen seventies, I think there were more legislators that were

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more receptive to this idea than they might be now.

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And these landscapes in general, and not just with respect

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to sexual assault and rape laws, but it's constantly shifting ground.

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In the seventies, it was a time of great activism

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and progressivism, but it was also a great time of

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cynicism and distrust in government. But also things were changing,

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not just at the legislative level, but also at the

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judicial level. Bro v weighed at this time in a

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late nineteen seventy eight was about five years old, right,

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The equal Credit Opportunity Act had passed in nineteen seventy four,

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and that finally gave women the right independently to get mortgages,

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to get credit cards, and not have to get their

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husbands to sign the mortgages or sign the paperwork to

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get anything financial financially related. The er the Equal Rights

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Amendment still seem like it might have a chance to pass.

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Right her control was finally gettable first if you were

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a married couple, and then if you were a single woman.

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So this was all in the air and the ether

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at the time that these laws, and specifically the marital

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rape exceptions were starting to go away.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm glad that you mentioned all sorts of the

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issues that came up for women the access to mortgages

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and credit cards, because I think a lot of our

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younger listeners probably do not know how really recent a

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phenomenon is that women have that ability to get a

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mortgage under their own name without a male co signing.

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It's definitely When that came up in class the other

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day on a subject I honestly can't even remember at

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this point, I had girls who were amazed, what do

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you mean women haven't always been able to get credit

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cards in their own name. I'm so glad that you

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brought that up, because I think there's a lot of

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people who don't understand how really recent those advances are

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for women, which.

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Speaker 3: Is, we think that this is dusty old history, but

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it really is not. And the fact that I can say,

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just over fifty years ago, marital rape was not a

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crime in any state in North America, it still boggles

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my mind because it should be agent history, but it's not.

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And part of the reason is that it just people

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weren't thinking about it as something that was worth fighting

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for and worth changing. But I think that working on

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this book really impressed upon me that all it takes

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is a few people who are really driven and who

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are really willing to put themselves on the line, and

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even if they seem like they're in the deep minority,

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that they can gain a foothold and thus convince other

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people that some of the ideas that might be seen

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as overly radical eventually become mainstreamed. We're now living in

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a time when some really terrible ideas are becoming mainstreamed,

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but conversely, some really wonderful ideas that seem so far

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out can also become mainstreamed, and I think that what happened,

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particularly after this trial and over the course of the

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next fifteen years, really shows that.

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Speaker 2: It's funny that when we're talking about this, it is

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important that we all make note of the fact that

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this isn't ancient history, and that this is quite recent.

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And as we've talked about in other issues on mind

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over Murder, it's also handled on a state by state basis.

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So in this example, this is an Oregon case. It

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is I remember, it had national implications and it got

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a tremendous amount of publicity back in seventy eight, So

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can you kind of walk us through the case a

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little bit?

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Speaker 3: So first it would help to upset the scene for

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who this couple was. So their names were Greta and John.

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Write out. Greta was twenty three at the time that

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she accused her husband John of raping her in front

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of their young daughter. John was twenty one at the time.

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They had been married by this point for a couple

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of years, so their daughter had been born a few

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months for the wedding and their relationship. She was originally

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from the Midwest, he was from Oregon, born in Bred.

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She had come to Oregon. After she followed her older sister,

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but the relationship had become distant and she didn't really

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have a lot of friends or a community, and she

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struggled to get work. She had dropped out of high school,

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just dreamy and unfocused. Eventually she found a job at

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a restaurant and that's where she met John. And at

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the time, he would have been about eighteen and she

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was ninety And at first the relationship wasn't particularly serious.

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She was having some fun, but then she got pregnant,

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and once that happened, the relationship really started to turn.

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And it was really marked by the cyclical nature of

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intimate partner violence. So they would fight a lot. He

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would demand sex. She would either beg off or go

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through with it, even though she didn't really want to.

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Their daughter was born, but he had shipped out to

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the military in Georgia. They were together, and then they weren't.

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She eventually took the daughter to back to the Midwest

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for her parent to live with her parents. He was

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trying to wove her back, and it was just a

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very volatile relationship and eventually she looked at her options

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and realized there just weren't that many and so she

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went back to Oregon with John and resumed their married life.

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But he was having trouble getting work. He had an

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extra marital affair, maybe more was in school, and so

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by the time October tenth, nineteen seventy eight, rolled around,

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they were fighting. He was demanding sex, she was trying

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to go to work. She leaves the house, he's trying

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to stop her. They have another fight. Eventually he gets

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her back into the apartment, and Greta alleged that the

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assault happened in their home. Their daughter comes in. She

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had in an earlier let me start that again. A

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little while before that alleged assault happened, she had called

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nine one one and been referred to the Salem Women's

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Crisis Center, which was an early instance of a domestic

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violence shelter. And because of being there, and it was

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nineteen seventy eight, it was the first time that Greta

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learned of this new law that made marital great a crime.

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So the night before the alleged incident, she and John

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were over at a neighbor's house and at one point

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the subject comes up and she says something like, well,

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if you do something, you know that there's this new law.

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So something does allegedly happen, and it takes a couple

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of days, but John is arrested for the rape of

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his wife, and it's initially reported very soberly in the

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local papers in Salem Morgan, but Greta's named, and the

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reporter who did that justified it by saying she could

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figure out that this was an important case. There'd never

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been an arrest under this new law, and she was

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married to him, so she couldn't really leave her name

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out of it, and in doing so, that really snowballed everything.

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Because once a sexual assault victim is in the papers,

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once she's in the papers forever and reported on again

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and again. So initially the coverage was just limited to

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the local papers, local TV stations, maybe the Associated Press,

289
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United Press International, like the Newswires. But in early December

290
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nineteen seventy eight, a feature reporter for the Los Angeles

291
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Times named Betty Liddick gets wind of it and decides

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to report on this for the paper. She flies up

293
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to Portland, drives down to Salem, meets Greta, meets John,

294
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meets various family members, meets various people from the Salem

295
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Women's crisis Center, and really it's that that is the

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piece that really puts a foothold in terms of getting

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national coverage and people to realize it's not just a

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sexual assault case involving a man and a woman, but

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the stakes are much higher that this is the test

300
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case for organs rape law that got rid of the

301
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marital rape exception, and it really will be the case

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that gets people talking all across the country and beyond

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about the very idea that a man can rape his wife.

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Speaker 5: So this really did service the litmus test very much

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for this particular thing. And that's and again I think

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that there are going to be a lot of our

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younger listeners who don't realize just how important this actually was.

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Speaker 3: And I'm also very intrigued.

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Speaker 5: Again, just from an educator's point of view, I'm wondering

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how often this case gets listed in a list of

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landmark cases, because I certainly hadn't heard of it until

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I read your book.

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Speaker 3: So it depends on which foreigners of academia you are in.

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But certainly law professors know about it, some feminist scholars

315
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know about it, but without consent, to the best of

316
00:18:50,640 --> 00:18:54,160
my knowledge, is the first book on marital rape written

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00:18:54,160 --> 00:18:57,200
for a trade like a regular audience by a trade

318
00:18:57,640 --> 00:19:00,480
book publisher in about forty years.

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Speaker 2: Wow.

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Speaker 3: And I think that's really a testament to how little

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the subject gets discussed even in feminist circles. Certainly in

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the mid to late eighties and early nineties, when this

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activist campaign to get every state to make marital rape

324
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a crime was really at its height, there were feminist

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scholars like Diana Russell wrote a really important book called

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Rape and Marriage that was first published in eighty two

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and then revised in nineteen ninety, And in the introduction

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to the revised book, she talks about how difficult it

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is to get the attention of domestic violence counselors and

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those working in the field because they're like, we're already

331
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have enough on our plate dealing with women getting hit

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00:19:44,480 --> 00:19:47,720
by their husbands and beat up. We can't get talking

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00:19:47,759 --> 00:19:50,720
about barrittle rape is just like almost a bridge too far,

334
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and she just couldn't believe it. But it's just that

335
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there it was a really difficult to focus on multiple

336
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things at once, which is notoxically why the campaign to

337
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make marital rape a crime in every state probably succeeded

338
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Because it was so narrowly focused. It was, let's do

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this one thing to get rid of marital rape exceptions

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and really make sure that rape laws fold in every

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conceivable form of sexual assault, not just by strangers but

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by those most intimate to you. But the flip side

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of it is that it's just a subject that a

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lot of people understandably don't want to deal with. It's

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very difficult. Sexual assault in general is such a thorny

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subject to discuss because of how the ripple effects of

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trauma work. It certainly impresses upon me that not everybody

348
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reacts to trauma in the same way. But certainly, if

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you have an acute instance of, say, sexual assault by

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a stranger, that can have ripple effects for the rest

351
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of your life. But then when you have repeated sexual assault,

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potentially by an intimate partner or spouse, it's not just

353
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that you know, it happens and then it's over. You

354
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may have children with this person, you share finances with

355
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this person, they're sleeping in the same bed next to you.

356
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You can't really get away from them so easily. And

357
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of course, as we know, the most dangerous time in

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an intimate partnership is when, particularly the woman who may

359
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be the victim she's trying to lead, and because that

360
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is the time when things are most volatile. So these

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are all the things I was thinking about as I

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was writing this book. That is for sure.

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Speaker 2: You mentioned something a moment ago, Sarah, about news reports

364
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when Greta had charged John with rape in the write

365
00:21:44,599 --> 00:21:51,960
out case and her name was appearing in the press.

366
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When we look at a lot of reports on sexual

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assault in twenty twenty five, oftentimes reporters, media folks will say,

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we are not mentioning the name of the victim. That

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seems very common now to not mention the name of

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the victim, But fifty years ago that wasn't really the practice.

371
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Do you know when that transition took place where we

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tend to keep the victim's name out of the press.

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Speaker 3: I think it varied. Even in reports in the nineteen seventies,

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it was considered to be highly unusual or the victim

375
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of an alleged rape or sexual assault to be named.

376
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But I do think that it changed for good in

377
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the early nineteen eighties. And I think the case that

378
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really did it was what was colloquially urbed the rape

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at Big Dan's Tavern in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

380
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Speaker 2: Oh, yes, that was Marrito A film later.

381
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Speaker 3: Yes, accused Jonie Foster playing the victim. And because of

382
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the horrific nature of the crime and a number of

383
00:23:06,160 --> 00:23:10,359
other factors. I mean, it involved just in the Portuguese

384
00:23:10,359 --> 00:23:13,720
community in New Bedford. She was from that community, her

385
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the perpetrators of the crime were from that community. But

386
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it was also televised and the stations that televised it.

387
00:23:21,839 --> 00:23:26,160
When the victim, Cheryl Arugo, got on the stand, her

388
00:23:26,240 --> 00:23:29,839
name was not bleeped out. And because of that, because

389
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people suddenly realized who it was, and in the community

390
00:23:33,759 --> 00:23:36,480
they had known, but now her name was out there nationally,

391
00:23:36,839 --> 00:23:39,920
it was considered to be a grievous error, and in

392
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part because it really ruined her life. Even though the

393
00:23:43,759 --> 00:23:47,440
perpetrators of the sexual assault were convicted, most of the

394
00:23:47,480 --> 00:23:53,480
community blamed her and she was basically scorned from public life.

395
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She had to leave, She took her kids to Florida.

396
00:23:56,079 --> 00:23:59,400
She had she clearly had severe post traumatic stress disorder

397
00:24:00,279 --> 00:24:03,079
and eventually died in a car crash and her blood

398
00:24:03,079 --> 00:24:05,359
alcohol limit was way over the limit.

399
00:24:05,680 --> 00:24:08,359
Speaker 2: Oh so tragic, very tragic.

400
00:24:08,920 --> 00:24:11,240
Speaker 3: And so after that, I think it became clear that

401
00:24:11,480 --> 00:24:16,240
one had to take very good care when sexual assault

402
00:24:16,319 --> 00:24:20,079
victims are named. I also bring this up because there

403
00:24:20,119 --> 00:24:23,519
are other sexual assault victims in my book that are named,

404
00:24:24,119 --> 00:24:27,200
and they are in fact victims of John write out

405
00:24:27,880 --> 00:24:33,319
much later on, But when those trials happened, initially their

406
00:24:33,400 --> 00:24:35,559
names were not in the media. But both of the

407
00:24:35,880 --> 00:24:42,319
survivors independently decided that they wanted their names out there

408
00:24:42,359 --> 00:24:45,359
because they wanted other people to know what had happened

409
00:24:45,480 --> 00:24:48,079
and that there was no stigma and there was no shame.

410
00:24:49,160 --> 00:24:55,000
So my attitude is when I talk about that case,

411
00:24:55,519 --> 00:24:58,839
I usually don't name them in the context of this

412
00:24:59,039 --> 00:25:02,720
podcast because I try to renew my consent. For example,

413
00:25:03,480 --> 00:25:06,319
one of the women actually came to my book event

414
00:25:06,400 --> 00:25:08,880
in Portland, organ which is only an hour're outside of Salem,

415
00:25:09,119 --> 00:25:11,079
and even then I said, is it okay if your

416
00:25:11,119 --> 00:25:12,960
name comes up while we're having this Q and A

417
00:25:13,400 --> 00:25:15,680
in front of an audience. Are you okay with that?

418
00:25:15,839 --> 00:25:18,640
She said, yes, it didn't as it turned out, But

419
00:25:18,720 --> 00:25:20,880
I think it's important whenever you have the chance to

420
00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:24,559
renew consent relating to a sexual assault survivor, that is key.

421
00:25:24,960 --> 00:25:28,559
Don't just assume that it's a blanket thing with Greta.

422
00:25:29,480 --> 00:25:31,920
It's a little trickier because her name was already out

423
00:25:31,960 --> 00:25:35,960
there through reasons far beyonder control, and not just her

424
00:25:35,960 --> 00:25:39,799
married name, but her maiden name. But while I was

425
00:25:39,799 --> 00:25:42,279
writing the book, interestingly enough, I was actually using a

426
00:25:42,279 --> 00:25:46,880
pseudonym for her birth name because I wasn't sure what

427
00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:49,400
was going on. She was still alive, I wasn't able

428
00:25:49,440 --> 00:25:53,279
to contact her for a variety of reasons, and then

429
00:25:53,319 --> 00:25:57,319
I learned that she had died. And once I learned that,

430
00:25:57,920 --> 00:26:02,279
then I felt or okay about publishing her name as

431
00:26:02,279 --> 00:26:06,880
it was. But I also think that that's worth discussing.

432
00:26:07,839 --> 00:26:11,599
Just because you are dead doesn't mean that you don't

433
00:26:11,880 --> 00:26:14,920
have the right to some kind of informed consent. And

434
00:26:14,960 --> 00:26:17,839
that is the strange irony of this book. It's called

435
00:26:17,880 --> 00:26:20,720
without consent, But I never got Greta's consent, not for

436
00:26:20,799 --> 00:26:23,559
lack of trying, but just that was just the nature

437
00:26:23,640 --> 00:26:26,440
of that's the nature of reporting. No one is entitled

438
00:26:27,240 --> 00:26:29,960
to any source talking to them. And I think in

439
00:26:30,039 --> 00:26:33,519
light of what would happen with Greta, as we'll discuss,

440
00:26:34,039 --> 00:26:37,240
she absolutely had the right to privacy after it was

441
00:26:37,319 --> 00:26:41,400
violated multiple times and perpetually.

442
00:26:42,079 --> 00:26:44,680
Speaker 5: And of course, we want to spoil the book because

443
00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:46,119
we want people to buy the pafriction.

444
00:26:46,240 --> 00:26:47,880
Speaker 3: Butte yes, tell us a.

445
00:26:47,799 --> 00:26:52,640
Speaker 5: Little bit about how John write Out's lawyer mounted a

446
00:26:52,720 --> 00:26:56,559
defense for him, because that is the I believe the

447
00:26:56,599 --> 00:26:58,799
youth would say. It's a rage baity sort of thing,

448
00:26:59,319 --> 00:27:01,200
and I hate that I do that, but every once

449
00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:03,839
in a while I just have to. But yes, particularly,

450
00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:06,680
let's talk about how John red outslawyer mounted to defense,

451
00:27:06,720 --> 00:27:09,319
and then anything else she wanted to bring in about

452
00:27:09,319 --> 00:27:10,799
the trial that will not spoil.

453
00:27:11,880 --> 00:27:16,519
Speaker 3: Well, it's important to set out that the trial happened

454
00:27:16,519 --> 00:27:19,200
as it did in large part because of a pre

455
00:27:19,279 --> 00:27:22,839
trial hearing where the judge allowed greta sexual history to

456
00:27:22,880 --> 00:27:26,319
be brought in as evidence. So it meant that the

457
00:27:26,400 --> 00:27:30,640
jury could hear about her past abortions, about an extra

458
00:27:30,680 --> 00:27:33,599
male of marital fair that she had while she and

459
00:27:33,599 --> 00:27:38,279
her husband were separated, about basically some joking conversation with

460
00:27:38,359 --> 00:27:42,559
a good friend about their supposed lesbian tendencies. And really

461
00:27:42,599 --> 00:27:45,440
she was doing this toatrol John because she felt like

462
00:27:45,519 --> 00:27:48,680
she was trying to get him to admit certain proclivities

463
00:27:48,759 --> 00:27:52,599
that he just wasn't admitting. It was very I don't

464
00:27:52,599 --> 00:27:54,119
know this is the kind of thing that like young

465
00:27:54,200 --> 00:27:58,799
people who aren't necessarily the most intelligent might engage with.

466
00:27:58,920 --> 00:28:01,799
I don't know us to say it was a joke

467
00:28:01,880 --> 00:28:06,039
that went seriously all right because for very pointed cross examination.

468
00:28:07,799 --> 00:28:10,519
Speaker 2: You're listening to Mind over Murder. We'll be right back

469
00:28:10,759 --> 00:28:18,079
after this word from our sponsors. We're back here at

470
00:28:18,119 --> 00:28:18,960
mindover Murder.

471
00:28:21,039 --> 00:28:23,920
Speaker 3: John stiff fence lawyer Charles Bert was pretty well known

472
00:28:23,960 --> 00:28:27,519
in the legal community in Salem, who's very self spoken.

473
00:28:28,400 --> 00:28:32,359
He was fairly short. He'd had a bout of polio

474
00:28:32,440 --> 00:28:36,240
that messed up his spine and reduced his height, but

475
00:28:36,279 --> 00:28:39,559
he used that to his advantage because people had underestimated

476
00:28:39,640 --> 00:28:43,599
him and so his defense was too oold. Number one,

477
00:28:44,079 --> 00:28:47,000
if there was any sex between Greta and John, it

478
00:28:47,039 --> 00:28:52,960
was consensual. But also this law in Oregon shouldn't stand

479
00:28:53,079 --> 00:28:58,799
because why is the privacy of what happens in the

480
00:28:58,799 --> 00:29:01,240
marital bedroom, Why should it be under any kind of

481
00:29:01,279 --> 00:29:05,759
legal consideration. So in his opening statements he said, maybe

482
00:29:05,759 --> 00:29:08,799
being raped is the risk of being married. Wow, it's

483
00:29:08,839 --> 00:29:12,079
a lot. Yeah. No, working on this book, I felt

484
00:29:12,079 --> 00:29:16,240
like I was essentially marinating in rage bait beaked some

485
00:29:16,279 --> 00:29:19,880
incredibly outrageous things, not just in the courtroom, so in

486
00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:24,079
various op eds and TV it was just unbelievable. At times.

487
00:29:24,079 --> 00:29:26,720
I just would be reading this going why is going

488
00:29:26,759 --> 00:29:30,200
on here? I have to synthesize all of this. But Yeah,

489
00:29:30,279 --> 00:29:34,160
during the trial, Greta's sexual history was brought in. It

490
00:29:34,279 --> 00:29:36,799
meant that it really attacked her credibility in Jurors would

491
00:29:37,240 --> 00:29:40,039
talk about this in the immediate aftermath. So even though

492
00:29:40,039 --> 00:29:43,200
the prosecution but on a case where they had twenty

493
00:29:43,240 --> 00:29:47,519
seven witnesses attesting to what they knew of this alleged

494
00:29:47,559 --> 00:29:51,799
sexual assault, some of the history of Greta and John's marriage.

495
00:29:52,279 --> 00:29:55,519
A doctor was called where he had examined Greta in

496
00:29:55,559 --> 00:29:58,720
the immediate aftermath of the alleged assault, and he said

497
00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:01,960
that according to his medical li opinion, forced intercourse it happened,

498
00:30:02,039 --> 00:30:04,200
but he couldn't comment on whether it was rape because

499
00:30:04,279 --> 00:30:08,079
rape is a legal term, not a medical term. But

500
00:30:09,039 --> 00:30:12,319
when Greta got on the stand, even though my reading

501
00:30:12,359 --> 00:30:14,279
of it in twenty twenty five is that she was

502
00:30:14,319 --> 00:30:17,279
a very effective witness, the cross examination really went after

503
00:30:17,319 --> 00:30:21,519
her because of the prior sexual history being brought in,

504
00:30:22,359 --> 00:30:25,960
and she got very rattled on the stand, and then

505
00:30:26,680 --> 00:30:29,519
there were only four witnesses for the defense, but one

506
00:30:29,519 --> 00:30:32,000
of them was John and he of course testified that

507
00:30:32,039 --> 00:30:35,680
the sex was consensual. So when it finally came time

508
00:30:35,759 --> 00:30:37,839
for the jury to deliberate, this is the other thing

509
00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:42,400
that really slanted the verdict. They were only asked to

510
00:30:42,440 --> 00:30:47,079
consider a charge of first degree rape. Before the trial happened,

511
00:30:47,359 --> 00:30:51,039
the prosecutor had dropped additional charges related to assault and battery,

512
00:30:51,440 --> 00:30:54,400
and there were pictures of Greta and the immediate aftermath

513
00:30:54,440 --> 00:30:56,559
of the assault that showed she had definitely been beaten up,

514
00:30:56,680 --> 00:30:58,640
so they you could have proven that charge if he

515
00:30:58,640 --> 00:31:02,200
had wanted to. Then the judge instructed the jury to

516
00:31:02,279 --> 00:31:05,079
only consider first degree rape, not any lesser rape or

517
00:31:05,119 --> 00:31:09,240
sexual assault charges, so it meant they could only consider

518
00:31:09,279 --> 00:31:12,880
a charge that carried a sentence maximally of twenty years

519
00:31:12,920 --> 00:31:17,599
in prison. And the prevailing sentiment among the jurors was,

520
00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:21,079
here was this twenty one year old man, pretty young,

521
00:31:21,240 --> 00:31:23,720
starting his life. Do we really want to convict him

522
00:31:23,720 --> 00:31:25,920
and sentence him to a twenty two year prison term,

523
00:31:26,279 --> 00:31:29,559
especially when there is in their mind reasonable doubt, And

524
00:31:29,640 --> 00:31:32,799
most of the reasonable doubt was Greta's testimony really credible.

525
00:31:33,759 --> 00:31:37,160
Did they think that this marriage was actually over? Maybe

526
00:31:37,160 --> 00:31:40,279
they were going to get back together. So ultimately, yes,

527
00:31:40,319 --> 00:31:43,279
they did a quit John of the rape of his wife,

528
00:31:44,000 --> 00:31:48,200
and this provoked a tremendous amount of outrage, and subsequent

529
00:31:48,839 --> 00:31:52,279
events would stoke that outrage even more. But I think

530
00:31:53,759 --> 00:31:57,480
there is a great irony that an acquittal led to

531
00:31:57,559 --> 00:32:01,680
more outrage, which galvanized activists in a way that maybe

532
00:32:01,680 --> 00:32:04,880
a conviction wouldn't have, because if John had been convicted

533
00:32:04,920 --> 00:32:07,960
at the time, it would have been considered settled law.

534
00:32:08,599 --> 00:32:10,799
But would it have meant that other states would have

535
00:32:10,839 --> 00:32:13,839
criminalized spousal Right, It's hard to know. What I do

536
00:32:13,960 --> 00:32:17,359
know is that the acquittal did spur things to happen,

537
00:32:17,920 --> 00:32:19,599
and it did cause change to happen.

538
00:32:20,680 --> 00:32:24,200
Speaker 2: Ironically, the decision to go with an all or nothing

539
00:32:24,759 --> 00:32:31,720
legal strategy limited the jury's ability, perhaps to a stepped

540
00:32:31,880 --> 00:32:36,440
down charge. As you said, it's very clear that Greta

541
00:32:36,599 --> 00:32:40,799
was beaten up, and they could have gone with something

542
00:32:40,880 --> 00:32:43,359
that would have been a lower level charge, but that

543
00:32:43,839 --> 00:32:47,799
wasn't on the table by the time they got to deliberating.

544
00:32:47,880 --> 00:32:48,640
Am I correct?

545
00:32:49,200 --> 00:32:54,279
Speaker 3: That is correct? Yes, And obviously that increases the need

546
00:32:54,359 --> 00:32:58,599
for considering beyond a reasonable doubt. The higher the charge,

547
00:32:58,720 --> 00:33:01,400
the greater the stakes. Now, if there had been a

548
00:33:01,480 --> 00:33:06,599
lesser charge, say a third degree sexual assault or battery

549
00:33:06,920 --> 00:33:10,960
or simple assault, those could have been charges that could

550
00:33:11,039 --> 00:33:14,000
have led to convictions, but the jury never heard that

551
00:33:14,079 --> 00:33:17,079
and they were instructed to only consider that one charge

552
00:33:17,240 --> 00:33:20,279
of first degree rate. And what was the makeup of

553
00:33:20,319 --> 00:33:24,759
the jury in this case? I believe it was predominantly women,

554
00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:28,759
which is interesting because there was a prevailing sentiment that

555
00:33:28,839 --> 00:33:32,160
women were more likely to acquit men of sexual assault

556
00:33:32,680 --> 00:33:36,680
because they would more harshly judge other women, And at

557
00:33:36,720 --> 00:33:39,160
least based on the comments from the jury in the

558
00:33:39,200 --> 00:33:41,279
immediate aftermath, a lot of it did focus on the

559
00:33:41,319 --> 00:33:45,160
lesser charges, but many of it also focused on Greta's credibility.

560
00:33:45,160 --> 00:33:48,200
And I did think that they viewed this twenty three

561
00:33:48,319 --> 00:33:52,960
year old blonde woman as someone who they didn't have

562
00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:57,200
to take very seriously and whose judgment they didn't really believe.

563
00:33:57,759 --> 00:34:02,519
So as a result in dismissing your credibility, they could

564
00:34:02,519 --> 00:34:02,839
have quit.

565
00:34:02,920 --> 00:34:06,440
Speaker 5: John, was that surprising to you considering that it was

566
00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:08,320
a jury of women, Because it made me throw your

567
00:34:08,320 --> 00:34:09,159
book across the room.

568
00:34:09,199 --> 00:34:10,079
Speaker 3: No, offense to your book.

569
00:34:10,440 --> 00:34:13,679
Speaker 2: Oh and vet it.

570
00:34:14,320 --> 00:34:16,639
Speaker 5: Yeah, I read the verdict and I screamed out, come on,

571
00:34:17,239 --> 00:34:20,079
throw the book through, I.

572
00:34:20,119 --> 00:34:23,239
Speaker 3: Guess, but it's so frustrating. I think it's fair to

573
00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:26,800
say that if that case played out today or even

574
00:34:26,840 --> 00:34:29,199
a few years ago, there would have been a vastly

575
00:34:29,199 --> 00:34:31,519
different outcome. And I know this because of the later

576
00:34:31,599 --> 00:34:35,199
trials that did take place in balby John Wright out

577
00:34:35,239 --> 00:34:38,840
as the defendant, one of which I observed first hand.

578
00:34:39,920 --> 00:34:42,679
And I do think that lawyers have come a long

579
00:34:42,800 --> 00:34:46,679
way in terms of understanding a lot of the nuance

580
00:34:47,320 --> 00:34:49,159
about what it is to be a victim of sexual

581
00:34:49,159 --> 00:34:54,760
assault and how deeply traumatizing this experiences, and that you're

582
00:34:54,840 --> 00:34:58,519
just constantly re traumatized all the time. It doesn't just

583
00:34:58,559 --> 00:35:01,559
start with the initial assault reporting it. It's going through

584
00:35:01,559 --> 00:35:05,599
the rape kit, it's talking about it, not just in

585
00:35:05,639 --> 00:35:08,360
anticipation of a cross examination by defense lawyer, but being

586
00:35:08,440 --> 00:35:11,840
prepped by prosecutors, which was something that Greta herself said

587
00:35:11,920 --> 00:35:15,800
was even more traumatic than the actual cross examination, because

588
00:35:16,039 --> 00:35:19,960
you expect an adversarial experience. You don't expect that adversarial

589
00:35:20,000 --> 00:35:23,079
experience coming from your own side. But at the same time,

590
00:35:23,119 --> 00:35:28,960
I think that men who were lawyers in nineteen seventy eight,

591
00:35:29,079 --> 00:35:33,199
like the prosecutor in general, his attitude struck me as

592
00:35:33,239 --> 00:35:36,760
being very hasshearted about it all that here was, Mike,

593
00:35:36,840 --> 00:35:40,239
here's the case. I guess it's the test case. I'll

594
00:35:40,280 --> 00:35:42,519
go through as it. But you would make comments like

595
00:35:42,559 --> 00:35:45,119
I vote that John doesn't get prison time on the

596
00:35:45,199 --> 00:35:47,480
day that he was due to give closing arguments. So

597
00:35:48,079 --> 00:35:50,920
I don't want to say that the prosecutor, Gary gort Maker,

598
00:35:51,039 --> 00:35:53,679
ripped it, because I think that's a serious accusation, but

599
00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:56,880
he definitely did not act like somebody whose whole heart

600
00:35:56,960 --> 00:35:57,760
was in this case.

601
00:35:59,440 --> 00:36:04,679
Speaker 2: It's also, oh hard to look at this case from

602
00:36:04,760 --> 00:36:09,559
nineteen seventy eight from a twenty twenty five perspective, and

603
00:36:09,639 --> 00:36:14,360
I just think about how much we as a community

604
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:19,639
have talked about that we need to believe women when

605
00:36:19,679 --> 00:36:24,159
they come forward or victims of any sex who have

606
00:36:24,880 --> 00:36:28,719
suffered an injury of this type and are now coming forward,

607
00:36:28,760 --> 00:36:35,199
and we know how incredibly difficult that is, that how

608
00:36:35,239 --> 00:36:38,800
much stress there's been in the last I don't know,

609
00:36:38,880 --> 00:36:43,039
five years, ten years. Then yes, emphasizing that we need

610
00:36:43,079 --> 00:36:49,880
to listen to victims and take them seriously and believe

611
00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:53,880
them and then let them tell their story and not

612
00:36:54,119 --> 00:36:58,679
just dismiss it outright. But when we look back, this

613
00:36:58,760 --> 00:37:00,960
is runs counter to what I was saying before about

614
00:37:01,000 --> 00:37:04,639
how this isn't ancient history, but it was a very

615
00:37:04,639 --> 00:37:09,320
different time nearly fifty years ago, and attitudes I think

616
00:37:09,920 --> 00:37:13,280
have shifted. I was very surprised by your comment a

617
00:37:13,320 --> 00:37:17,880
moment ago, Sarah, when you said that women were regarded

618
00:37:17,920 --> 00:37:24,679
as being more judgmental. Then. I'm not sure that's the

619
00:37:24,760 --> 00:37:27,599
case now. I wondered how you two would react to me.

620
00:37:27,760 --> 00:37:29,639
Speaker 3: I don't think it's the case now, and I made

621
00:37:29,679 --> 00:37:34,480
that loss of what I've experienced now attending criminal trials.

622
00:37:34,639 --> 00:37:37,760
But I also think that generally jurors are more sympathetic

623
00:37:37,800 --> 00:37:40,559
to nuance. They have a greater understanding. I think Me

624
00:37:40,639 --> 00:37:42,880
Too really went a long way, and I think we

625
00:37:42,960 --> 00:37:47,880
actually don't understand how are things actually went, which respect

626
00:37:47,920 --> 00:37:50,079
to Me Too, because the backlash seemed to be so

627
00:37:50,199 --> 00:37:53,239
vicious and so quick. But now, and I'm not sure

628
00:37:53,239 --> 00:37:55,400
if you saw. Rebecca Tracer of New York Magazine wrote

629
00:37:55,440 --> 00:37:58,639
a wonderful piece that came out the week that we're speaking,

630
00:37:59,039 --> 00:38:02,320
called Me Too Forever, where she essentially talks about how

631
00:38:02,599 --> 00:38:07,079
backlash and backlash to the backlash it's all happening simultaneously

632
00:38:07,159 --> 00:38:09,840
that people can say, me too, went to bar But

633
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:14,360
actually there's more movement, and it's partly because as much

634
00:38:14,360 --> 00:38:17,760
as we want to think that progress is linear, it

635
00:38:17,800 --> 00:38:20,719
almost never is usually asymmetrical. Yes, on the one hand,

636
00:38:21,199 --> 00:38:24,519
nineteen seventy eight isn't all that long ago, but look

637
00:38:24,559 --> 00:38:28,280
at how much things have changed in society generally, what

638
00:38:28,360 --> 00:38:30,599
is it a smartphone is less than twenty years old,

639
00:38:31,159 --> 00:38:36,760
and how much has changed irrevocably because of having apps

640
00:38:36,840 --> 00:38:41,079
and social media and the speed at which we're getting

641
00:38:41,360 --> 00:38:47,360
news and the disinformation that's coming across like things change

642
00:38:47,719 --> 00:38:51,960
very quickly at a moment's notice, but things can also

643
00:38:52,079 --> 00:38:55,880
change back at a moment's notice as well. This wasn't

644
00:38:55,960 --> 00:38:58,760
quite the case in seventy eight because the means of

645
00:38:59,199 --> 00:39:02,599
delivering techology were a lot slower and we only had

646
00:39:02,599 --> 00:39:06,639
what three major news networks. There were news wires, there

647
00:39:06,760 --> 00:39:10,519
was obviously television and radio, and a lot of newspapers,

648
00:39:10,519 --> 00:39:13,280
but it still was according to print deadlines. It wasn't

649
00:39:13,280 --> 00:39:16,320
this constant churn that we have of the Internet. So,

650
00:39:16,440 --> 00:39:19,480
on the one hand, things would be more favorable, I

651
00:39:19,480 --> 00:39:23,480
think with respect to Greta if she was going through

652
00:39:23,480 --> 00:39:27,800
a comparable trial. Unfortunately, the flip side is that there

653
00:39:27,800 --> 00:39:30,519
are a lot of bad faith actors right now who

654
00:39:31,400 --> 00:39:35,360
want to turn this idea of believing women into a weapon,

655
00:39:36,239 --> 00:39:39,719
And a lot of what came through in the trial

656
00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:43,159
was already weaponized against Greta in nineteen seventy eight, and

657
00:39:43,199 --> 00:39:47,000
it might have been even further weaponized in twenty twenty five.

658
00:39:47,719 --> 00:39:50,400
So that's the conundrum, which is that we've come a

659
00:39:50,400 --> 00:39:55,119
long way, but so has the backlash, and considering all

660
00:39:55,159 --> 00:39:58,360
of that, an equal measure is really important.

661
00:39:58,719 --> 00:40:02,760
Speaker 5: Tell us about John right second trial on rape charges

662
00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:05,360
that was in twenty sixteen. I believe what was the

663
00:40:05,440 --> 00:40:06,599
ultimate outcome there?

664
00:40:07,760 --> 00:40:10,519
Speaker 3: Yes, so many years had passed, almost forty years when

665
00:40:11,639 --> 00:40:14,880
a reporter at the Salem Statesman Journal named Whitney Woodworth,

666
00:40:14,920 --> 00:40:17,000
who had just started at the job a few months before,

667
00:40:17,119 --> 00:40:20,280
was looking at the crime blotterer and noticed that a

668
00:40:20,320 --> 00:40:25,239
man named John Joseph Rightout had been arrested for two

669
00:40:25,280 --> 00:40:28,360
different sexual assault charges relating to two different women. One

670
00:40:28,599 --> 00:40:30,760
was an on to get off again intimate partner and

671
00:40:30,800 --> 00:40:33,400
one was an acquaintance whom he had met in church,

672
00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:35,800
and she called up the prosecutors said, is this the

673
00:40:35,800 --> 00:40:37,719
same John right Out from nineteen seventy eight?

674
00:40:37,760 --> 00:40:40,719
Speaker 2: And it was, And it's a very distinctive name. To

675
00:40:41,320 --> 00:40:43,639
my eye, it is. I don't think I've ever met

676
00:40:43,679 --> 00:40:44,920
anybody named ride Out.

677
00:40:46,400 --> 00:40:49,239
Speaker 3: They're a surprising number. I have found a number of them,

678
00:40:49,239 --> 00:40:52,320
as it turned out. But yes, to me, ride Out

679
00:40:52,400 --> 00:40:55,840
is so associated with this kidne these people that for

680
00:40:55,960 --> 00:40:58,679
someone like Whitney coming across that, and she had just

681
00:40:58,719 --> 00:41:01,599
done a cursory Google service wow, and that in the

682
00:41:01,679 --> 00:41:03,920
nineteen seventy eight case was the first thing that came up.

683
00:41:05,480 --> 00:41:10,559
So by this point John had bounced around between Salem

684
00:41:10,800 --> 00:41:16,559
and underlying rural towns and northern California, particularly way up

685
00:41:16,599 --> 00:41:20,760
north like Eureka, Hubbold County, and McKinleyville. But he had

686
00:41:20,800 --> 00:41:27,760
come back around twenty thirteen, twenty twelve, twenty thirteen to

687
00:41:27,920 --> 00:41:33,679
care for his aging mother, and he had met this

688
00:41:33,719 --> 00:41:37,360
on again, off again intimate partner on Facebook. They had

689
00:41:37,400 --> 00:41:40,159
initially known each other in high school, but she had

690
00:41:40,199 --> 00:41:44,000
got on she'd married and had other relationships with other children.

691
00:41:44,519 --> 00:41:47,960
They reconnected on Facebook and she decided to go to

692
00:41:48,079 --> 00:41:51,159
northern California and try out living with him. It was

693
00:41:51,920 --> 00:41:55,119
pretty bollattle. She broke up with him, went back, and

694
00:41:55,159 --> 00:41:57,880
then he went He followed suit and came back to

695
00:41:57,920 --> 00:42:02,440
Oregon and they resumed their relationship, in part because there

696
00:42:02,480 --> 00:42:05,920
had been a fire and she lost her property and

697
00:42:06,000 --> 00:42:09,639
some animals and she felt like she had nowhere to go.

698
00:42:09,679 --> 00:42:13,039
So she calls up her farmer partners, Can I stay

699
00:42:13,039 --> 00:42:15,960
with you in your trailer? And he says yeah, And

700
00:42:16,119 --> 00:42:21,119
something happened in twenty sixteen which was essentially an alleged

701
00:42:21,159 --> 00:42:29,679
act of forced sodomy rape, And there had been other

702
00:42:29,719 --> 00:42:31,960
prior alleged incidents, but that was the one that made

703
00:42:31,960 --> 00:42:36,599
her report, and because of that incident, because she was reporting,

704
00:42:37,360 --> 00:42:41,239
he leaves a message on the answering machine of dis acquaintance,

705
00:42:41,639 --> 00:42:45,159
whom he had met in twenty thirteen when an rape

706
00:42:45,199 --> 00:42:48,000
had happened and she was trying to get her life

707
00:42:48,199 --> 00:42:51,360
back together afterwards. She'd had a very difficult life. She

708
00:42:51,480 --> 00:42:55,880
was also a repeated survivor, and she had been somewhat

709
00:42:55,920 --> 00:42:59,880
recently widowed, had a child, so her church was really

710
00:43:00,039 --> 00:43:03,320
important to her, and so meeting John through the church

711
00:43:03,920 --> 00:43:06,000
and then for him to allegedly violate her in this

712
00:43:06,039 --> 00:43:10,280
way was really just horrible. But she was moving through

713
00:43:10,320 --> 00:43:13,039
it and doing her best, and then she gets this

714
00:43:13,159 --> 00:43:16,760
voicemail and everything just comes back and all the PTSD

715
00:43:16,920 --> 00:43:19,480
is just like right back where and she's worse off

716
00:43:19,599 --> 00:43:25,400
than where she began. Yeah, so she is convinced to report.

717
00:43:25,920 --> 00:43:30,239
So two women independently make decisions to report their alleged

718
00:43:30,599 --> 00:43:34,360
rate by the same man because of his actions. So

719
00:43:34,400 --> 00:43:37,400
he's arrested in twenty sixteen. There is a trial in

720
00:43:37,400 --> 00:43:42,159
March twenty seventeen. Both women testify, as do a number

721
00:43:42,199 --> 00:43:45,639
of other witnesses. John write Out also makes the decision

722
00:43:45,639 --> 00:43:49,360
to testify, probably because in his head he thought that

723
00:43:49,880 --> 00:43:52,280
what happened in nineteen seventy eight where he was acquitted

724
00:43:52,760 --> 00:43:55,559
with respect to the alleged rape of his wife Greta,

725
00:43:56,320 --> 00:43:59,039
that he could beat the charges again. But he's actually

726
00:43:59,119 --> 00:44:01,039
a really terrible way is on the stand.

727
00:44:01,960 --> 00:44:04,000
Speaker 2: We were both shaking our heads when we got to

728
00:44:04,079 --> 00:44:04,800
that place.

729
00:44:05,400 --> 00:44:07,719
Speaker 3: I was listening. I was essentially wearing my headphones and

730
00:44:07,760 --> 00:44:11,400
listening to the audio transcript because thankfully Marion County, which

731
00:44:11,440 --> 00:44:15,199
is coach Cover Salem, Oregon, the public Records requests are

732
00:44:15,199 --> 00:44:17,519
pretty generous, and they gave the audio, they gave me video.

733
00:44:18,119 --> 00:44:21,159
It was unbelievable and I could just make transcripts of

734
00:44:21,159 --> 00:44:24,079
my own volition from listening to it. So I'm listening

735
00:44:24,079 --> 00:44:26,519
to him testify I met a residency in the Blue

736
00:44:26,559 --> 00:44:29,800
Ridge Mountains in Virginia, and no one could hear me.

737
00:44:29,840 --> 00:44:31,880
So I'm just like yelling, Oh my god, what Kevin

738
00:44:31,960 --> 00:44:37,000
you're saying that? I just stopped mocking. And he was

739
00:44:37,000 --> 00:44:40,280
a really bad witness. And when the prosecutor crossed examined,

740
00:44:40,280 --> 00:44:42,000
and it was very clear, she's just going to go

741
00:44:42,039 --> 00:44:44,599
to town on the guy. He just set himself up.

742
00:44:45,119 --> 00:44:49,000
He had claimed, of course, that none of this was rape.

743
00:44:49,079 --> 00:44:52,960
It was all consensual. They all wanted it.

744
00:44:52,280 --> 00:44:52,639
Speaker 2: It was.

745
00:44:52,719 --> 00:44:55,599
Speaker 3: It just became increasingly clear, not just with this trial

746
00:44:55,639 --> 00:45:00,280
but later that John RDA has no idea what actual

747
00:45:00,320 --> 00:45:05,199
consent is and as a result, he cannot understand what

748
00:45:05,440 --> 00:45:07,519
rape and sexual assault is because he doesn't even know

749
00:45:07,559 --> 00:45:11,159
what sex that a woman wants would be. It's just

750
00:45:11,199 --> 00:45:16,199
like that's how disordered his mind is. And that came

751
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:21,320
through in his testimony and his court appointed public defender,

752
00:45:21,400 --> 00:45:25,679
did you know his best which wasn't that great, he

753
00:45:25,800 --> 00:45:28,599
was no Charles Burnt. That's put it that way, And

754
00:45:28,719 --> 00:45:33,679
ultimately right Out is convicted. The two charges was rape

755
00:45:33,719 --> 00:45:35,679
and one was a side of me, and so he's

756
00:45:35,719 --> 00:45:39,559
in prison. But then a couple of things happened. In

757
00:45:39,599 --> 00:45:42,840
twenty twenty and twenty twenty one, there are two different

758
00:45:42,840 --> 00:45:47,079
appeals cases. In the first one, the Appeals Court and

759
00:45:47,159 --> 00:45:49,679
organ rules that the sentence imposed by the judge was

760
00:45:49,719 --> 00:45:52,679
actually too lenient and that there should be a resentencing

761
00:45:52,760 --> 00:45:58,119
according to Oregon guidelines. Then the Supreme Court rules that

762
00:45:59,840 --> 00:46:04,239
no one unanimous jury verdicts are unconstitutional. And at the

763
00:46:04,239 --> 00:46:07,960
time of this verdict, only two states, Oregon and Louisiana,

764
00:46:08,440 --> 00:46:11,280
which was the state that had the case that went

765
00:46:11,320 --> 00:46:13,519
all the way up to the Supreme Court, they were

766
00:46:13,559 --> 00:46:16,079
the only two states that had non unanimous jury verdicts,

767
00:46:16,079 --> 00:46:20,239
which meant that if you had one or two jurors

768
00:46:20,760 --> 00:46:24,480
who deviated from everybody else, you could still get a verdict.

769
00:46:24,519 --> 00:46:27,320
So you could convict on an eleven to one or

770
00:46:27,360 --> 00:46:30,079
a ten to two verdict. So in John Ridout's.

771
00:46:29,639 --> 00:46:37,159
Speaker 6: Case, the rape charge on the acquaintance was fully unanimous,

772
00:46:37,559 --> 00:46:42,000
but one juror voted to acquit on the sodomy charge,

773
00:46:42,239 --> 00:46:45,239
and that's why they had to redo that entire case

774
00:46:45,480 --> 00:46:49,239
all over again, which they did in twenty twenty two.

775
00:46:49,280 --> 00:46:50,800
Speaker 3: And that was the trial that I attended.

776
00:46:52,280 --> 00:46:54,800
Speaker 2: What was that like? Here you're on now picking up

777
00:46:55,079 --> 00:46:59,800
as a writer and researcher, a journalist, but you've done

778
00:46:59,800 --> 00:47:05,280
a lot of work that's involved going back, listening to transcripts,

779
00:47:05,400 --> 00:47:11,079
reading transcripts, a lot of research, but it's all retrospective

780
00:47:11,639 --> 00:47:14,639
now here you are. What's it like being in the

781
00:47:14,760 --> 00:47:20,079
room in the modern era watching this thing unfold as

782
00:47:20,119 --> 00:47:23,559
opposed to the way you'd worked on the earlier parts

783
00:47:24,159 --> 00:47:25,199
of his history?

784
00:47:26,840 --> 00:47:30,840
Speaker 3: A number of things I had covered civil trials in

785
00:47:30,880 --> 00:47:36,519
the past, like bankruptcy cases, antitrust and civil lawsuits, but

786
00:47:36,559 --> 00:47:39,360
a criminal trial is a little other thing altogether, and

787
00:47:39,400 --> 00:47:43,599
it really varies by every state. So what I experienced,

788
00:47:43,599 --> 00:47:47,159
I think is very much a Salem, Oregon type of

789
00:47:47,199 --> 00:47:52,119
experience that I wouldn't necessarily experience in a major courtroom

790
00:47:52,159 --> 00:47:55,400
in Manhattan or Brooklyn or any part of New York City.

791
00:47:56,159 --> 00:47:59,320
So I'm sitting in the courtroom they do warder and

792
00:47:59,360 --> 00:48:03,039
the listening to the prosecutor as he's asking questions of

793
00:48:03,159 --> 00:48:07,800
prospective judges and really walking them through how to consider

794
00:48:08,840 --> 00:48:11,400
a real world sexual assault. So he starts by asking

795
00:48:11,440 --> 00:48:15,119
them questions about, let's say you park your car and

796
00:48:15,159 --> 00:48:17,880
you leave your cell phone in the car and somebody

797
00:48:17,880 --> 00:48:21,320
steals it. Were you asking for it? I'm paraphrasing badly,

798
00:48:21,360 --> 00:48:23,960
but that was the gist, and I could see exactly

799
00:48:23,960 --> 00:48:25,480
what he was up to, that he was trying to

800
00:48:26,440 --> 00:48:31,159
eventually lead them to questions about what happens if an

801
00:48:31,199 --> 00:48:36,440
intimate partner is sexually assaulted by her partner? Is this

802
00:48:36,559 --> 00:48:39,280
something that she asked for? Did she consent to this?

803
00:48:39,360 --> 00:48:45,280
And of course, unanimously, except for maybe Wonder who expressed

804
00:48:45,280 --> 00:48:49,960
discomfort with the idea, they all got it. And eventually

805
00:48:50,000 --> 00:48:51,719
he just straight up asked about what do you think

806
00:48:51,719 --> 00:48:54,199
about marital rape? Is a sur crime? That they uniformly

807
00:48:54,199 --> 00:48:57,960
said yes. And I was taken aback because I knew

808
00:48:57,960 --> 00:49:00,239
that the nineteen seventy eight case would not be in

809
00:49:00,280 --> 00:49:04,920
because it would have been deemed extremely prejudicial. The charge

810
00:49:05,000 --> 00:49:08,079
relating to the acquaintance was also not brought in because

811
00:49:08,079 --> 00:49:11,079
it was a retrial on the other charge, so she

812
00:49:11,159 --> 00:49:13,679
did not testify, though she was present in the courtroom

813
00:49:13,800 --> 00:49:20,159
as a spectator. So watching warder was very illuminating, but

814
00:49:20,280 --> 00:49:24,360
really it was just another It was a It was

815
00:49:24,400 --> 00:49:27,480
fully understanding just how much control the judge has over

816
00:49:27,519 --> 00:49:30,719
the courtroom, and that is word or her word is law.

817
00:49:31,719 --> 00:49:35,760
So he would just make weird comments, like he mentioned

818
00:49:35,760 --> 00:49:41,880
the film Uncle Buck in just a Day. Why, yeah, what.

819
00:49:42,800 --> 00:49:45,000
I think he was just trying for some weird humor.

820
00:49:45,159 --> 00:49:48,519
I don't really want. I transcribed it and just yeah, exactly.

821
00:49:48,639 --> 00:49:50,800
That was my reaction at the time. Weird. He's a

822
00:49:50,800 --> 00:49:53,039
little bit of folksy. He'd been on the stand, he'd

823
00:49:53,079 --> 00:49:55,639
been a judge since nineteen eighty five in Salem, so

824
00:49:56,119 --> 00:49:59,840
it was very kind of small town type things. I mean,

825
00:50:00,199 --> 00:50:03,960
he even there are only two media people. One was

826
00:50:04,719 --> 00:50:08,679
myself and the other was Whitney Woodworth, the Salem Statesman

827
00:50:08,719 --> 00:50:12,079
journal reporter mentioned previously. She came back to cover the

828
00:50:12,079 --> 00:50:14,119
retrial as well, and she and I had gone out

829
00:50:14,119 --> 00:50:17,039
for lunch, because that's what you do, you're the reporter

830
00:50:17,159 --> 00:50:19,719
in parishions into talent. You make the acquaintance of the

831
00:50:19,719 --> 00:50:22,800
local reporter. And she interviewed me for a piece and

832
00:50:22,840 --> 00:50:24,760
we get back to the courtroom and the judge said, oh,

833
00:50:24,760 --> 00:50:27,320
did our local reporter, take you up for lunch, and

834
00:50:27,360 --> 00:50:31,079
I said, your honor, I bought my own lunch. This

835
00:50:31,159 --> 00:50:32,480
is in the courtroom.

836
00:50:33,920 --> 00:50:37,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's folks, and then there's intrusive. It just seems odd.

837
00:50:40,719 --> 00:50:43,920
Speaker 3: He was also very adamant that nobody use their phones

838
00:50:43,960 --> 00:50:48,679
and no video, and eventually during the verdict, apparently an

839
00:50:48,719 --> 00:50:50,760
AP reporter showed up and was trying to take video

840
00:50:50,760 --> 00:50:53,559
and he just went off at the guy, just wow,

841
00:50:53,639 --> 00:50:56,519
not happy about and Whitney and I are just showing.

842
00:50:56,599 --> 00:50:59,440
We pulled up our bullet our notebooks that were like, no,

843
00:50:59,480 --> 00:51:00,639
we're taking Oh it's okay.

844
00:51:00,960 --> 00:51:02,840
Speaker 2: That's wow.

845
00:51:04,719 --> 00:51:08,119
Speaker 3: So there was weird levity, and I don't know if

846
00:51:08,119 --> 00:51:09,719
that was the point. I think that's just the way

847
00:51:09,719 --> 00:51:13,239
that this judge ran his courtroom. But when it was

848
00:51:13,280 --> 00:51:16,199
time for the actual testimony, I think what I was

849
00:51:16,239 --> 00:51:23,159
really impressed with was just the stealiness the survivor who testified,

850
00:51:23,199 --> 00:51:25,360
and she never expected to have to do it again,

851
00:51:25,880 --> 00:51:28,320
and the prosecutor had really been worried that she wouldn't

852
00:51:28,719 --> 00:51:31,199
be up for it and it would have been totally justifiable,

853
00:51:31,440 --> 00:51:34,440
but she showed up and she told her story and

854
00:51:34,480 --> 00:51:37,840
it was very smartly contextualized that This was a woman

855
00:51:37,960 --> 00:51:41,880
who you know, had a lot of physical disability. She

856
00:51:41,920 --> 00:51:45,840
took drugs, it affected her memory, but she was able

857
00:51:45,920 --> 00:51:49,400
to describe what had happened because that was how severe

858
00:51:49,440 --> 00:51:52,800
and deep the violation was. And it was very consistent,

859
00:51:52,880 --> 00:51:55,280
Like I checked what she said then versus what she

860
00:51:55,280 --> 00:51:59,239
said in twenty seventeen police reports, like it was pretty

861
00:51:59,239 --> 00:52:03,440
consistent across the board, and that doesn't change because no

862
00:52:03,480 --> 00:52:06,239
matter how much time passes, that trauma just stays with

863
00:52:06,280 --> 00:52:09,639
you and you remember and it's encoded and it's there.

864
00:52:10,280 --> 00:52:14,039
And she really put that forward. But she was also

865
00:52:14,079 --> 00:52:17,480
someone who was really holding her emotions very close, and

866
00:52:17,559 --> 00:52:20,800
it didn't hurt that. The cross examination by a different

867
00:52:20,800 --> 00:52:24,760
public defender was also pretty ineffective. He didn't put on

868
00:52:24,960 --> 00:52:28,639
a descent, which was also surprising. I mean, on the

869
00:52:28,679 --> 00:52:31,480
one hand, right out didn't testify again, which was I

870
00:52:31,519 --> 00:52:34,559
think the best call, but not calling any other writtnesss

871
00:52:34,679 --> 00:52:38,800
was definitely a surprise, And there were some other things

872
00:52:38,840 --> 00:52:44,920
where I really felt like he was not fully prepared.

873
00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:48,800
So that was the sense I had of this trial.

874
00:52:49,559 --> 00:52:52,880
But I was a little worried after testimony was over

875
00:52:53,159 --> 00:52:55,480
and the jury had it because it needed to be

876
00:52:55,559 --> 00:52:58,559
a unanimous verdict. This there was some cover if one

877
00:52:58,639 --> 00:53:00,840
or two jurors decided that they might want to acquit.

878
00:53:01,119 --> 00:53:02,400
So I thought it was going to take a while.

879
00:53:03,079 --> 00:53:05,719
We'll see. I thought, at least they will want to

880
00:53:05,719 --> 00:53:08,440
get lunch. I went back to my Airbnb. I had

881
00:53:08,440 --> 00:53:10,800
a flat red eye schedule for later that day. If

882
00:53:10,800 --> 00:53:12,920
it went to a second day, I would have to

883
00:53:12,960 --> 00:53:17,760
get Intel Whitney or somebody else or whatever. Like forty

884
00:53:17,840 --> 00:53:20,840
minutes passed before I get a call from the clerk,

885
00:53:20,960 --> 00:53:23,800
the judges clerk, saying we have a verdict.

886
00:53:23,800 --> 00:53:25,760
Speaker 2: They're back. Wow, Yeah, they're back.

887
00:53:25,800 --> 00:53:28,360
Speaker 3: So I ran back and I was so worried. I

888
00:53:28,440 --> 00:53:29,880
was like, I'm going to miss the verdict. Oh no.

889
00:53:30,360 --> 00:53:34,599
And I get to the security. The security and the

890
00:53:35,960 --> 00:53:38,480
survivor and her family and her victim advocate. They were

891
00:53:38,480 --> 00:53:40,760
all right in front of me in the line. So

892
00:53:40,800 --> 00:53:43,039
that's when ide I was like, Okay, the verdict is

893
00:53:43,079 --> 00:53:46,000
coming in. And there were some other things I observed,

894
00:53:46,280 --> 00:53:49,119
but it came through. He was found guilty again. He

895
00:53:49,280 --> 00:53:52,639
was resentenced not only on this charge but the earlier

896
00:53:52,800 --> 00:53:58,039
charge in according to that earlier twenty twenty appeals ruling.

897
00:53:58,920 --> 00:54:02,320
So John write out is in prison. He is not

898
00:54:02,440 --> 00:54:08,440
eligible for parole until twenty forty one. And on the

899
00:54:08,440 --> 00:54:11,159
one hand, it is a case that it is a

900
00:54:11,199 --> 00:54:13,679
story that has a beginning, middle, and end in an arc,

901
00:54:14,719 --> 00:54:21,079
but it's also just sadness all the way down. If

902
00:54:21,079 --> 00:54:26,039
he had been convicted for raping his wife, would he

903
00:54:26,280 --> 00:54:29,599
has learned anything from it or would he have just

904
00:54:30,400 --> 00:54:33,719
gone on to repeat offend again with the same kind

905
00:54:33,760 --> 00:54:35,639
of impunity. We will never know that. But what we

906
00:54:35,719 --> 00:54:39,679
do know is because he was acquitted, he felt that

907
00:54:39,760 --> 00:54:43,639
he had that impunity to violate other women, and not

908
00:54:43,760 --> 00:54:47,000
just the women whose sexual assaults he was convicted for.

909
00:54:47,559 --> 00:54:50,119
I still don't have a full handle on what he

910
00:54:50,239 --> 00:54:53,639
was doing between nineteen eighty when he last had contact

911
00:54:53,639 --> 00:54:57,360
with Greta and his daughter in twenty sixteen when he

912
00:54:57,400 --> 00:55:00,079
was arrested. I have rumors, I have suppositions, but nothing

913
00:55:00,119 --> 00:55:05,440
that I could provably print in a book. So to me,

914
00:55:06,440 --> 00:55:10,519
there are still unfinished strands of the story. But what

915
00:55:10,599 --> 00:55:14,320
I do take comfort is that Greta was able to

916
00:55:15,039 --> 00:55:19,719
rebuild her life away from public scrutiny, that just because

917
00:55:19,760 --> 00:55:22,920
she had endured a tremendous trauma, it didn't stop her

918
00:55:22,960 --> 00:55:26,199
from living it didn't stop her from seeing her daughter

919
00:55:26,239 --> 00:55:30,239
grow up, to having grandchildren, to forging an independent life

920
00:55:30,239 --> 00:55:34,960
for herself in total obscurity. And so that to me

921
00:55:35,360 --> 00:55:37,599
is the best outcome I can think of for her,

922
00:55:38,000 --> 00:55:41,079
that she was able to rest some degree of autonomy

923
00:55:41,119 --> 00:55:43,880
back from a society and media that really took it

924
00:55:43,920 --> 00:55:46,679
away from her. And also, of course her first husband

925
00:55:46,880 --> 00:55:47,800
took that away too.

926
00:55:48,920 --> 00:55:52,480
Speaker 2: I need to stop. We're at fifty seven minutes. So

927
00:55:52,760 --> 00:55:55,800
do we want to steer That actually was a pretty

928
00:55:55,840 --> 00:55:57,880
strong closing. Do we want to steer to a close?

929
00:55:58,079 --> 00:56:02,039
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, Sarah, it's been wonderful talking to you. Give

930
00:56:02,159 --> 00:56:03,880
us the full name of the book again and tell

931
00:56:03,960 --> 00:56:06,719
us where we can find not only Without Consent, but

932
00:56:06,840 --> 00:56:09,239
all of your books as well. Of course, So it's

933
00:56:09,320 --> 00:56:15,599
without consent a landmark. I'm going to get this wrong, amark.

934
00:56:15,760 --> 00:56:19,000
Let's try this again. The book is without Consent, a

935
00:56:19,079 --> 00:56:22,159
landmark trial and the decades long struggle to make spousal

936
00:56:22,199 --> 00:56:25,280
grade the crime. It's published by Echo HarperCollins, which has

937
00:56:25,320 --> 00:56:28,519
been the publisher of all of my books since twenty eighteen.

938
00:56:29,079 --> 00:56:31,719
You can find it at my website at Sarah Wineman

939
00:56:31,840 --> 00:56:34,480
dot com. You could purchase it as a hardcover and

940
00:56:34,559 --> 00:56:36,880
eat book, but if you get the audiobook, which I

941
00:56:36,880 --> 00:56:39,360
would encourage you to get through libro dot FM, a

942
00:56:39,400 --> 00:56:42,320
wonderful independent retailer. I am the narrator.

943
00:56:45,079 --> 00:56:48,400
Speaker 5: Listen to it, not onlate I actually listened to it

944
00:56:48,440 --> 00:56:49,719
and I had the book in front of me.

945
00:56:50,119 --> 00:56:51,840
Speaker 3: I did what I encourage my students to do and

946
00:56:51,880 --> 00:56:54,079
follow it along. So you did a wonderful job narrating it.

947
00:56:54,079 --> 00:56:58,639
By the way, thank you. The book is without consent.

948
00:56:59,079 --> 00:57:03,639
Speaker 5: It is definitely something that I think everyone should consider

949
00:57:03,880 --> 00:57:08,320
reading on their journey to understand more about the legal

950
00:57:08,360 --> 00:57:11,480
system in America and how victims are treated.

951
00:57:12,679 --> 00:57:15,239
Speaker 3: Sarah, thank you again for joining us. We really appreciate it.

952
00:57:15,679 --> 00:57:18,039
I'm so glad to have had this discussion and thank

953
00:57:18,079 --> 00:57:19,239
you both. It was wonderful.

954
00:57:20,159 --> 00:57:21,760
Speaker 5: That is going to do it for this episode of

955
00:57:21,800 --> 00:57:25,480
Mind Over Murder. Thank you so much for listening. We'll

956
00:57:25,519 --> 00:57:26,360
see you next time.

957
00:57:36,679 --> 00:57:40,199
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and

958
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Another Dog Productions.

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Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley.

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Speaker 1: Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois.

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Speaker 2: Our theme music is by Kevin McLoud.

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Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with Coral Space Media.

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Speaker 2: You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

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Speaker 1: Also follow our page on the Colonial Parkway murders on Facebook.

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Speaker 2: And finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at

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Bill Thomas. Five six.

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Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Mind Over Murder