There is an interesting story that has been raging on conservative sites on the Internet but suddenly popped up on national television in a CNN interview. Conservatives are criticizing CNN host Carol Costello for abruptly ending a segment on Tuesday after a guest raised Hillary Clinton’s 1975 legal defense of an accused child rapist. I recently condemned an attack ad against Judge Jane Kelly (a widely respected former public defender) for representing a criminal defendant. The attack on Clinton is equally low grade and unfair.
The case involved the defense of a man accused of raping a 12-year-old girl in 1975. Clinton was a court-appointed attorney for Thomas Alfred Taylor, a 41-year-old accused of raping the child after luring her into a car. The suggestion of critics is that such people should not have court-appointed counsel or more importantly lawyers should not represent them (or face condemnation decades later).
The story drew life from the release of taped interviews where Clinton discusses the case and says that she used a a legal technicality to plead her client, who faced 30 years to life in prison, down to a lesser charge.
Hillary Rodham was just 27 when she moved to Fayetteville and was running the University of Arkansas’ legal aid clinic. Her work at the clinic is highly commendable and this is a standard request for such legal aid lawyers. Clinton later described it as “a fascinating case . . . a very interesting case.”
I think the thrust of the criticism of Clinton is unfair and inimical to the rule of law. It is impossible to believe in the rule of law without accepting core principles of the right to counsel and due process. This attack seeks to demonize lawyers for simply defending accused persons.
There is one aspect of the interview that does frankly bother me. Clinton says “I had him take a polygraph, which he passed – which forever destroyed my faith in polygraphs.” She also seems to suggest that Taylor was saved by the fact that the crime lab accidentally destroyed DNA evidence that tied Taylor to the crime. I find that problematic, particularly in suggesting that a polygraph supporting a former client was clearly wrong — and that he was by extension clearly guilty. Clinton could defend these words by noting that Taylor did plead guilty and thus she is not sharing anything confidential.
The former prosecutor has supported Clinton and tried to explain (what should be obvious) that this is a duty of lawyers, particularly when court-appointed. Indeed, the litigation experience of Clinton is a strength in my view to her qualifications as someone who have been exposed (even if on a limited basis) to the criminal justice system.
There is a particularly criticism of a July 28, 1975 court affidavit where Clinton wrote that she had been informed the young girl was “emotionally unstable” and had a “tendency to seek out older men and engage in fantasizing.” However, the job of defense counsel is to challenge opposing witnesses including the accuser. They have a right to make such challenges in asserting their innocence. Clinton did precisely that in objection that the child had “in the past made false accusations about persons, claiming they had attacked her body” and that the girl “exhibits an unusual stubbornness and temper when she does not get her way.”
She also challenged the “evidentiary value of semen and blood samples collected by the sheriff’s office” by questioning the chain of custody — a standard, if not uniform, attack for defense counsel in such cases.
She told the interviewers that her client “plea bargained. Got him off with time served in the county jail, he’d been in the county jail for about two months.”
In the end, Taylor pleaded to unlawful fondling of a chid and was sentenced to one year in prison,with two months reduced for time served. He died in 1992.
This is a case of a court-appointed attorney performing the most important function of an attorney in representing an accused person in a heinous crime. She clearly do so zealously and effectively as she sworn to do in taking an oath as a lawyer. There are many criticisms of Clinton that have been discussed on this blog. I have often joined in that criticism over such things as the refusal to release the transcripts from Clinton’s speeches. However, this is one criticism that is, in my view, beyond the pale — even in this poisonous political environment.
You can listen to the tape here.
Tin:
Don’t get so emotional.
The quote from the psychologist that she chose was about teenage girls in general fantasizing about romantic encounters.
If you think HC didn’t attack or destroy that little girl by lying about her, blaming her for an attack that put her in a coma and sterilized her, then we disagree.
“Indeed, the litigation experience of Clinton is a strength in my view to her qualifications as someone who have been exposed (even if on a limited basis) to the criminal justice system.”
The only strength she has gained out of her limited experience is the insight into how to take advantage of the flaws within the system. I’m looking forward to her getting “more exposure” inside the criminal justice system.
Jesus, Karen, how much can you delude yourself? I mean really, if you don’t like HC, then fine. I don’t plan to vote for her either. But I’m not going to pretend that HC quoted the victim when in fact the court documents clearly show that she was quoting a psychologist who interviewed the child. HC never interviewed the child. Do you seriously think they let defense attorneys depose the victim? Do you not know the difference between a criminal case and a civil? And I’m not going to make-up some fantasy about HC “destroying the victim on the stand” when she was never on any stand because there was never any trial. Good grief. I give up. Again, I truly hope you’re not an attorney because you refuse to acknowledge facts, which is a very dangerous trait for someone entrusted with the interests and liberty of clients.
State of Arkansas v. Thomas Alfred Taylor, CR-75-203. Bill of Particulars filed by John Barry Baker, Public Defender, Fayettville.
Baker was the defendant’s PD. He was replaced by HC when the defendant demanded a female attorney. There were only three in the county. Judge Cummings appointed HC. She went to the District Attorney and asked to be relieved of it. He told her it was not in his power. She would have to ask the judge that appointed her. Judge Cummings refused. The District Attorney offered a plea deal after the crime lab lost the evidence. The defendant pled guilty to a lesser crime of “Fondling a Child” which had a five-year sentence. Judge Cummings gave him one year in prison and four years of probation.
Look it up. The actual court document is on Scribd.
Tin writes, “She went to the District Attorney and asked to be relieved of it.” It’s hard for me to this statement.
First, though they’re the same thing, in Arkansas, they’re called county prosecutors. Secondly, if she thought it was within the domain of the prosecutor to let her off the case rather than appearing before the judge with that request, she was too green to be defending a violent felony and would have never been appointed, much less been on an appointment list.
After having her life shattered, becoming a drug addict, fearing men for years, never getting married…this is what the victim had to say:
“I have been informed that the complainant is emotionally unstable with a tendency to seek out older men and engage in fantasizing,” Clinton, then named Hillary D. Rodham, wrote in the affidavit. “I have also been informed that she has in the past made false accusations about persons, claiming they had attacked her body. Also that she exhibits an unusual stubbornness and temper when she does not get her way.”
Clinton also wrote that a child psychologist told her that children in early adolescence “tend to exaggerate or romanticize sexual experiences,” especially when they come from “disorganized families, such as the complainant.”
The victim vigorously denied Clinton’s accusations and said there has never been any explanation of what Clinton was referring to in that affidavit. She claims she never accused anyone of attacking her before her rape.
“I’ve never said that about anyone. I don’t know why she said that. I have never made false allegations. I know she was lying,” she said. “I definitely didn’t see older men. I don’t know why Hillary put that in there and it makes me plumb mad.”
“It’s proven fact, with all the tapes [now revealed], she lied like a dog on me. I think she was trying to do whatever she could do to make herself look good at the time…. She wanted it to look good, she didn’t care if those guys did it or not,” she said. “Them two guys should have got a lot longer time. I do not think justice was served at all.”
Does deliberately lying about a child rape victim sound like justice to anyone? Doing your legal duty?
Tin:
What about her claiming that the child victim made false allegations against others when she didn’t? That she hung out with older men and fantasized about them when she didn’t? That she is on record claiming that she could get a top expert to make it look anyway she wanted it to? What about destroying the little girl’s character on the stand with lies when she KNEW her client had raped her and put her in a coma? Do lawyers really defend that? Lying? That girl crumpled, and claimed that she couldn’t take it anymore and just wanted it to be over, which likely played into the plea deal. This is exactly why many rape victims, especially children, do not tell.
There has been the defense made that her laughter was gallows humor. That may be true. Maybe deep down inside, she felt really bad about this guy going free and possibly doing this again to another little girl. I cannot imagine laughing about incompetency that got off a rapist who put a little girl in a coma and took away her ability to bear children. How much did her lies about the victim play into it? Her getting an expert witness on the line that would allegedly come to any conclusion she wanted? When I heard the audio before, I thought her laughter sounded gleeful rather than sardonic, but that is my opinion.
That is not justice to most of us.
Many of us have come to conclusions about her character and honesty based on a well documented pattern of behavior that goes back decades.
@karen: Just listen to the tape. Again, HC in no way laughed about getting the defendant off. She laughed at the ridiculousness of the system in rural Alabama at that time. The “crime lab” cut out the fabric containing the blood evidence. Then threw it away and returned a worthless pair of underpants with a hole in them. I also find that funny. The lying defendant passed a poly – leading her to forever question the validity of polygraph tests (a good thing). Again, listen to the tape. Listen to the tape. You don’t need third hand biased interpretations. Just listen to it yourself with an open mind. Or not. The tin foil hats are on the internet saying that HC was paid-off by an international cabal of child predators. And others are saying that because the defendant’s family had a chicken farm in the same county as a Tyson plant, that Tyson bribed HC to throw the case. Yes, there are nuts coming out of the woodwork. The District Attorney told CNN that HC asked him to be let off the case. The judge sentenced the defendant, not HC. The victim was never on the stand. There was no trial. The defendant pled guilty to a lesser charge because the state lost the evidence. So if you want to believe loony nonsense, go for it. Some people just can’t handle the truth. I truly hope you’re not an attorney.
Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.
According to the victim, she never made any accusations of sexual assault about anyone else, or hung out with older men. She claims that Clinton lied about her in court to destroy her character, all the while knowing her client was guilty.
The victim spent 5 days in a coma after the rape, and lost the ability to have children. She went on to become a drug addict who was terrified of men for years, poor thing. She was a virgin at the time.
If deliberately lying about a child rape victim is defending your client to the fullest extent of the law, then the law is a miscarriage of justice.
But lying about victims seems to be her MO. She also claimed all of the family members of those who died in Benghazi are lying that she told them it was about a video. She claimed Bill’s victims lied. She claimed it was all lies that she had classified intel on her email, and then she wiped her server clean in a blatant attempt to destroy evidence.
Why wouldn’t this trend, with its earliest occurrences, be relevant to her bid to run for President?
I also keep hearing contradictory claims about whether she was court appointed or not. I have repeatedly read that she accepted the case as a favor for the prosecutor, and because Taylor wanted a female attorney.
Was she court appointed, or not? Did she volunteer to represent a child rapist, or was it her job?
I’ve always had two issues with the case. First, it was my understanding that she volunteered to represent this rapist, that she was not a public defender. If that was not accurate, then thanks for the correction.
The other issue is I recall her laughing gleefully about getting a child rapist off with time served, and chuckling about a guilty man passing a polygraph. This speaks to a genuine coldness of character, which is relevant to her application to become our president. I wonder if she would have giggled if someone who assaulted her own daughter, God forbid, got off with time served. Does it need to happen to her or her family for her to take this seriously? And why the heck would she find the case “interesting”? I expect a lawyer who is doing his constitutional duty defending a repugnant criminal to at least be conscious of the dire consequences to the victim, and the grim nature of the job. I liken this to someone gleefully bragging about keeping mesothelioma patients from getting a settlement when they knew their client was guilty as heck of giving them cancer.
I expect her to do her legal duty, but not be gleeful about getting a guilty man off. She also attacked the witness on the stand. Is that really legally necessary for a proper defense, to attack a child victim of rape? Because that’s exactly why so many rape victims never come forward to press charges.
I think what most of us felt is that a child rapist getting off with time served instead of 30 years is a miscarriage of justice.
As for bringing up her gender, I imagine that any man or woman caught on tape laughing about getting a child rapist off with time served would create controversy.
Apart from the constitutional right to a fair trial, there is the very relevant issue of this apparent gallows humor about getting of a child rapist, as well as attacking the little girl victim on the stand. This appears to be a trend, because she also attacked women who claimed that Bill Clinton engaged in everything from consensual affairs to sexual assault. And she knew full well that at least a few of them were telling the truth.
Saying she did her legal duty certainly answers criticism about defending Taylor, but it does absolutely zero about the fact that she laughed about it, and attacked the witness while apparently believing her client was guilty of raping her. That speaks to her character.
@Nick: Hillary is not my hero. I’m simply pointing out that male attorneys who defend murderers such as OJ with every trick in the book are considered “brilliant,” while HC, a 27 year-old appointed attorney handling her first criminal case is being trashed for it nearly 40 years later. Name me any male attorney who is scrutized like that.
Tin, where did you acquire the fact that this was Hillary’s “first criminal case”? if an appointed rape case was Hillary’s first criminal case, then both she and the judge who appointed her were committing an absolutely astonishing and grave public disservice. She had no business whatsoever taking on a violent felony case as her first criminal case, let alone an appointment without appreciable criminal law experience, if that’s in fact what happened. I can’t believe what you’ve claimed here is actually true.
Perhaps she got her client to plead out because even then she wanted to bring all superpredators to heel?
Tin has a chip on her/his shoulder. Women do have it tougher in the legal profession than women doctors do in the medical profession. That’s because SOULLESS ATTORNEYS run the legal system. I am intricately knowledgeable of both professions since the mid 70’s. As you may know, Tin, there were few female docs or barristers back then. During the ensuing 4 decades I have seen women docs have a profoundly positive on medical care. I have seen in the legal profession women, like your hero Hillary, become just like the a-hole male attorneys that have run the legal system since its inception. It’s ON WOMEN regarding their status in law. Sell you horsesh!t elsewhere, I ain’t buying it.
The now-retired District Attorney, Mahlon Gibson, was interviewed about the case. He said that the only time in his life that he spoke with HC was when she asked him to be relieved of representing the defendant. She told him she didn’t like those kind of cases and didn’t want to be involved in this one. The D.A. told her that she would have to make that request to Judge Cmmings, who appointed her. Obviously she was unable to get out of the case. Her client pled guilty to a lesser charge. It happens all the time. Apparently the state didn’t want to risk a trial because they lost the only evidence. The defendant pled to a crime with a five-year sentence, but the judge sentenced him to one year in jail and four years of probation.
The victim was interviewed 30 years ago and said she had no malice towards HC. “I always thought she was just doing her job.” Now the victim is telling Fox News that HC “put me through Hell.” She further complains that she always felt the two men who raped her should have gotten more prison time. She apparently now blames HC for that instead of the judge.
Yes, the victim was let down. First and foremost by her parents, who allowed this bum to live with them and have access to their child. Secondly, the prosecutor didn’t even charge the second rapist. Third, the judge could have given the defendant five years in prison, not one.
Generally, “poor white trash” get the short end of the stick in the criminal justice system, whether as victims or defendants. Look at those girls who were raped by the ” Scottsboro Boys.” One of them accepted money from NY lawyers who traveled to the south to voluntarily defend the blacks accused of rape. She was poor and took money to withdraw the charges. The other (Ruby Price) was also desperately poor but refused the money and swore to her dying day that she had been raped. But her name is forever smeared because as a poor white female she was less valuable than the blacks who became the social darlings of injustice and had civil rights attorneys traveling from NY to defend them and even pay-off the victim. But nobody is condemning the ethics of those lawyers.
Nor is anyone condemning the ethics of O.J.’s lawyers. Their client slaughtered two people in cold blood out of hated and jealousy. His lawyers, Johnie Cochran, Alan Dershowitz, Barry Schect, et al, gleefully signed on to the “Dream Team” for fortune and publicity. Why are they hailed as brilliant attorneys, while Hillary, a 27 year-old appointed counsel who didn’t even want the case, is condemned? Oh yes, lest we forget, there is a different standard for women in the legal system. Whether as victims or attorneys, they’re going to be trashed. Haters gotta hate.
RWL, I know how you feel, as I said I had completely given up on politics.. until Sanders came along. I won’t try to convince you, but I and many vets think you’re wrong that he hasn’t done anything for veterans. http://vetsforbernie.org/bernies-veterans-bills/
“The Part I took in Defence of Cptn. Preston and the Soldiers, procured me Anxiety, and Obloquy enough. It was, however, one of the most gallant, generous, manly and disinterested Actions of my whole Life, and one of the best Pieces of Service I ever rendered my Country.” – John Adams
carpet bagger
In the post-US Civil War South, carpetbaggers were Northerners who moved to the South to take advantage of the unstable social, financial, and political climate.
They were called “carpetbaggers” to imply that they were such poor, transient characters that they merely moved south carrying all their possessions in a carpet-bag.
A carpet-bag, by the way, isn’t a bag for carrying carpet, but a soft-sided suitcase or satchel made out of carpet.
Today, the phrase refers to someone who moves to a new location for opportunistic reasons.
Hillary is a carpet bagger.
Since the American republic ended years ago “with a whimper” it’s hard to remember this, but prior to 2001 the term “Person of Interest” was rarely used to distort the constitutional standard of “suspect” based
on probable cause and oath-sworn testimony..
There were mostly professional law enforcement leaders back then that were very careful about tarnishing the character of a “suspect” without hard evidence or oath-sworn testimony by witnesses.
Maybe one of the earliest blunders using the unconstitutional “Person of Interest” label happened in the mid-1990’s during the Atlanta Olympics with a guy named Richard Jewel. Nearly the entire American population, including some press organizations, had given Jewel a guilty verdict without a trial to test the evidence and the witnesses (under penalty of perjury).
Jewel was completely innocent but was destroyed and died prematurely. This is precisely why Defense Attorneys are absolutely vital to the justice system. There has to be someone that “checks” the police, prosecutors and judges since in the United States the “burden of proof” is designed to be on the “accusers” – not the accused.
In 21st Century America, we now assassinate people without a trial and without a defense attorney using Kangaroo FISA Courts. Under the real American Justice System, Defense Attorneys are equally vital to justice as are police and prosecutors.
Prof. Turley writes, “There is one aspect of the interview that does frankly bother me. Clinton says ‘I had him take a polygraph, which he passed – which forever destroyed my faith in polygraphs.'”
I’m sure her former client loved this comment as he faced his parole board. Something about maintaining confidences and secrets at every peril that bothers me about her comment. Then again, I suppose we all do it without realizing it until later.
Arkansas-Fayetteville School of Law’s legal clinic must have been different in the ’70s than when I spent a summer there on the civil side of the clinic working cases that weren’t worth more than small claims dripping wet and a bankruptcy issue or two. When I was there, I don’t know that the Director would have been defending violent felonies while running the clinic, but who knows. Maybe the low pay allowed the Director to moonlight.
Mitch,
Read your link. It’s what America does to child rape victims: find a way to blame the 12 year old.
What KCFleming said!
The only people arguing against due process these days are university professors and feminists.
That’s what makes the arguments defending her defense of a rapist so hypocritical.