REPORT FROM THE GOLD FLOWER COMMITTEE:

The Right to Self Defense?

Kathy Thomas

On the way back from a weekend trip to Chicago recently, Kathy Thomas was pulled aside by police officers on her way down a long hallway at Cleveland Hopkins Airport. They questioned her and searched her handbag. She could tell this was not a random search and they knew who she was, though she had never seen them before.

Thomas has been charged with murder and is free on $5,000 bond after defending herself against a violent assault by her husband, Rubin Daniels. Her trial is scheduled to begin at 9:00 a.m. on June 1 in the courtroom of Judge J. P. Kilbane, on the 23rd floor of the Justice Center.

Kathy Thomas first met Rubin Daniels a long time ago. She heard, even back then, about what he had done to other women, but she didn't see him that way. She saw a man who was gentle with her, a man who helped her with her baby, buying him presents and paying for a babysitter so they could go out together.

At that time Kathy worked for a bail bond agency and her boss told her one day that he had heard about some violence in which Daniels had been involved. When Kathy asked Rubin about it, he said that her boss was lying, and he pressured her to stop working there. That was during the first year they lived together. Under strong influence from Daniels, Thomas did quit her job and he began supporting her. He didn't go to work every day, and when she asked him about his life and where he was getting money, he got angry. That's really when it all started. He would hit her for asking too many questions, and he would tell her to stay out of it because it was man's business. He was 6′ 3′′ tall, weighed 250 pounds, and carried a gun with him wherever he went.

The beatings escalated as time went on. Often he would say she had provoked him into hitting her. "This is the only way I can get you to do what I want," he would say. Once after he beat her, she went to the hospital to make sure she didn't have any broken bones. When she left the hospital, she did not go back to their apartment. Instead, she fled to her family for protection. Daniels was furious when he found out. He kicked in the door of her sister's apartment, held her family at gun point and took her back. After that she stopped trying to get away, and she stopped telling her family anything about what was going on. She says she has a very caring, supportive family, but she couldn't tell them anything after that because she was afraid they might get hurt, and she knew she couldn't live with that.

Another time Kathy told Rubin's probation officer what he was doing to her, but the probation officer believed Daniels instead of her. Rubin had guns around all the time, and knew how to use them. Kathy began thinking that she might have to disappear one day, that she would just have to go away and not tell anyone where she was.

And then there were many times when he was good to her. She gets a sad look on her face when she talks about him. "I loved him very much," she says, "and I always thought I could change him." Sometimes after he beat her he would get down on his knees and cry and apologize. He would tell her that he didn't like to beat her but somehow something she did would provoke him into it. He always blamed her, and many times he would tell her that it would never happen again.

she needed, Thomas pawned her only two possessions which were of any value, one of which had been a present from him. When Daniels found the pawn ticket, it was the last straw: he grabbed his gun and hit her with it. He yelled at her and told her that he was either going to blow her brains out or beat her to death. He became completely consumed with rage. In the struggle Thomas fell down on the couch next to a gun. Daniels jumped at her and grabbed for the gun, and she fired.

Daniels was 26 years old. He was a man who understood violence and used it to gain power over other people, but in the end it was too much for him.

Barbara Hanzell

Barbara Hanzell was notified officially by Judge Burt Griffin in April that the murder charges against her had been dismissed. The motion for dismissal was granted, however, with no mention of the issue involved or acknowledgment by the judge that she was clearly innocent of any wrongdoing. Absent from the scene were any clarifying judicial speeches which recognized a woman's right to defend herself against attack. Such a comment could have been helpful to any future cases, not to mention the psychological boost it would have been for Hanzell who had spent five months in jail before being told the charges had been dropped.

Hanzell's freedom was hard won, as have been most of the small joys in her life. One of the recently hired female assistant prosecutors was assigned to argue the case against her, a coincidence that was impossible to ignore. The dismissal of the charges came after a "deal" was made requesting that Hanzell voluntarily commit herself to a hospital where she could receive medical and psychological care that she needs. While there is no question that Hanzel! needs medical attention, especially after spending five months in jail, the "deal" stated that she is not to be released from the hospital until they determine that she is able to cope with life independently.

The last time Daniels beat Thomas, they had had a three-day argument over money. She needed some money and he was unwilling to give it to her. After he had begun supporting her he always held up to her the fact that he was providing the money for them to live... Since he wouldn't give her the money nononononononononononononononononononononononononononon

During Hanzell's stay in County Jail, she was given a battery of intelligence tests apparently as a

part of the court's attempt to determine her competency to stand trial. Her attorney reports that.Hanzell, who suffers from epilepsy, had a seizure either before or during the testing, but that the process was not stopped. Predictably, she tested low and those scores were used to help determine her current placement.

Linda Betzer, the prosecutor, commented that she didn't think the State could make a case against Hanzell, implying that there was credibility given to the issue of self-defense for a battered woman. When it was over, she said that she was pleased with the outcome. Hanzell's public defender attorney spent a great deal of time and effort searching for a place for her to go, as it was obvious that the court would not be satisfied with the possibility of allowing her to go completely free. He said that the judge had called the entire case a "travesty".

Wednesday, April 26, and Friday, May 5, were happy days for Barbaro Hanzell and Tahira Wadud. And yet even as they expressed relief and joy at the outcome of their respective cases, there was an undertone that it was not enough.

Tahira Wadud

The first time I met Terry (Tahira Wadud) she was angry. Sitting on the examining table in the emergency room of Mt. Sinai Hospital, she pulled her hospital gown protectively around her when I walked in. It was 6:30 in the morning and she had been up all night.

"He raped me," she stated directly, her voice somehow carrying with it a mixture of hurt, anger and disbelief all at once. As her story unfolded, her hurt and anger became touched with fear. Wadud had been raped by a man she knew. She was set up by still another man with whom she was slightly acquainted. They were both people she thought she could trust and they had offered her a ride home from work. One of the men lied to her and tricked her into coming up to his apartment. There he raped her, hit her and threatened to kill her.

The thought that someone she knew would do this to her was almost too much to handle. A strong woman in many ways, Wadud was experiencing a very frightening feeling of vulnerability, "I mean when you can't even trust someone you know, who can you trust?”

She was worried about going back to work because other people there knew him. The police had already gone out to look for him but had been unsuccessful so far. We talked for a while about how she felt and what she was going to do next. Then I left her with two friends, my name and phone number, and encouragement to call me when she felt like talking

about it.

Two days later she called me at work. Once again her expressive voice and her direct manner left a strong impression. "I shot him," she said. I knew immediately she meant the man who had raped her. Later I tried to analyze my reaction to that statement. On one hand I guessed that the situation might possibly arise one day and I knew that I am generally very anti-violence. However, three years of talking to well over 100 women who had been raped has taken its toll. Most of the women I have encountered were so frightened, and justifiably so, that they were totally unable to do anything toʻ defend themselves. From the perspective of someone who has heard over and over again the pain and the incredibly disabling fear, Terry's active show of anger was, quite honestly, a relief...(continued on page 14)

What She Wants/June, 1978/page 5