Interview with the Goldflower Defense Committee

The following is the transcript of an interview with Jeanne Van Atta, Education Coordinator of the Goldflower Defense Committee of Cleveland. The name Goldflower is derived from the Chinese movement to ensure women's personal safety. Protection from physical violence is the first necessary condition for women's independence in any society.

WSW values the work of the Goldflower Committee, not only as an ongoing legal resource for women who are victims of violence, but also as another step in women's efforts to gain control of their lives. Goldflower is an extension of the same concern that women actualized in creating the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center, Women Together, and the many other women's organizations actively working to eliminate violence against women.

The first news releases from the Goldflower Defense Committee introduced the cases of Kathy Thomás, Tahira Wadud and Barbara Hanzell, as well as the Committee. Which came first -the cases or the Committee?

The Goldflower Committee was started in response to an awareness of actual cases handled by the Rape Crisis Center. The Center was in contact with Tahira Wadud who was raped, and who killed her rapist. Some attorneys in town were in contact with other battered women. Since we were aware that all three women had been charged with murder, we realized that a lot of work was necessary to make sure that these three women received a fair trial.

We felt these charges were unfair in light of the circumstances that we were reviewing in all three cases, that is, that these women were forbidden to act in their positions. So the Goldflower Defense Committee formed after hearing that these three cases were pending. And we felt that it was very important to support the three women in any way we could.

Then the purpose evolved out of the three cases. But before you did get involved with these cases, did you use a legal staff to establish a line of reasoning for the committee? What kind of cases you would be interested in working on? What type of clients? What kind of defenses?

We got together and stated our purpose as being to affirm women's right to defend themselves from violence. And when we said that, we said all women's right. Of course, we wanted, particularly, to concentrate on the situations in which we and the woman herself feel that she has acted legitimately in self-defense. We don't feel that we can get involved

cases with women who have not acted in self-defense. The whole purpose of this is to support the right to defend oneself against violence.

Did you have a legal staff when the committee began?

were

We had talked to the lawyers who representing the three women in question. There were also other attorneys: Ida Klein (who works with Women Together), Susan Holland and her law A few other local attorneys have been partner. involved with the Committee. We have also gotten a lot of information from the Center for Constitutional Rights and the National Jury Project. At the Center for Constitutional Rights are Liz Schneider and Chris Arguedes, who have both worked on Yvonne Wanrow's case and on her appeal. They have probably done more research, along with Susan Jordan who is based in San Francisco, than any other attorneys in the country on the issue of a woman's right to defend herself, and the legal complications and restrictions in that area.

Were you associated with the ACLU Women's Rights Project?

No.

Then you did not specifically choose counsel. There are questions as to why women were not visible on the defense.

Right. We didn't choose the attorneys to handle the cases. The women who were accused had their attorneys already, by the time the committee was formed.

Tahira Wadud was referred to her attorney by a friend who had been represented by the same attorney. Chris Coneybear got Kathy Thomas' case via other people that he knew who thought that he might be able to help her through his work at the Inter-Church Council. He in turn contacted Chris Stanley because he knew that Chris Stanley was probably the only lawyer in town who had ever done a case like this before, which he had. So he got Chris Stanley involved. Barbara Hanzell was defended by a public defender, so that was really out of our hands at that point.

We did try to encourage involvement of other women attorneys in these cases, so that ultimately if other cases came up, women attorneys could possibly head up the defense team. That would definitely be preferable.

And specifically with reference to Kathy Thomas and the self-defense defense, was the committee involved in the direction legal counsel was taking?

We did talk to the attorneys about the direction, the method of defending her in court. Since the Committee is almost all female we felt it was important to have a woman's perspective. The attorneys recognized that need also--mainly from having read the legal work done by Liz Schneider at the Center for Constitutional Rights where she emphasizes the need for bringing out a woman's perspective. Her feeling is that being a woman attorney had helped her defend Yvonne Wanrow, and the same in Inez Garcia's situation--because it's inside your body already. You don't have to go out and read a book and do research, you understand what it's like to he a woman because you are one.. She had that advantage over the lawyers in this case. Although I think in some ways we almost, it sounds strange but, we almost overdid that, to the exclusion of recognition of the amount of racism that would be involved. We were so worried about sexism that we forgot about how racist people are. Not only is Kathy a woman, but she is black. And not only is she black and a woman, but she is poor. All of those factors were involved. We had a lot of expertise given to the lawyers from members of the Committee, the National Jury Project, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and other groups concerned with women's right to defend themselves. emphasized that because of the issue--the crime that she was accused of. But we didn't emphasize the problem of racism in our society. And during jury selection the questions were all geared to antiwoman type attitudes, and exposing those. But no time was given to exposing racist attitudes and class biases which also proved to be very important.

Saying those questions were asked of the prospective jurors during jury selection certainly doesn't indicate that everyone with sexist attitudes was eliminated. That was impossible. But at least, they were revealed. There was an educational process going. For example, a question was asked of the jurors: "What do you think of the saying 'a man's home is his castle'?" Some people really had to think about that. And they knew why it was being asked; so they had to figure out how to answer it in such a way that didn't appear to be sexist. But by doing that it was educational for them.

by Marycatherine Krause

beneficial to Kathy Thomas in her situation then and now?

It's a good question and I'm not sure I can completely answer it. There aren't that many defenses available when you admit that you have actually killed somebody. To me, this was the only defense in this case, because that's what happened. It was self-defense. But I don't think that very many people recognized the extent, and I don't think it was interpreted to the extent that it needed to be by the judge and jury. We are interpreting self-defense in a broader way. We are saying that if someone is beaten by a person for a period of time, and is controlled and terrorized by a person for a period of a year or two or three, that the fear builds. So that the slightest move on the part of the other person or a small incident can create the fear for one's life. Whereas if it were one situation between two strangers or even with someone that you knew, but who you knew had never been violent against you before, you would have less right, or less ability, or less reason to expect to find this from them at any given moment. But when there is the experience of beatings and fear and pain over and over again, it does build Having talked to a woman who has been raped before, if she is raped again or even in a similar situation; the fear is really incredible, because she knew what it was like the first time how painful and degrading and horrible it was. The thought of having that happen again is demoralizing and devastating.

So then the judge instructed the jury to consider only the particular incident, and not any historical background?

Yes, but that's not necessarily the role of the judge. It is something that is going to have to go through the courts. From the experience of doing this again and again, more people will realize the extent to which self-defense must be interpreted. That is the reason we need a committee like this to. educate everyone on the need to protect oneself and the effects that it has. Because people are still sitting there saying, "Well, she could have left him". And she tried to leave him. She did leave him. He brought her back at gunpoint. They don't recognize the total control he had over her, even if she was not in the same house with him. And even though I think that everybody has, at some point in their life, experienced being controlled by another person, whether it was for a few minutes or for a few years, they weren't able to apply that to this situation and create some understanding of what she must have felt like how trapped she was, so that she felt there was no other alternative.

Would you like to comment on the local media coverage?

The main media coverage, that I was aware of was in the newspapers. I thought the Press coverage of it was almost negligible. It was not taken seriously by the Press reporter. He did write one very good story about Kathy Thomas, but even that was written irresponsibly..it only covered one side of the story. In that case, it was her side, so that was good for her. But it's not very good journalism.

As for the Plain Dealer, I though that the first story that was written before the trial started was excellent. It was a general article on self-defense, a woman's right to defend herself, and the research that's been done on other cases and in general throughout the country. In

One other thing about the self-defense defense. Aside from the social and racial biases operating in Kathy Thomas' case, there was controversy over the facts found in the shooting incident the bullet path, Daniels' condition at the time, etc. hindsight, was this a good case for the self-defense defense? Might some other defense have been more

informative and educational.

was very factual, The fact that it was (continued on page 15)

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