Henkimaa » Alaska justice system

Hangin’ with the Justice folks

Mel Green — Fri, 06 May 2011 23:42:39 +0000

John Angell & me. 2011 Justice Center Reception, UAA Consortium Library, 3 May 2011.

John Angell was the Director of the UAA Justice Center for the first several years I worked there starting in 1990. I still work there, but he’s emeritus. I took this self-portrait with him this past Tuesday at the annual reception the Justice Center holds for our university and community partners.

It’s one of a bunch of photos that I and my coworker Barbara Armstrong took at the reception; a complete slide show is the UAA Justice Center blog. Among the faces you’ll see there: Walt Monegan, former Anchorage police chief and former Alaska Commission of Public Safety Commissioner under Gov. Sarah Palin until she fired him — part of the Troopergate scandal during the summer and fall of 2008. He’s now with the Alaska Native Justice Center. I didn’t talk with him, but he’s still really cool.

There’s also pics of a lot of the great people I work with. That’s really cool, too.

Anthony Rollins, accused serial rapist, found guilty on 18 of 20 charges

Mel Green — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 00:37:42 +0000

The jury verdict was heard today in Case No. 3AN-09-07868CR, State of Alaska v. Rollins. Anthony Rollins was found guilty on 18 of 20 counts for which he was tried.

After five days of deliberation, today the jury in the trial of Anthony Rollins, former Anchorage Police Department officer accused of sexually assaulting multiple women while on duty and in uniform, found him guilty on 18 of the 20 charges against him. He was found guilty on charges of sexual assault, criminal use of computer, official misconduct for 5 of 6 alleged victims. He was found not guilty of sexual assault and official conduct with regard to one of the victims. Rollins is due to be sentenced, I believe, on June 10.

I learned this through following the Twitter feeds of Grace Jang of KTVA Channel 11 News, Rebecca Palsha of KTUU Channel 2 News, and whoever was tweeting for the Anchorage Daily News. News stories are already up at all three news websites — KTVA | KTUU | ADN — & undoubtedly more extensive coverage will be forthcoming tonight and tomorrow. Thanks particularly to Grace Jang and her colleague at KTVA, photographer Ken Fankhauser, whose use of Twitter brought a additional level of journalistic excellence to the trial.

Thank you to the jurors who served on this case; the attorneys (both prosecution and defense), judges, and other officers and employees of the court; the Anchorage Police Department officers who investigated the case; and the witnesses whose courage on the stand helped bring this case to trial, and to bring this conviction.

I’m not going to so simply say that these verdicts brought “justice” — that’s a much vaster thing than simply a verdict, a sentence, a man sent to prison. The swath of hurt in any case like this runs deep and wide, extending not only to the victims and their families, but to the family and friends of the offender, the communities that all of them live in, the community — Anchorage — that all of us live in. Even, yeah, the offender himself. And maybe I’ll write more about that later.

But given the limitations of the justice system that we have in place… this is certainly much closer to “justice” than a verdict of “innocent” would have been. I’m glad that Rollins will not be free to victimize other women.

Update: The Daily Tweets

I wrote this post before my automatically generated “The Daily Tweets” post generated. But since almost all of the tweets were about — or retweets of other people’s tweets about — today’s verdict, I’m just going to roll them into this post. So, here they are:

Rollins trial via @GraceJangKTVA: Jury resumes deliberations. Friday asked for playbacks of testimonies, 2 Qs re official misconduct. #fb #
BREAKING — RT: @GraceJangKTVA: Jury has reached verdict on #Rollins #039; 20 counts, from sexual assault to official misconduct. #fb #
Anthony Rollins verdict about to be heard in court. Per RT: @GraceJangKTVA, courtroom is filling up. #fb #
(Meanwhile, Echofon for Firefox is malfunctioning…. #$(&##$**@&@*(#&!!!) #
@adndogcom is also in Rollins courtroom awaiting jury’s verdict. #
I mean @adndotcom … [shaking head at my propensity to typo....] #
@GraceJangKTVA reports that first victim known in Rollins case is in courtroom as is her boyfriend & sister. #fb #
RT: @adndotcom: @yksin That’s after the Iditarod starts… // brilliant! #
RT: @GraceJangKTVA: Reps from Standing Together Against Rape and police union also here // and “Victim 4″ #
RT: @GraceJangKTVA: V3, who says #Rollins never sexually assaulted her but acted unprofessionally w/”sleazy come-on lines” also in court #fb #
RT: @GraceJangKTVA: Courtroom packed to the gills, but no sight of #Rollins nor his attorney #fb #
(Echofon now showing tweets from two different Twitter accounts I maintain all mixed up. [unable to tear hair out b/c it’s too short) #fb #
Everybody in Rollins courtroom still waiting for Rollins & his attorney to turn up. #fb #
RT: @GraceJangKTVA: #Rollins his attorney and wife just got here // Verdict on 20 counts should be heard soon. #fb #
RT: @GraceJangKTVA: Judge Michael Spaan presiding today. Judge Volland, V2 and V7 on the phone #fb #
RT: @GraceJangKTVA: Jury in #fb #
@RebeccaPalsha of KTUU reports guilt on all counts read out so far. #fb #
RT: @GraceJangKTVA: Guilty on all counts except 2 #fb #
That’s Anthony Rollins found guilty on 18 of 20 counts on which he was indicted. #fb #
RT: @adndotcom: Rollins guilty on charges of sexual assault, criminal use of computer & official misconduct for 5 of 6 alleged victims #fb #
RT: @GraceJangKTVA: Not guilty on sex assault for V7 and not guilty on official misconduct re V7 #fb #
RT: @GraceJangKTVA: Sentencing June 10 at 9 am for #Rollins Defense objects. Wants June 20 #fb #
RT: @RebeccaPalsha: Rollins crying #fb #
RT: @GraceJangKTVA: #Rollins #039; sister crying inconsolably #fb #
RT: @Ch2KTUU: Former APD Officer #Rollins found guilty on nearly all counts of sexual assault. http://bit.ly/g3zEVq #fb #
RT: @KTVA: Former APD Officer #Rollins Convicted on 18 Counts http://www.ktva.com/ci_17452975 #fb #
RT: @adndotcom: Article up at adn.com: Jury finds ex-officer Rollins guilty of most charges in sex assault trial. http://bit.ly/hZx96O #fb #
RT: @Scallywag195: @yksin Is his wife crying? // They didn’t say. But I feel bad for his family, as well as victims & their families. #
RT: @Scallywag195: @AKwriteclub Sugarspoon, correct? // That’s where I’ll be heading after 5:00. #

Rollins trial, day 11: Rollins claims he’s a sinner, but not a rapist

Mel Green — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 17:45:00 +0000

The trial in Case No. 3AN-09-07868CR, State of Alaska v. Rollins, is being heard before Anchorage Superior Court Judge Philip R. Volland. The case will go to the jury on Monday, Feb. 14, after closing arguments from the prosecution and the defense.

Today in court, cross-examination of Anthony Rollins, the former Anchorage Police Department officer accused of serial rape while on the job, concluded. Rollins continued to claim that any sexual contact he had with alleged victims was consensual in nature. Rther than a rapist, he claimed he was an adulterer who had violated his marital oath:

I made some bad choices, I’m sorry I sinned against my god and against my family, and I’m, I’m sorry. I let a lot of people down.

As KTVA Channel 11 summarized its story on the day’s proceedings (video at the bottom of this post),

As a married man and former Anchorage police officer, Anthony Rollins took two oaths both of which he admits on the stand to violating.

Those oaths were his marital oath and his oath as an Anchorage police officer. Rollins took a third oath on the witness stand to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. By denying that he sexually assaulted his accusers, did he violate a third oath as well? That’s the implication Deputy District Attorney Sharon Marshall left us with as she concluded cross-examination.

Rollins testimony was followed by the state calling back to the stand an APD officer who clarified on proper police procedure on how DUI’s are booked & processed, the proper use of APSIN (Alaska Public Safety Information Network) record checks, etc.

Judge Volland then told the jury he needed to meet with counsel (both defense & prosecution) on jury instructions. Final arguments will be heard on Monday, 14 February. 14 jurors have sat through the trial; 2 will be dismissed and deliberations will begin with 12 jurors on Monday after final arguments.

Today’s tweets

Anthony Rollins trial, day 11: @GraceJangKTVA and @photogfank in court livetweeting. Rollins cross-examination to continued. #fb #
Rollins trial: People livetweeting trial can be followed here: http://twitter.com/#!/list/yksin/rollins — so fa todayr just KTVA folks. #fb #
@KTVA – you do know don’t you that any attempt to visit your website right now results in “Server not found”? #
@KTVA DNS servers seem to be wrongly pointing requests for ktva.com instead to http://search.kvta.com/ (note transposed letters). #
Rollins trial via @GraceJangKTVA: Judge to work w counsels on jury instructions, closing arguments on Monday. #fb #
Rollins trial via @GraceJangKTVA: Jury will begin deliberations Monday afternoon. #fb #
Thanks again to @GraceJangKTVA and @photogfank, both of @KTVA Channel 11, for keeping the twitterverse informed in Rollins trial. #fb #
RT: @adndotcom: Ex-cop Rollins continues to deny sex assaults but admits he ‘sinned’ on the job. http://bit.ly/ifoa1C // [shaking head] #fb #

Media accounts of today’s testimony

11 Feb 2011. “Rollins sorry for ‘bad choices’ but maintains his innocence — SEXUAL ASSAULT TRIAL: He sticks to denials under cross-examination” by Casey Grove (Anchorage Daily News).
11 Feb 2011. “Rollins Trial Day 11: Final Day of Testimonies” by Grace Jang (KTVA Channel 11 News).

Video from KTVA (story by Grace Jang, photography by Ken Fankhauser):

Rollins trial, day 10: Rollins takes the stand

Mel Green — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 17:45:00 +0000

The trial in Case No. 3AN-09-07868CR, State of Alaska v. Rollins, is being heard before Anchorage Superior Court Judge Philip R. Volland in the Nesbett Courthouse at 4th & I in Anchorage.

Wednesday, February 9 at the trial of Anthony Rollins: before a packed courtroom, the ex-Anchorage Police Department officer accused of serial rape while on-duty took the stand in his own defense.

Cross-examination by the prosecution is expected to resume on Thursday morning. Yesterday I created a Twitter list of people who are in the courtroom livetweeting the trial: go to http://twitter.com/#!/list/yksin/rollins to follow. So far, the list includes @GraceJangKTVA & @photogfank of KTVA Channel 11 News and @CarolynHallKTUU & @RebeccaPalsha of KTUU Channel 2 News.

Also Wednesday, my blog post of February 2, “Why I’m following the trial of alleged serial rapist Anthony Rollins”was crossposted as a “Voices from the Flats” feature at The Mudflats. The Mudflats gets a good deal more traffic & discussion than Henkimaa does, and there was some good discussion there yesterday. I made some comments there too, including my summary of Rollins’ defense strategy:

Rollins’ defense goes like this: “I had sexual relations with other women outside my marriage, which was wrong, & I did so while on duty, which was wrong, but I didn’t sexually assault any of the women: they came on to me, at least two of them told me I was ‘cute’ [he testified that this morning about victims 1 & 2], & sex that we had was consensual. So while guilty of betraying my marital vows and of doing so while on the clock, I am not guilty of these crimes I’m charged with.”

Per the tweets from KTVA & KTUU journos in the courtroom, Rollins’ victims & their family members hearing his testimony are very agitated about his testimony — shaking heads, rolling eyes, tears, anger, upset. APD officers in courtroom near one journo also agitated. Analysis: they believe he’s lying. Well, so do I.

My later summary as the trial recessed:

Trial recessed just before 1:00 PM Alaska time & will continue tomorrow. The D.A. questioned Rollins about three so far of his accusers. I tell you that it’s pretty hard just to read the tweets; I can’t imagine how much harder it must have been for victims & their family members to sit in court & listen to Rollins claim that he took a 24-year-old DUI suspect in pajamas in handcuffs to a police substation, calling her mother to let her know where he was, & then proceeding to have sex with her from behind — where he was the one to pull down her pants — was “consensual” & was “invited” by her.

That’s the kind of stuff people have been hearing him say today.

D.A. also questioned him about how many women he’s had sex with outside marriage since he married his wife (also an APD officer) in 1987. “I don’t know. More than once.” He apparently regards his contacts with these young women who were under his police authority as being “affairs.”

One’s gorge rises.

For the full comments, go to The Mudflats. Further down this post, links to media coverage of today’s proceeding. But first,

My tweets

RT: @adndotcom: Ex-officer Rollins expected to testify in own defense today in sex assault trial. http://bit.ly/fCmDym #
Featured today on The Mudflats: my 2/2 post on why I’m following trial of alleged serial rapist Anthony Rollins http://bit.ly/exEPff #fb #
In court: @GraceJangKTVA & @photogfank again livetweeting. Rollins to take stand; courtroom packed incl. Rollins’ wife & APD cops. #fb #
Also livetweeting Rollins trial: @CarolynHallKTUU & @RebeccaPalsha. #fb #
Anthony Rollins trial: follow http://twitter.com/#!/list/yksin/rollins to see KTVA & KTUU livetweets. #fb #
Rollins claims: all 4 victims he testified about so far flirted w/ him, 2 said he was “cute”. Serial rapist/serial liar both. #fb #
Anthony Rollins trial: State now cross-examining Rollins. See http://twitter.com/#!/list/yksin/rollins to follow tweets of KTVA/KTUU. #fb #
RT: @NathanFillion: Orbis book & Spidey are dead on, but what’s Amazon trying to say with this other “suggestion”? http://yfrog.com/h46wysmj #
Rollins: RT: @GraceJangKTVA: Trial in recess until tomorrow. Attys expected to finish evidence tomorrow. Closing statements Fri or Mon #fb #
RT: @GraceJangKTVA: Side note: Do not ever get on Chief Asst. District Attorney Sharon Marshall’s bad side #fb #
@celticdiva Thanks! in reply to celticdiva #

Media accounts of today’s testimony

9 Feb 2011. “Former APD Officer Accused of Sexual Assaults Testifies” by Rebecca Palsha (KTUU Channel 2 News).
9 Feb 2011. “Ex-officer Rollins testifies sex acts were consensual — ON THE STAND: Former cop admits to some encounters, denies others” by Casey Grove (Anchorage Daily News).
9 Feb 2011.“Was it Rape or Consensual? Anthony Rollins Takes the Stand” by Grace Jang (KTVA Channel 11 News). (Video below.)

Rollins trial, day 7: See Ivan Moore’s column on “consent” in rape cases

Mel Green — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 08:45:00 +0000

The trial in Case No. 3AN-09-07868CR, State of Alaska v. Rollins, is being heard before Anchorage Superior Court Judge Philip R. Volland in the Nesbett Courthouse at 4th & I in Anchorage. The trial resumes Monday, February 7.

Once again the trial of Anthony Rollins, the former Anchorage Police Department cop accused of serial rape — was livetweeted by Grace Jang of KTVA Channel 11 News, Christine Kim of KTUU Channel 2 News, and photographer Ken Fankhauser in livetweeting the Anthony Rollins trial. Once again, I didn’t do much retweeting, so see their Twitter feeds for complete coverage. Or, follow the links below to media stories on today’s (Thursday, February 3) day in court.

You’ll also want to take a look at Anchorage pollster Ivan Moore’s column which was posted online today at by the Anchorage Press (to appear also in tomorrow’s print version). Moore wrote about “consent” in rape cases — from former Anchorage School District music teacher Satch Carlson (after whom the eponymous “Satch Carlson” law) to Anthony Rollins. I still harbor some anger at Moore for his suggestion in 2009 that we should throw transfolk under the bus if we wanted to get an equal rights ordinance in Anchorage (I wrote about the issue here and here), but on the topic of rape, consent, Satch Carlson, & Anthony Rollins — he’s spot on. Thank you, Mr. Moore.

The Rollins trial will resume on Monday, February 7. The state is expected to complete its case that day, at which point the defense will take up its case. Until then, I’ll try to think up other stuff to tweet about.

RT: @adndotcom: 5th alleged victim testfies against former Anch. cop in sex-assault trial. http://bit.ly/f4Boql // Anthony Rollins trial #
RT: @SciInMyFi: Coffee #science for the morning office crew? Roast ark brown for antioxidants: http://bit.ly/hfjyKp // mmm French roast! #
RT: @SciInMyFi: Coffee good for women but bad for men in stressful situations? http://bit.ly/eeXprH #science #sff #
Anthony Rollins trial day 7, ex-APD cop accused as serial rapist: being livetweeted by @GraceJangKTVA @christineKTUU @photogfank #fb #
Guardian (UK): Are science fiction and fantasy poised to break into the literary canon? Man Booker Prize nominees? http://bit.ly/fC8As3 #
Anchorage Press > Ivan Moore on “Defining “consent” in rape cases, from Satch Carlson to APD officer Anthony Rollins http://t.co/L3zrVXx #
Per @GraceJangKTVA: Anthony Rollins trial resumes Monday. Judge says state will rest case on Monday; trial progressing quickly. #fb in reply to GraceJangKTVA #
@exart @audioleo OK just what the heck is Thunderant & Portlandia? in reply to exart #
@audioleo @exart Thanks! in reply to audioleo #
@10ch Oops! Getting a lot of wrong email, hey? in reply to 10ch #
Via @adndotcom final alleged sex assault victim testified at Anthony Rollins trial earlier today. http://bit.ly/dMaNAt // #fb #
Here again, my Henkimaa post from yesterday: Why I’m following the trial of alleged serial rapist Anthony Rollins http://t.co/MR74Kah #

Coverage of Day 7 in the press:

3 Feb 2011. “Phone calls by police led to 6th alleged victim in Rollins case” by Casey Grove (Anchorage Daily News).
4 Feb 2011. “The Moore Report: Defining ‘consent’” by Ivan Moore (Anchorage Press).

(I’ll add the KTUU & KTVA stories when they become available.)

Rollins trial, day 6: 5th & 6th alleged victims testify

Mel Green — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 07:45:00 +0000

Today Christine Kim of KTUU Channel 2 News joined Grace Jang of KTVA Channel 11 News and photographer Ken Fankhauser in livetweeting the Anthony Rollins trial. And they tweeted a lot! — giving a very clear picture of what was being testified in court. But except for Grace Jang’s tweets about how long Anchorage Police Department had been suspicious of Rollins, & hence how culpable APD might be in leaving him free to (allegedly) commit these crimes — I didn’t do much retweeting. So see their feeds for complete coverage. Or, see below the links to the media stories on today’s (Wednesday, February 2) day in court.

@ScrivenerApp You’re most welcome! I’ll be making many more kind mentions I’m sure. Finally, an app that actually HELPS writers write! in reply to ScrivenerApp #
Anthony Rollins trial Ray 6: ex-APD cop accused of multiple sexual assaults while on duty. @GraceJangKTVA again livetweeting from court. #fb #
Answering a friend’s question: Why I’m following the trial of alleged serial rapist Anthony Rollins | Henkimaa http://bit.ly/hlPf7K #fb #
Rollins trial: @christineKTUU also livetweeting the trial today. #fb #
And @photogfank also livetweeting. That’s 3 to follow for #Rollins trial news today: @photogrank @christineKTUU @GraceJangKTVA #fb #
RT: @GraceJangKTVA: APD Internal Affairs put GPS on Rollins’ car in ’08-before V1 came forward in April 09. #
RT: @GraceJangKTVA: APD had suspicions about Rollins. How culpable is APD? #
RT: @Ch2KTUU: It might be Groundhog Day everywhere else in the country, but it’s Marmot Day in AK. http://bit.ly/eDITVe #
Writer’s Knowledge Base: the search engine for writers–finding resources that Google can’t: http://dld.bz/H5FX h/t @jaymgates #

Media coverage of today’s testimony:

3 Feb 2011. “5th woman alleges sexual assault by Rollins: Woman testifies that officer assaulted her at police substation” by Casey Grove (Anchorage Daily News).
3 Feb 2011. “Rollins Day 6: Women Claim Rape in Police Substation: Two more victims testify in the trial of accused serial rapist Anthony Rollins, a former Anchorage police officer” by Grace Jang (KTVA Channel 11 News).
2 Feb 2011. “Alleged Rollins victim says she just ‘wanted to go home’: Victim says she promised to meet Rollins again so he would take her home” by Christine Kim (KTUU Channel 2 News).

Why I’m following the trial of alleged serial rapist Anthony Rollins

Mel Green — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 16:40:04 +0000

Boney Courthouse, Alaska Court System (photo taken 11 Sep 2010)

Crossposted 9 Feb 2011 at The Mudflats.
Lots of comments there.

Anthony Rollins: he’s the suspended Anchorage Police Department officer on trial right now in Anchorage Superior Court, accused of sexually assaulting multiple women, over a 3-year period, while he was on duty — in uniform, using his patrol car and police substations to effect his (alleged) crimes. Anyone who’s been following me on Facebook or Twitter knows that I’ve been following the Twitter feed of (especially) KTVA news reporter Grace Jang, who has livetweeted four of the five days of the the trial so far.

A Facebook friend of mine asked me yesterday why I had such a strong interest in the Rollins trial. Here’s my answer.

I’ve never been a victim of sexual assault myself, or any other sexual predation, though of course I have friends & acquaintances who have.

My particular interest in this case started in late 2009 when I read reports via the local liberal blogosphere about the massing of Rollins’ supporters — mainly from his church — at hearings taking place at the courthouse, such that (alleged) victims & their families could barely get into the courthouse. I wrote a blog post at the time called “How to be a friend to an accused serial rapist” which focused on one of my interests in cases like this: how people who really love/care about an (alleged or actual) offender should show that love/care. Should they just take the accused person’s protestations of innocence at face value? Or should they weigh the evidence & help the accused person, if actually guilty, face the guilt & its consequences? (Which is what I say they should do.)

Bigtime thorny ethical question that we see zillions of examples of all the time, & frequently (as now) attended by claims about the accused person’s religious faith. On Monday, according to Grace Jang’s tweets from the courtroom, an Internal Affair investigator testified about finding gold-wrapped condoms, Alaska Public Safety Information Network (APSIN) printouts (i.e., criminal records), a previously unknown-to-his-superiors cellphone, containers of (partly consumed) liquor, & other suspicious evidence in Rollins’ patrol car. Questioning the IA officer, Rollins’ defense attorney elicited the admission that Internal Affairs had also found a Bible in his car.

Sure. A Bible in his patrol unit, and Rollins’ profession of faith as a Christian, are just bound to establish his innocence, or to wipe away all his (alleged) crimes, just as assertion of Christian faith did (in the eyes of some) for, say, disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker — to name but one example of past use of this rubbish argument.

My undergrad degree is a B.A. in Religion, & I’m still very interested in how religious ideologies as opposed to real religion skew people’s thinking & behavior about all kinds of stuff. The religious ideology that says “he’s a Christian, that makes him innocent” or “he’s a Christian, his offenses have been washed away” is one such skew.

God’s mercy and compassion towards sinners is one thing; and indeed may Rollins receive such mercy and compassion, for the sake of his spirit & soul. But I daresay God’s compassion is also for the victims of crimes such as those alleged here. I daresay God’s concern is not only for the individual salvation or redemption of one sinner, but also with reconciling people who have become alienated from each other through wrongs they have committed against each other. God’s concern, as it should be our concern regardless of our individual faith, is to restore the relationships that have been damaged & sometimes even destroyed by crime.

If Rollins indeed committed these crimes against these women, it is to them he needs to make apology and from whom he must seek forgiveness; and likewise he bears responsibility towards the rest of us: the community he took an oath to protect and defend, only to violate that oath and duty and to betray the victims, the men and women with whom he served, and the whole of the Anchorage community. Repentance and redemption come not through hiding behind Bible and cross, or whatever the signs of one’s faith might be. Repentance and redemption come with honest and unshirking admission of one’s wrongs to the people one has wronged — not only in private confession to one’s God — and a willingness to bear the consequences for those wrongs. Otherwise, all professions of faith are just words and posturing and spiritual vacancy. No matter what religion Rollins claims to follow, no matter what book rode in his unit within feet or inches of his gold-wrapped condoms, his bottles of liquor, and the notebook containing the phone number of one of his victims.

Oh yeah. Alleged victims. Right.

Aside from that, this trial is a trial under Alaska law before a Superior Court judge of the Alaska Court System, not before the judgment seat of a Christian God as understood by a particular church or a particular believer.

Another of my interests in this case is that after 20 years as a staff member at the UAA Justice Center (though not myself a “justice professional”), I think a lot lot lot about what “justice” really is, & how we bring it about (or don’t); how we could improve the say we “do” justice, how we address (or don’t) abuses of authority, & so on. This has made its way a lot into my writing, both poetry & fiction I’m working on… & being a storymaker, its pretty instructive to watch watch particular stories unfold.

I didn’t write to my friend, but should add here, that opening arguments in Rollins’ trial took place just the day after data from the 2010 Alaska Victimization Survey were presented at a joint meeting of the Alaska Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Health and Social Services Committee, and on the same day that a whole lot of stories about the data appeared in the media. You can get links to media coverage in the UAA Justice Center blog post about the presentation (a blog post which, guess what, I prepared), and also watch the full briefing before the legislators on video presented by Gavel to Gavel Alaska. (See the UAA Justice Center’s website for results of other research on violence against women in Alaska.)

Summary of lifetime estimates of victimization by intimate partner violence and/or sexual violence of Alaska female respondents, from the 2010 Alaska Victimization Survey.

The upshot is this: women are victimized by intimate partner violence and sexual violence at much higher levels than anyone has really understood before — even though we’ve known for a very long time that Alaska consistently the highest rate of forcible rape reported to law enforcement in the U.S. Why did we not understand just how truly awful the situation was (& is)? Because most women victimized by sexual & domestic violence — & arguably most men so victimized too, though for reasons discussed in the presentation only women could be included in this survey — do not report their victimization to police.

The abuse of authority alleged in the case of former APD officer Anthony Rollins in pursuit of his alleged crimes is one reason why. As some of the alleged victims have already testified, they felt intimidated because of his uniform and the power he held as a police officer, and didn’t trust other police to help them if they did report.

Which is all the more reason to ensure that, if Anthony Rollins is guilty of the crimes he is being tried for, that he be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. He was a sworn officer of the law whose uniform and shield represented his oath to protect — not to abuse and violate. Unless we can trust police and the courts to bring offenders to justice, there’s little chance that we’ll be able to stem the tide of sexual and domestic violence in Alaska.

APD officers and cars at the Performing Arts Center, downtown Anchorage, Feb 2010. May the discredit Anthony Rollins has brought to them & to the Anchorage Police Department be removed. I for one believe that 99% of Anchorage police are damn fine people and a credit to the uniform.

My story of 2009

Mel Green — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 08:19:28 +0000

And so I begin the new year by coming out of a period of silence.

A silence, to be sure, less profound than the one I inhabited this time last year. And for different reasons. In the last month or so, mainly I’ve just needed a break.

1. The cave

But on New Year’s Day 2009, I was living in a kind of emotional cave, with no desire or wherewithal to communicate with anyone outside my day-to-day life except immediate family. Especially my dad, who I’d learned just a couple of weeks before had been diagnosed with a terminal lymphoma. That news came on top of stuff I’d already been struggling with for some months, after my then-partner, Rozz who is now Ptery, made the decision while in school in Seattle to transition as a female-to-male (FTM) transsexual, & made accompanying decisions that have essentially ended our partnership as-it-was.

Thus, the cave, about which I wrote on April 2, a few days after coming out of it,

I seem to be have come out of the cave now. Not just feeling better — I’ve felt better a number of times (only to then go back into the grey again) — but actually able & willing to communicate. Maybe it was that I’m finally accepting the inevitable with my partner. Maybe it was finally getting the plane tickets bought to fly down in late April to see my dad. Maybe it was taking enough 5-HTP to keep the serotonin cooking in my brain. Maybe it’s the light coming into the days after a looooooong winter. Maybe it’s all just been perimenopause. Anyway… seems I’m back in the world again.

Now, before I go on, let me explain: this post isn’t just about the history of what I did or experienced in 2009: it’s also about what it meant. Or, better yet, the meanings I’ve made of it — because that’s what it’s all about, for me — the story, the stories each of us make of our lives. And this is my blog, of course, so this is my damn story.

And the story of coming out of the cave also has these meanings attached to it:

(1) The cave itself became a new term, describing a new form, of that rather large aspect of my life popularly known as depression (or, sometimes, despair): along with the grey, along with the pit, along with limbo — all of which are described in my late 2006 post The grey — the newly-discovered environment of the cave can include any one of the first three, or exclude all of them; it is chiefly characterized by that deep inability & lack of motivation to communicate. Big whooptie, a new term — but I do find the language useful in understanding myself around this stuff. Since, hey, halfway through my life give-or-take, I don’t see the depression/despair gunk suddenly evaporating from my life. It’s a part of who I am. I’m just lots better at handling it than before, & part of that is in refining my understanding of how it works in me.

(2) If I were to mark the exact date the cave walls dissolved around me, it would probably be March 30, 2009, which coincided with some important phone calls with Ptery, & also with my brother Mark & I buying our tickets to Spokane to see our dad for what we both understood would probably be the last time this side of our own deaths. And also on that day, I wrote a lengthy post in memorial to Nicholas Hughes, a fisheries biologist formerly at University of Alaska Fairbanks who had taken his own life the previous week. I hadn’t known him, but he was the son of the poets Sylvia Plath & Ted Hughes, & Plath especially had been an significant figure in my life. Not for the right reasons, initially — but the post explains that: it was my effort to honor Mr. Hughes not as mere adjunct to his famous parents’ biographies — as many of the news accounts of his death seemed to view him — but for who he himself was & for what he brought to all the people in his life, who were mourning him that day.

(3) My dad knew I’d been having a hard time. He was at peace with his own approaching death, & wanted us to be too. But beyond that, he wanted our happiness. He was so glad when he heard I’d come out of the cave. That was one of the very best things about it.

2. Lima beans against WAR

Wow, after the Summer of Hate experienced by the Anchorage LGBT & allied community over Anchorage Ordinance 2009-64, one almost forgets its political prelude, when then-Gov. Sarah Palin named Wayne Anthony Ross — widely known by his license-plate acronym as WAR — to succeed the disgraced Talis Colberg as Alaska’s Attorney General. Alaska’s top LGBT blog Bent Alaska informs us that its post about WAR, “Palin’s AG Pick Called Gays “Degenerates” (3/29/09), was one of its two 2009 posts to go viral — & that was even before he compared gays to lima beans, a vegetable that he “hates” but still claimed he could represent if he were, say, the lawyer for “United Vegetable Growers.” We lima beans were, needless to say, not favorably impressed.

Ross also had a history of biased & even misogynistic attitudes in relation to domestic violence, sexual assault, & violence against women; hostility to Alaska Native sovereignty & subsistence rights; a mediocre reputation as a practitioner of law amongst his fellow members of the Alaska Bar Association; & a pretty shaky attitude about executive branch ethics. Bad news all around: it motivated me to spend a considerable amount of time & energy researching him, listening to legislative confirmation hearings, & writing a very long letter to legislators, which I posted on my blog — thus embarking upon a part-time career as an occasional political blogger. I wrote a few other posts about WAR, & commented on other sites’ coverage of him (especially Bent Alaska), & celebrated with most of the rest of Alaska when the Alaska Legislature rejected him by a vote of 23 yeas to 35 nays — an unprecedented rejection of a governor’s cabinet pick.

It took a day or two for the Alaska Department of Law to remove WAR from its website. This screenshot was taken on April 16. The red X is mine.

3. Dad

I flew to Spokane with my brother Mark in late April to visit Dad. We also saw my sister Mer & brother-in-law Julius, with whom my Dad lived, and my brother Dave drove over from Montana. Ptery hitchhiked up, at my request, so I got to see him too.

Dad was so happy to have all of us there. He had a lot of energy too, considering how ill he was; but near the end, as we began to return to our homes, he took a turn for the worse, as if he’d been holding to life so that he could see us all before he left us to be with Mom. She had died in November 2005.

I took this picture during that trip: Dad telling one of his wonderful stories about growing up in the lumber camps of eastern Oregon in the 1920s where Grandpa Claude ran locomotives on the Sumpter Valley Railroad for the Oregon Lumber Company; or about the bootleg operation he & his pals in the Army Air Corps had in England during WWII; or about how he met my mom when he was looking for a job, & guy at Ellingson Lumber Company suggested he head to Izee because the camp cook there had two beautiful daughters. It was the younger of the two daughters, my Auntie Pat, who actually introduced my parents after Dad gave her a ride into John Day, where Mom was then working.

That photo on the wall behind Dad was his favorite picture of Mom, taken by a professional photographer shortly before they met. When I look at this photo, I feel his yearning to be with her again.

I last saw him on April 29. He died not quite a month later, on May 27. My sister was with him.

I’ve been at peace about Dad’s death almost from the beginning, partly because the peace he himself had about it put me at peace, & partly because of what for lack of better words I will call the messages that came, three of them — two of them to other family members, & the last one to me. My message was from my mother, in the form of sunflowers. It told me that Dad was with her, & they are both okay.

On July 12, as many family members as could make it, including me & my sister & brothers, all gathered together in Spokane to remember Mom & Dad & to celebrate all that they gave us.

I love you, Mom & Dad.

4. Anchorage Ordinance 2009-64

The Anchorage equal rights ordinance AO 2009-64 was introduced in the Anchorage Assembly on May 12, & thus was my career as an occasional political blogger made much less occasional.

AO 64 would have added sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of personal characteristics in Title 5, Anchorage’s equal rights code, which prohibits discrimination based on those characteristics in employment, housing, financial practices, education, and practices of the Municipality of Anchorage. The summer of 2009 in Anchorage featured a protracted period of public testimony at the Anchorage Assembly, with accompanying sign-waving and letter-writing both by ordinance supporters and those who opposed equal rights — led in particular by Jerry Prevo of the Anchorage Baptist Temple, who used “perverted” and other hate-terms to describe LGBT people, hence the name given the summer by commentator at the Anchorage Press: the Summer of Hate.

Identity Reports (1989) and One in 10 (1986)

From May to September, I wrote in the area of 60 posts about the ordinance, including a number that delved into the background & prevarications of its most vociferous opponent, Jerry Prevo. I also testified in support of the ordinance on June 16 ( the second of five nights of public testimony). My testimony was based on two major research efforts in the 1980s for Identity, Inc. in which we documented the rampant discrimination in Anchorage & in Alaska based on sexual orientation. (Our research unfortunately did not cover discrimination on the basis of gender identity, which we knew little about at the time.)

The ordinance passed the Anchorage Assembly on August 11, 2009, but was vetoed the following week by Mayor Dan Sullivan — the third time in Anchorage history that equal protection for at least some LGBTQ people in Anchorage was first granted, & then stripped away again.

We weren’t real happy.

5. Friends & allies

The Summer of Hate wasn’t all hate & horror. There was also some really cool stuff.

Cool stuff was people like Vic Fischer, Jane Angvik, & Arliss Sturgulewski testifying for the ordinance — people with just a teensy bit more credibility than, say, self-declared homophobic Bible-thumping Nazi “rascist” Eddie Burke.

Cool stuff was the huge number of people who turned out on the lawn of the Loussac Library to dance, blow bubbles, & hold signs upholding equal rights for all. The second week of public testimony, on which testimony was heard on two successive nights (June 16-17), was also the run-up to PrideFest, & every time I stepped out of the Assembly chambers for a breather, I felt like PrideFest was already in progress (once, that is, I got past the ABT redshirts & their hot dog tables).

I remember going out there one day & seeing how everyone — members of the LGBT community, & lots of non-LGBT folks including my nephew Miles & some of his friends — was celebrating equality & love for their fellow human beings, as sour-faced, red-shirted opponents stood nearby with their preprinted “Truth is Not Hate” signs agitating against equality. I thought to myself, I’m so proud of my people — & I found myself for the first time consciously including in my people not just other LGBT people, but all the numerous non-LGBT allies who took it for granted that equality meant all of us. And were as dumbfounded as we were at the “Truth is Not Hate” hate speech dropping out of the mouths of red-shirts both inside & outside the Assembly chambers.

On a personal level, I was lucky to make some new friendships. John & Heather Aronno, both now of Alaska Commons, who I met a few days before the first public hearing, became my favorite folks to sit next to at Assembly public hearings: three bloggers, all in a row.

One of my other favorite new people was (& is) Janson Jones, whose fantastic photography at Floridana Alaskiana v2.5 (including of the ordinance battle) first drew my attention. He’s also an all-around cool guy who also became a new dad over the summer — & his photos of his precious daughter Aurelia are pretty wonderful too.

Thanks to the ordinance battle, I also got reaquainted with a friend from way back, Linda Kellen Biegel of Celtic Diva’s Blue Oasis, who I hadn’t seen in years. I’d known Phil Munger of Progressive Alaska through email, but not until this summer did I meet him in person. I’ve known M.E. Rider of Grrlzlist, E. Ross of Bent Alaska, & longtime activist (& maker of Equality Works buttons) Stef Gingrich for years, though it was only through the summer that we saw much of each other, since normally — yes, true story — I’m pretty much a hermit.

It was the ordinance that brought me out, for ill & for good. Despite the ordinance’s eventual fate — for me personally, thanks to people like these, it was mostly for good.

6. Palinesque

Somewhere in the middle of this was Sarah Palin’s announcement on July 3 that she would be resigning her position as Governor of Alaska. I don’t blog that much about Palin — there are other Alaska bloggers who cover her quite thoroughly (thank goodness!) — but within a few days after her announcement, I got fed up with how the national mainstream media was uncritically passing along what I dubbed the 2 million dollar meme: Palin’s claim that $2,000,000 taxpayer (or rather, oil revenue dollars — this is Alaska, after all) had been spent on responding to ethical complaints against her. So I started taking it apart, & continued to do so over at total of six blog posts.

Wow did that raise traffic on my blog. I got nearly 1,800 hits on the first post of the series the first day after it was published; to date it’s gotten 5,530 hits, making it the most read post on my blog. The pie chart I created for that post also proved to be pretty popular.

My stuff didn’t stop Palin from repeating her lie; but then, who expected that it would? I’m no fool. I just hoped the damn mainstream media would wake up & do the job they’re paid to do — so that bloggers like me wouldn’t have to do it for free. I am proud to say that my efforts, which Anchorage Daily News reporter Sean Cockerham picked up on, contributed to Linda Perez of the Governor’s Office being forced to admit there were errors in the hokey spreadsheet the Governor’s Office had cooked up in an incompetent attempt to back up Gov. Palinocchio’s claim. Cockerham’s story (posted, as far as I know, only on the ADN’s Politics blog, but not as a full-fledged ADN story) said that Perez was going to follow up on further questions he’d brought up — I’ve seen no sign that she ever did, or that ADN itself cared. I didn’t follow up further myself because by time Perez ‘fessed up as much as she did, I was in Spokane with my family remembering my mom & dad. I have a feeling everyone who had actual responsibility (because, of course, they were more than mere “community organizers”) decided to drop it. Gee. I wonder why.

7. I got a new couch

More properly, it’s a futon loveseat. Whatever. I got it in August, & I’ve been vegging more happily (when I vege) ever since. My cat loves it too.

8. An effort to up-end the Alaska Judicial Council

Other things were going on in my life too, of course. But the political stuff stands out, because political blogging is not my great purpose in life — writing my own stuff is. And yet, I kept doing it.

And so it happens that in late August I learned of a lawsuit by which certain Alaska conservatives, most if not all of whom have ties to the so-called right-to-life movement, had filed suit nearly two months before — a fact not covered at all by Alaska’s mainstream media in spite of all of them having received the press release when the suit was filed — which would, if successful, overturn major provisions of the Alaska Constitution with regard to the selection & retention of state court judges. The lead attorney for the plaintiffs, James Bopp, Jr., is a big name: he has litigated similar issues elsewhere. My own feeling is that this guy is more likely to have shopped around for the Alaskans who could be named as plaintiffs in this case, than that the plaintiffs shopped around for him. His agenda appears to be a nationwide effort to politicize judicial selection, so that candidates can be selected through popular vote based on litmus test questions on hot-button issues (“What is your opinion on abortion?” — “What is your opinion on same-sex marriage?”), instead of being selected for their judicial integrity & knowledge of the law.

Through my job on staff of the Justice Center at University of Alaska Anchorage, which I’ve held since 1990, I’d become very familiar with Alaska’s judicial merit selection process, & have a lot of respect for it too, & for the quality of judges we have in this state. Not perfect — but a helluva lot better than in states that have the politicized & often politically corrupt types of selection processes that Bopp seems to prefer.

So, I read about Miller v. Carpeneti, & I wrote about it, & I even took a day off work to attend the hearing before Judge John W. Sedwick in the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska on September 11. I’m not a lawyer, but I read through most of the briefings, & it didn’t seem to me that Bopp’s arguments held much water. Judge Sedwick apparently agreed: he heard arguments from both sides & then dismissed the case. His opinion was published on September 15.

But we haven’t heard the last from Mr. Bopp: he’s appealed the case to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and, last I heard, the last briefs in the case must be filed no later than February 10, 2010. Oral arguments might then follow. If Bopp fails at the Ninth Circuit, there’s every possibility he might appeal all the way up to the Supreme Court — he’s argued before them before, & won.

Meanwhile, I continue to wonder what in hell is wrong with the Alaska mainstream media, including our supposed paper-of-record, the Anchorage Daily News. First they all failed to follow up any further on Palin’s spreadsheet-of-hooey in support of her 2 million dollar meme-of-hooey; now it turns out they sat for nearly two months on a press release issued in early July about a lawsuit that could theoretically undermine our state constitution with regard to judicial selection. Phil Munger at Progressive Alaska has drawn attention to numerous other instances in which the press has sat on its duff instead of investigating & reporting stuff that in some cases is right in front of their faces — for instance, the numerous lies propounded throughout Palin’s putative “memoir,” which the ADN has yet to write any review on. What else are they sitting on? How are we to have democracy that way, if the MSM isn’t doing its job?

Oh yeah, I remember now. Bloggers like me are supposed to do that job nowadays. In our spare time. For free.

(All due respect to those reporters who as far as I can tell are doing their best to do their job — but are being shut down by management. I know you guys are out there.)

9. True Diversity Dinner

In the aftermath of Sullivan’s veto of AO 64, several of us bloggers who had been heavily involved in writing about it started talking about what we might do keep the flame alive. Several of us met at lunchtime one day, & out of someone’s suggestion — I don’t remember whose — next thing you know, the True Diversity Dinner was born. Its immediate impetus was that the upcoming Mayor’s Diversity Dinner, an event originally created during the administration of Mayor, now Senator, Mark Begich, had been renamed Mayor’s Unity Dinner by Mayor Dan Sullivan — the same guy who had just vetoed equal rights for Anchorage’s lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transfolk.

Instead of protesting, we decided to celebrate the rich diversity that the Mayor’s renaming of the dinner seemed designed to whitewash away. The True Diversity Dinner was our alternative, with the motto, “Because we all deserve a seat at the table.” It was organized by the bloggers of Alaska Commons, Anchorage Won’t Discriminate, Bent Alaska, Floridana Alaskiana v2.5, Grrlzlist Alaska, Henkimaa, and SOSanchorage.net — but especially by John & Heather Aronno (Alaska Commons & SOSAnchorage.net), who I fear fell far behind in their studies thanks to the dinner.

But it was well worth it, right guys? It was a tremendous event, with great speakers including my Assembly person Elvi Gray-Jackson, former Congressional candidate & longtime activist for Alaska Native rights Diane Benson, Rev. Marquita Pierre of the Center for Spiritual Healing, & radio host & blogger Shannyn Moore.

On top of that, I was honored to be the recipient of a True Diversity Award for Excellence in Online Media for coverage on my blog of the battle for the Anchorage equal rights ordinance. Booyah!

At the True Diversity Dinner. Photo by Janson Jones.

10. Hilton workers

And more occasional politics.

When the True Diversity Dinner was first thought up, I hadn’t known that Mayor Sullivan’s Unity Dinner was booked for the Hilton Anchorage Hotel — which was (& still is) under boycott by its workers due to the bad faith practices of its management on orders of the Hilton’s owners, Kentucky-based Columbia Sussex Corporation. A blog post by Shannyn Moore brought my attention to the fact that the Mayor’s Unity Dinner was also a union-busting dinner. I spent some time researching & writing about the labor dispute, & also attended the Hotel Workers Rising March from the Sheraton (which is now also under boycott due to similar management abuses of workers) to the Hilton two days after the True Diversity Dinner was held.

11. But I’m really about writing my own stuff, & that’s what I need to do now

I’d like to follow up on the hotel workers struggle, both at the Hilton & now the Sheraton. I hope someone will. But I can’t. Here’s the deal. There are people on this planet, there are people in this state, who thrive on political blogging, & what’s more excel at it. I think I’m pretty damn good at it when I’m doing it — but I don’t thrive on it. I start with enthusiasm, but over time… I wear down, my spirit flags, & pretty soon it winds right back into what I started this post with: depression & despair.

Midyear, in the post in which I claimed to be an occasional political blogger, I wrote,

The main reason I set up this site & blog was to help me get back into the flow of writing, of living my life as a writer. And while writing about politics is writing — well, it’s not my writing, the stuff close to my heart. Besides, I also work a full-time job.

Besides, sometimes the political stuff can really whack me out….

Another factor about how I handle political posts is that my style isn’t really amenable to fast-response writing, which is a feature of a lot of the best political bloggers I read. But me, I like to think a lot about what I’m writing. I like to go deep. I like to be thorough & as comprehensive as I can. I like to source all my references thoroughly. I like — apparently — to write term papers. (I sure never thought so when I was in college). And that takes a long time. Especially since, as previously mentioned, I work a full-time job. And I also need a certain amount of down time or I am liable to put myself into a depression.

Sometimes, writing my own stuff actually feels like down time. Reason: I said it above, it’s stuff that close to my heart.

So October saw me returning to writing — at that time, mostly background stuff or responses to stuff that I was reading in preparation for National Novel Writing Month 2009 (NaNoWriMo). In looking back, I remember that True Diversity Dinner month — that is, September — also saw a bit of focus on writing: a couple of politically-oriented pieces about homophobia in science fiction, including one involving a publication I was writing a story for. As it happened, I wasn’t far enough along on that story to meet the submission deadline of September 30 — so I picked up & polished an older thing instead.

And whaddaya know! in early October, I was told they wanted to publish it! Which did much to make me feel like a writer again.

“Cold” was published on October 31, 2009 in Crossed Genres Issue #12, the LGBT issue, & you can still read it online there. (When it’s no longer live there, & my contract with Crossed Genres permits, I will republish it right here at Henkimaa.com.) “Cold” was also selected for inclusion in Crossed Genres‘ first-year anthology, which will include one story from each of the magazines first 12 issues. I think it’s still on schedule for publication in February.

My username on NaNoWriMo: yksin.

November for me was the headlong hurry of NaNoWriMo. As a result, as anyone who knows this blog saw, I didn’t do much blogging at all. Such blog posts as got posted were mostly automatically generated “Daily Tweets” posts from my Twitter feed. And I haven’t done much blogging since NaNoWriMo ended, either.

But whoa! I did a lot of writing — 51,607 words worth of it in November, making me a NaNoWriMo winner this year…. er… I mean, last year. I was writing in the same story universe as “Cold,” which is about two young women on an extrasolar planet (that is, in another solar system) in the late stages of terraformation, which I’ve finally named Oikos — but my NaNovember 2009 writing was mostly about three centuries earlier in the timeline, before & around the time the ships that will eventually arrive at Oikos leave our solar system. I called it Long Dark.

And a lot of it was background writing, rather than the story itself. Because there is so damn much science that I need to have at least some kind of grasp on before I can do the story for real.

Though I came up with at least four stories over the course of the month that I know I can shape into good damn stuff. And I also discovered that a character of mine from a supposedly completely unrelated project is, whaddaya know, an important historical figure for the society in Long Dark and Cold. And since that character is very closely based on me… whoa, it’s an awful lot like, well, writing myself into history. How cool is that?

(Or how egotistical?)

12. Since then…

… that is, during December — what have I been doing? Not blogging, clearly. Except for one extensive rant about the leakage in various portions of my ceiling. (Now cured, but the holes in the ceiling still need patching.) Other than that, lots of vegging out, some writing, lots of reading — my latest topics have included atmospheric pressure, altitude sickness, & spacesuit design (background research for a story in the Cold universe) & how people with strabismus or amblyopia (the latter being the case for me), most of whom grow up stereoblind, might be able to develop stereo (binocular) vision. Even at 50 years old. Which is what I am now.

50 years old, soon to be 51. And now I reflect on where I was at when I turned 50, early in 2009. I was still in the cave. But there were inklings of possibility. I was still in the cave, for instance, when a confluence of ideas led me to decide how to go about my writing life, which included blogging & other forms of social media to get my stuff out there, instead of just through the old “send out craploads of query letters & get a shitload of rejection letters back before someone finally decides your stuff is good enough to publish” method that has been standard for a very bloody long time. I knew I’d feel a lot more at ease finding my own audience through social media than going through the query letter drudgery. It was still pretty remarkable that I made such a decision at such a time, though: social media? for someone who, at that point, was incapable & unmotivated to communicate at all? But then, I knew the cave walls would dissolve sooner or later. And they did.

I was also deciding, back in February of 2009 that age 50 was a good time to reach the milestone that I had apparently reached in the sorrows of that time. The boy that I & Rozz-now-Ptery raised from age 9 was now 21 (& now, some months later, is actually 22), & is setting out on his own course in the world. He’s in a residential job training program; I seem him some weekends when he comes into town. Ptery is embarked on another course, living a nomadic life mostly off-the-grid in the Lower 48; we are no longer partners, however much we still love each other. So, I am single &, except for my cat & the boy’s dog, essentially alone.

When I was in college & took a class on Hinduism, I learned that the traditional life path for very pious Brahmin males was supposed to consist of several stages — four of them, I think — with the third stage being that of husband, father, & householder. When the householding stage was over, these guys were apparently supposed to just up & lickety-split out to the forest to become religious ascetics. Or something like that.

And when I turned 50, I thought: that’s it, I’m no longer a householder. Well, I still have my apartment. And I don’t plan to go live in the woods as an ascetic. (Ptery’s path is a little closer to that, really.) But I no longer have the responsibilities of a spouse/partner or of a parent to a minor child. I can do what I want. And what I need.

Which is to write. But dang, it sure takes me a long time to get the politics out of my way to do it.

But I got to that point, & now I plan to continue.

That’s my story.

I’m such a cathead.

How to be a friend to an accused serial rapist

Mel Green — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:40:01 +0000

Nesbett Courthouse at 4th & I in Anchorage. A demonstration will be held there at noon today in protest of the limited-release of accused serial rapist APD Officer Anthony Rollins, & in support of his victims.

Many years ago, a friend of mine stood accused of a misdemeanor crime involving sexual contact with a minor — a crime he pled no contest to, & for which, based on conversations with him, I felt he bore responsibility. But nonetheless I went to court with him. I paid a price for that — turns out that I knew the mother of the youth in the case, & she never forgave me for taking, as she thought it, the side of the man who victimized her son. But the reason I’d gone was not because I judged him innocent (I didn’t), but because a guilty person needs friends in facing his guilt, & facing the consequences of his crime, as much as he’d need friends beside him if he’d been innocent.

Based on accounts in the press of the evidence in the case against Anchorage police officer Anthony Rollins, accused of sexually assaulting six different women while on duty, I’m inclined to believe that he, too, is guilty. But I’m less certain of the motivations of the numerous people, fellow members of Lighthouse Christian Fellowship, who have been packing the courtroom at Rollins’ hearings to the point — well, I’ll let AK Muckraker’s words speak here, in the Mudflats post she wrote earlier this week:

At the first hearing, according to a source at STAR [Standing Together Against Rape], two victims were forced to fight their way through the mass of people and stand, “crushed against the back wall” by the crowds that had come to give moral support to the man they say sexually assaulted them. “They couldn’t even see,” she said. “The mood of the people who came was like it was some kind of social event. It was appalling.”

The court room was packed to overflowing, with Rollins’ church supporters filling the defendant’s side of the room, the seats in the jury box, the side of the coutroom usually reserved for the plaintiff, and spilling out into the hall when the room reached capacity. [Ref #1]

Were they there because they’re certain, based on factual evidence, that he’s innocent? Were they there because they believe him guilty & are helping him to face the consequences? Or were they there based on “he goes to my church & I feel in my heart he’s innocent” evidence (which is hardly evidence) & are thereby not only helping him maintain but actively participating in denial of crimes he’s committed?

In the witness, yet, of the very persons he’s accused of violating? To the extent that those women, & their friend & families, couldn’t even get a seat?

At least there was some improvement at the latest hearing, last Tuesday:

This time, knowing what awaited them, arrangements were made in advance for the victims and their families to have access to the courtroom and a place to sit down. What that experience must have been like, facing your accused rapist in a room full of his supporters is to most of us, unimaginable. [Ref #1]

But my questions stand: what are the motives of the churchgoers who are packing the court for Rollins? At Alaska Commons, John Aronno writes:

Rollins was released on $100,000 bail and is now under house arrest. He also gets field trips every Sunday, because the judge recognized how important it was for him to attend his church. And what church does he attend? Christian Lighthouse Fellowship. And how might the judge have reached the conclusion to release an alleged serial rapist? Well, the fact that the church came together as a “community” in support of Rollins probably helped; Lighthouse parishioners packed the courthouse, leaving standing room only, even forcing the alleged victims to be packed against the wall while people stood in a pathetic brand of solidarity in support of their fellow Christian; someone who may have raped a half dozen women, while wearing a badge. [Ref #2]

Is this, for members of Lighthouse Christian Fellowship, just a matter of Christian solidarity? Or shall I say, Christianist solidarity. Blind support for another believer who may have committed serious crimes is not actually Christian — but fits right in with the Christianist ideology which assumes as a matter of course that only people outside the flock are guilty.

Celtic Diva wrote yesterday about an Anchorage police officer she personally knew who used his position to rape and torture women, & concluded:

I share [this story] now in hopes that supporters of Officer Rollins will open their minds to the possibility that six women are not lying. I ask them to think back on their relationship with him and remember past inappropriate comments, humor or boundary issues…they have leaked out somewhere, giving hints of his true nature. [Ref #3]

A friend’s duty to a friend who stands accused of a crime is not to blindly assert his innocence — but to discern, to the best of one’s ability, whether he might be guilty. And if he is, to help him face his guilt. And to accept the consequences that are due him.

If any of you are reading this, I hope you’ll think about it.

Meanwhile, a demonstration has been called today for people to support the victims & to protest the preferential treatment this accused serial rapist has already received. Here’s the press release:

ALASKAN WOMEN DESERVE BETTER

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

October 9, 2009

CONTACT:
Kirsten Stolle, 907-602-8042
Sara Anderson, 907-903-4121

Community to Rally Against Release of Accused Rapist Cop

CONCERNED CITIZENS TO PROTEST AT COURTHOUSE TODAY

A group of concerned citizens will gather today in front of Nesbett Courthouse to protest the limited-release of accused rapist and Anchorage Police Officer Anthony Rollins. On October 5th, a bail hearing was held in which Judge Phillip Volland modified third party conditions to allow for electronic ankle monitoring and house arrest that included a provision to allow Rollins to still attend church while awaiting trial.

“Alaskan women deserve better than this,” said Kirsten Stolle, a concerned citizen working to organize today’s rally. “Officer Rollins stands accused of raping six different women while on duty, and is now free to cause more pain.”

“Our state leads the nation in so many of tragic sexual abuse statistics. It’s time for our legal system to send a strong message to perpetrators that Alaskans simply won’t stand for it.”

Officer Rollins is currently under house arrest where he is living with his wife, who is also an acting Sergeant with the Anchorage Police Department.

Today’s rally will be held in front of Nesbett Courthouse (corner of 4th and I Street) at noon.

References

10/6/09. “Indicted Serial Rapist Receives Overwhelming Support by AK Muckraker (The Mudflats).
10/9/09. “Anchorage Rapist Revered by Fellow Church-Goers. Is That Okay with You?” by John Aronno (Alaska Commons).
10/8/09. “Welcome to October 8th, ‘D-Day’ (Dividend Day) in Alaska” by Linda Kellen Biegel (Celtic Diva’s Blue Oasis).

Miller v. Carpeneti: Judge Sedwick's opinion

Mel Green — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 01:33:13 +0000

Just released: Justice John W. Sedwick’s Order and Opinion in the case of Miller v. Carpeneti (3:09-cv-00136-JWS) in which plaintiffs sought to prevent the attorney menbers of the Alaska Judicial Council from taking part in the selection of nominees for the Alaska Supreme Court position being vacated by Justice Robert L. Eastaugh upon his retirement on November 2. The plaintiffs also sought to declare the provisions of the Alaska Constitution which define the composition of the Alaska Judicial Council, as well as related provisions of Alaska Statutes, unconstitutional under the U.S. Constitution.

Judge Sedwick heard oral arguments in the case last Friday, September 11, and issued a bench order dismissing the plaintiffs’ complaint. This is the official written order, along with his opinion which provides the legal reasoning he followed to come to his decision. The opinion itself is 23 pages, but there are lengthy appendices, including the minutes from the Alaska Constitutional Convention which led to the creation of the Judicial Council, Alaska Judicial Council bylaws, the procedure used by the Council in the judicial selection process, and the letter of recruitment for Justice Eastaugh’s position.

Okay, so here it is:

9/15/09. “Order and Opinion [Re: Motions at Dockets 4 and 36]” by Judge John W. Sedwick, U.S. District Court of the District of Alaska.

I haven’t read it yet, so no comments at the moment.

Here’s the stuff that came before:

Plaintiffs: Complaint; motion for preliminary injunction

7/2/09. Verified Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief (42 U.S.C. § 1983). First version of complaint, with Hinger as first-named plaintiff; hence initial reference to case as Hinger v. Carpeneti. I’d recommend reading the revised complaint dated 7/28/09 rather than this one.
7/2/09. Motion for Preliminary Injunction and Memorandum in Support. Read this too: this is the injunction that oral arguments will be heard upon on September 11.
7/2/09. Motion for Preliminary Injunction and Memorandum in Support: signature and sample order. This is excerpted from a second copy of the motion from another source, showing the signature of Kenneth Jacobus followed by an attachment with a suggested wording for the order for preliminary injunction.
7/15/09. [Document 29]. Response to Motion for Extension of Time to Oppose Plaintiffs’ Motion for Prelminary Injunction. Agreeing to the defense request for additional time prepare its responses.
7/28/09. [Document 32]. First Amended Verified Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief (42 U.S.C. § 1983). Miller replaces Hinger as first-named plaintiff, prompting change of case name to Miller v. Carpeneti.

Defendants: Motion to dismiss complaints; opposition to motion for preliminary injunction

7/31/09. [Document 36]. Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss Pursuant to F.R.C.P. 12(b)(6). This is just the motion; the arguments are in the next file.
7/31/09. [Document 35]. Defendants’ Memorandum in Support of Motion to Dismiss. The Alaska Judicial Council is being defended by Assistant Attorney General Margaret Paton-Walsh of the Alaska Department of Law and Jeffrey Feldman, Susan Orlansky, and Alexander O. Bryner of the law firm Feldman Orlansky & Sanders. Here’s their arguments for why this lawsuit should be dismissed.
7/31/09. [Document 34]. Defendants’ Opposition to Plaintiffs’ Motion for Preliminary Injunction. Why the motion for a preliminary injunction should be denied.

Plaintiffs: Response to defendants

8/5/09. [Document 38]. Reply to Defendants’ Opposition to Motion for Preliminary Injunction.
8/17/09. [Document 42]. Plaintiffs’ Opposition to Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss Pursuant to F.R.C.P. 12(b)(g).

Defendants: Reply

8/27/09. [Document 43]. Defendants’ Reply to Opposition to Motion to Dismiss.