To the Anonymous Letter Writer
January 5, 2010 in Blogs
I received a letter a few days ago. The author took great pains to remain anonymous–so much so, that I have no way to respond but to do so publicly, and to hope that I can do so without betraying a trust or an identity. That inherently means that details will be thin. I can say–indeed, I cannot address the matter without saying–that the letter makes serious allegations against someone who participates in our forums.
I must next say that I will not countenance a chorus of is it I, nor will I exclude anyone. Do not post comments asking who was so slandered (if indeed it is slander), and do not send me private messages or e-mails to that end. Any such questions will be ignored, and my ignoring them should not be taken either as affirmation nor as denial. The anonymity of both the accuser and the accused must be protected, and thus I implore you not to make any guesses.
It also must be noted that the coincidence of my receipt of this letter with the current active forum thread touching on abusive relationships is not other than coincidence. It was sent to me at the company address, which is currently overseen by someone else, postmarked in October. Because of my mother-in-law’s funeral I was not at the December meeting, and would not yet have received the few pieces directed to my attention had he not decided to drive out for a brief visit the other night. This person did not write because of the thread, but wrote long before the thread began.
I could, of course, not respond at all; but then the author might wonder whether I ever received the note (despite the delivery confirmation tag, which only says it was placed in our post office box), or whether I took it seriously. I do take the matter seriously, and believe that you ought to have taken the matter to the police at the time–although I understand why you did not, and certainly why you would not do so after so much time has elapsed. What I do not understand, though, is what you expect me to do.
It is evident that you expect your revelation to have impact on my conduct, on my relationship with someone who is, by most definitions, a fan, a supporter, a customer–someone who would like to be defined as a friend, and who perhaps deserves that designation but that I am extremely miserly in extending it. (Most of those I have called friends have hurt me very badly; I imagine, though, that only friends can do so, and most I still call friends, despite being distanced from them.) Yet there is much to suggest that I not allow it to do so.
There is, first and foremost, the problem of credibility–your credibility. Your letter sounds sincere, and has the marks of truth; I would not call you a liar. However, I cannot (for obvious reasons) ask the accused to defend or give the other side of the story. If you know anything about me, you undoubtedly know that I hold a Juris Doctore–a degree in law, trained to the bar, taught to weigh the evidence and afford all participants their rights. Your accused is denied the right to defense; indeed, you deny the right to announce the charges. You ask me to pass judgment without giving the defendant a fair hearing. I will not do this. I am therefore forced, by the terms you have dictated, to ignore your evidence as more prejudicial than probative, that is, its truthfulness and relevance cannot be tested, but its impact on the jury would be insurmountable. It must be excluded.
It is further noted that you state you could have taken the matter to the authorities and you did not. Again, I understand how someone in your position would not report such a crime; but the failure to report it undermines your credibility yet again. Many people could tell stories of their spouses assaulting them, but since the police were never called such events are not on the record, and amount to nothing more than stories which might have been invented for the purpose of smearing the character of the other party. It does not sound to me as if you are attempting to invent slanderous lies for the purpose of poisoning my opinion of someone I know, but then if it did sound like that it would not be effective. As much as I am inclined to believe you, you have eliminated any supporting evidence, and it is only the word of someone who refuses to be identified against someone who communicates with me on completely unrelated subjects and is unaware of the accusations raised. I hope you can see my predicament. If I doubt you, I am unfair to you; if I believe you, I am unfair to the accused.
Finally, you are aware that I am a Christian. It is not a secret. It means that I am obligated to extend love and forgiveness to others, even if it means risk and pain for myself. I empathize with your pain; but even were it my own, had I been the victim, I know that we win this battle by love and forgiveness, not by vindictiveness and accusation. Jesus showed the way, embracing the pain and abuse He did not deserve so that we would understand that loving and serving others sometimes means being mocked, beaten, and killed. It may seem shallow and uncaring to you that I do not choose to deliver vengeance upon someone who hurt you, but it is not my place to do so. It is my place to extend grace, kindness, concern, love, to you but also to the accused. I cannot show love to you by showing hatred to another. Nor can I besmirch another based on unverifiable claims in an anonymous letter.
If you wish to discuss the matter further, my e-mail addresses are scattered all over the web and simple enough to find; you can reach me at the one I use for Gaming Outpost, if you like: referee@mjyoung.net. You can use another.
Or you can send me another anonymous letter, fraught with the same problems that plague this one.
Thank you for taking the time to read my reply.
–M. J. Young
JohnA1nut said on January 5, 2010
MJ, in my experience, it’s usually best to pull the accused person aside and get their side of the story. Just you and them. It’s still anonymous. As I’m sure you’re aware, under the 6th amendment to the constitution, the accused has the right to know the charges made against them. I’m 99.9999% sure it isn’t me. The thing about contacting police lets me off the hook (I haven’t done anything lately) Good luck, whatever you decide to do.
M. J. Young said on January 6, 2010
John, the sixth amendment makes it clear that the accused is allowed to face his accusers, and presumably to cross-examine them. Since the accuser has chosen to remain anonymous (even to me) I cannot even serve as intermediary to transmit questions, or to challenge the statements made.
The deeper problem is that it is impossible for me to know what details might be relevant enough to identify the accuser. That is (inventing possible details), if I said that the accuser’s mother was a lawyer, that might be sufficient to identify the accuser. If I said that the events in question occurred at the home of the accused, or at a hotel or convention; if I made reference to how the accused and the accuser met; if I discussed the circumstances of the incident in any way, any of these details might tell the accused who the accuser was–and I have no means of notifying the accuser of a breach in security.
I do not expect to do more than I have stated in this blog post, unless the anonymous writer contacts me again in a way that permits me to respond. I have made it clear enough in the post why I must follow that path; if the writer would have me consider a different path, I will need better information.
–M. J. Young
JohnA1nut said on January 7, 2010
It’s been a long time since I studied this, but wasn’t this part overturned in court? It was for cases of child molestation and whatnot, that the victim would have to face the perpetrator again.
The one that gets me is the people who say “In George Washington’s time, a gun was a musket, not an Uzi.” And in George Washington’s time, “Freedom of the press” was a newspaper. If modern technology is allowed to report the news, then it’s allowed EVERYWHERE!!!
JohnA1nut said on January 7, 2010
And MJ, the above is a genuine question about the legal system, not a challenge of any kind.
M. J. Young said on January 7, 2010
John, the difficulty involved particularly in child molestation cases has led to some complex work-arounds which are not always accepted. For example, if the child does not testify against the defendant, the defendant might not have the right to call the child to testify about the crime in his own defense. That, though, is not entirely different from police work in other cases. A detective could say “Having spoken with witnesses at the scene” or “Having received an anonymous phone call, I investigated” whatever the next piece of the proof is. In that case, the detective does not have to know the identities of his informants, as long as what they told him might reasonably have been observed by them and their information led to other evidence.
In the same way, a social worker or medical professional might testify that he interviewed the child and from that interview was led to believe that a sexual assault had occurred, and thus that he proceeded with a medical examination from which DNA evidence was found connecting to the suspect. If the evidence is that the child says that this person attacked him, then the defendant can object that such evidence is subject to cross-examination (at least by the defendant’s lawyer); but if the evidence is that based on the child’s allegations that this person attacked him the police obtained and executed a warrant which led to the discovery of material evidence in the accused’s home, the child’s testimony is not part of the case but part of the basis for the warrant. Even if the defense challenges the warrant, it will be the police who obtained the warrant who are called to defend it, and they are not required to provide opportunity for cross-examination of the testimony by which they got the probable cause for the warrant.
So facing your accuser and facing your victim are not necessarily the same thing. For most criminal cases, your “accuser” is the government. You get to cross-examine any testimony which is materially part of the case against you, but not testimony that was used in the investigation which led to the material evidence against you.
That brings us to the very thorny issue of allowing into evidence videos of interviews between social workers and victims. Such videos theoretically must be limited to their evidentiary value in supporting the testimony of the social worker. That is, a social worker could in theory get on the stand and testify from a transcript of a conversation he had with the victim as to what the victim told him, and get it included under a hearsay exception based on the potential for trauma to the victim (arguably similar to having someone testify to what he was told by a patient too weak to leave the hospital or have the jury fill the hospital room). In theory, the video is just a better version of that, of the social worker testifying to what he was told based on records kept of the conversation. The problem is that this is very possibly “more prejudicial than probative”, that is, it is more likely to prejudice the jury against the defendant than to prove anything, and there is a very fine line here between when the video represents what the social worker is stating and when it becomes the testimony of the victim.
Of course, like most things in law, it’s really much more complicated than that, but that’s the way I understand it.
–M. J. Young