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THE GUILFORDIAN
Mock rape trial serious business on campus
Eric Dawson
Features Editor
There was no blue dot covering up the
plaintiffs face, nor did any of the Kennedys
make a guest appearance in Sternberger.
Apart from these minor details, however,
the substance of the trial enacted here at
Guilford last week was similar to that of a
famous rape trial broadcast last fall on na
tional television.
On the evening of Monday, February 3, a
laige portion of the Guilford community
gathered to witness State vs. Garrison, a
mock rape trial held in Sternberger.
Mankato State University in Minnesota
originally performed the trial in 1989, and
that same year, after the Woman's Aware
ness Group here at Guilford requested and
received the script, Guilford also performed
it.
Now in 1992, to help "bring a broader
awareness on campus of the issues sur
rounding date rape," as the program said, the
trial has unfolded once again.
Though the characters were all Guilford
students, the judge and lawyers were all
legal professionals from Greensboro and
Guilford County.
To add to the trial's realism, the jury was
picked from the audience, and though the
case was scripted out beforehand, the jury's
decision was to be its own.
As a lone news cameraman circled the
crowd, everyone glanced to the judge with
anticipation.
"Council approach the bench," said Judge
Thomas Ross, the Superior Court Judge of
Guilford County. And with those words, the
trial began.
"You are not to talk about this case... I also
instruct you to keep an open mind," Ross
Guadalajara students tell tales of Mexican madness
Josh Lewis
Staff Writer
"Moderation, Josh, that's the key," my
grandfather always told me. Couldn't have
said it better if he were the Buddha. He
might have been the Buddha, but that's
beside the point. It's the message that's
important here, and at least some of the folks
on the fall's semester abroad program to
Guadalajara seem to have let this philoso
phy find meaningful expression in their lives.
Though important, academics, by no
means, reigned supreme during the Mexi
can sojourn. Students got a taste of many
facets of the country's culture, and it seems
that the less official the experience was, the
more it tasted like tequila. "There's more to
college than books," another sage said, and
perhaps some of it can be found in bars.
Kacla Vronsky and Kirsten Coit, room
mates during the program, uncovered some
local characters in an obscure little water
ing-hole in Barra de Navidad, asmall coastal
town they visited during their free time.
They had just come off the beach in their wet
warned the jury.
Robert O'Hale, a former Assistant Dis
trict Attorney, set the groundwork for the
case with his opening remarks. After telling
the jury that Mark Garrison (played by Drew
Altizer) did indeed rape Jennifer Edwards
pi ifj § *
Ps m \ / wPhHHHI
Mark Hayes addresses the jury.
(played by Emma Geary), Public Defender
Mark Hayes said he had no opening re
marks. With that done, the interrogation
began.
Geary, playing the scared-but-indignant
plaintiff, told her story to a hushed crowd.
After having fought with her boyfriend,
Geary's character, Jennifer Edwards, went
to Dolley's on the night of January 26 with
some friends. Flirting and drinking more
than usual, she joined a group going to a
party at the house of the defendant
She and Garrison flirted. He asked her to
go upstairs twice, the second time under the
suits, headed back to their hotel, when some
Americans, after some effort, convinced the
women to join them in this restaurant of
sorts. Their best stories were not, however,
accented by food consumption.
"So we went into this restaurant and the
first guy we see is this big, huge bearded guy
who sort of looked like Santa Claus. We
used that sort of as his nickname, but we
found out that people call him Beer Bob. He
was reeeally drunk," Kaela described. Sev
eral other older, inebriated fellows inhab
ited the joint.
"They seemed like just wastoids from the
States," Kirsten said. The men were in their
40s or 50s, she said, and seemed like they
had nothing better to do than sit around and
drink beer—especially on a Saturday after
noon around one o'clock.
"Except Beer Bob had this great book
exchange," Kaela said, "where you could
bring in, take, borrow American books,
which is a very good, cool thing. Anyway,
there was also this guy named Andy, who
was also very drunk, and he started out our
interaction, relationship, or whatever, by
Features
pretext of smoking poL She refused both
times, but when she spilled some beer on her
skirt, did go upstairs to wash it off in the
bathroom. At that point, feeling sick, she
went into Mark Garrison's room, and what
happened next was up to the jury to decide.
Did Edwards take her skirt off just be
cause it was wet? Did she allow Garrison to
have sex with her? Did Edwards say "don't"
and "stop" as two separate words, or did she
in fact, as Garrison stated, tell him "don't
stop"? These and other such questions were
left for the audience to mull over.
The defense attorney focused on Edwards'
fight with her boyfriend, her flirtatious teas
ing, and the amount of alcohol she con
sumed. The "yes's" and "no's" came like a
steady chant in the courtroom as the attor
neys piled on question after question.
A variety of witnesses were called for-
telling Keri that she had a great set of chop
pers." Laughs. The women decided he was
harmless, but "learned from then on that he
was probably the least tactful person we'd
ever met." He illustrated this quite well
when Beer Bob, maintaining his sweet-Santa
image, said, "Isn't it great that we're in the
presence of such beautiful women?" And
Andy responded, "Yeah, well, at least they're
not fat."
Andy may not have been the most refined
person in the world, or the least chauvinistic,
but he could tell a fairly good story—even if
he enjoyed it more than anyone else. As
Andy went into one of his drunken tales of,
not surprisingly, a drunken adventure, the
owner of the place—the only Mexican
there—kept serving the two women tequila,
in bottles that Keri said "looked like they
had been buried for 20 years. And he was
just giving it to us." It was good tequila.
Andy began telling how, one night, he was
driving his buddy—both of them totally
wasted—between these two little towns
about a mile apart. "I was so drunk," Andy
said, "I saw two roads and I took the wrong
photo byjoan Malloch
February 7, 1992
ward in Edwards' defense, including her
RA, a detective (played by Mary Ann
Weedon), another girl with whom Garrison
had flirted, and a medical expert (played by
Charlotte Schmickle).
For the defense, after Mark Garrison came
forward, three witnesses from the party were
called forward, and "Reverend Olson"
(played by none other than Max Carter)
came up as a character witness.
Nearing the three-hour mark by this time,
the attorneys offered their final arguments.
"There are four important facts," the de
fense stated. These facts included the fol
lowing: Edwards danced with Garrison and
kissed him; she took off her sweater; she
went to his bedroom; and she took off her
skirt. The defense's parting words were clear
and sobering: "Remember: this man could
go to jail for ten years."
The prosecuting attorney came forward
with two brief points: "His (Garrison's)
attitude is 'no' does notmean 'no,'" and this
attitude, along with the bruises, point to the
fact that a rape did occur.
While the jurors discussed the case in a
separate room, a question-and-answer ses
sion was held in Sternberger. Rape and
sexual abuses—against both men and
women—were discussed, and Judge Ross
pointed out the fact that rape "is more often
than not a violent, not a sexual crime."
Judging from the hands raised and ques
tions asked, the mock trial accomplished its
goals: It raised consciousness about the hu
miliation of rape, and educated the public
about the processes involved in such a trial.
Ultimately, after a long deliberation, the
jury returned to the Sternberger courtroom.
The bailiff took the verdict to the judge, and
all held their breath as Ross read the verdict:
Mark Garrison was found guilty.
one." This was his favorite line, Keri said,
and it brought on the guffawing and hysteri
cal laughter that confirmed he was his most
appreciativeaudience. His presentation, just
as much as the story, had everyone in the
tiny Mexican dive rolling in amusement.
So now they sat in a ditch, Andy related,
and then the cops came along. He got out to
deal with them, saying, "Aw, this guy was
driving. I won't let him drive anymore."
Meanwhile, his companion is passed out on
the passenger's seat. "I won't let him drive,"
he reiterated. "Promise ociffer." So the po
lice left, and Andy flagged down a taxi to
pull them out of the ditch. They hooked up
a rope between the car and the taxi, found
success in their efforts, and Andy proceeded
to drive down the road —the correct one this
time. About a 100 yards later, Andy realized
they forgot to untie the rope, And sure as
shit, there was the taxi trailing behind them.
Meanwhile, Beer Bob faded in and out of
the group's attention. He passed the major
ity of the afternoon oblivious to most of the
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