day, the young woman awakened with nightmares, screaming the name of the defendant and pleading for help. I closed by urging the Court to impose the maximum sentence, a range of eight and one-third to twenty-five years in state prison.
Cerone’s lawyer spoke next. He still disputed the verdict of the jury, arguing that his client would be vindicated by an appellate review of the facts. He assailed the descriptions that had been given about the woman’s mental capacity, saying that there really wasn’t anything wrong with her at all: she was just slow.
“There is nothing in the trial record to indicate that this was a violent, brutal attack, like the People claim.
“Your Honor,” he continued, “I must also call your attention to the history of this complaining witness. Ms. Cooper mentioned the victim’s guardian, who reports her nightmares to the district attorney. May I remind you that the reason she lives with a guardian is that she had to be removed from her natural home because she had been the victim of years of sexual abuse by her father and her brothers. All of those events, Judge Hadleigh, have had some kind of impact on this witness and all of those abuses occurred before the events she testified about in this court.
“They don’t excuse my client, Your Honor, but surely the impact of Mr. Cerone’s actions on her is lessened by her past experience.”
Did I hear this guy right? Is he about to tell the judge that it’s okay to victimize someone who has been abused before?
Now Hadleigh was awake, too.
“Well, certainly, the impact of this crime is less severe because of her incest experience. She’s not inured to it, I’m sure, but it had to be less serious than the first or second time she’d been through this, I have to agree with you.”
I was on my feet in a flash.
“I’m going to object-“
“Just a minute, Miss Cooper. You’ve had your chance. Sit down. I’ll hear counsel out on this, he’s entitled to his position.”
“My client still denies his guilt, Your Honor. And I just want to close by asking you to take all these things into consideration in sentencing my client, who has no prior criminal history, and by-”
“Objection. Judge Hadleigh, Mr. Cerone has no felony convictions but he certainly has a criminal history…”
“Miss Cooper, that’s all before me, as you know, in the pre-sentence report. Let’s keep some order here, please. There’s no jury to perform for I know the record, too.”
“So on my client’s behalf, Judge, I’d ask for the minimum in this case – two to six years.”
The Honorable Horace Hadleigh we all called him Horrid, on the prosecution side, which was either the result of or the causal factor in why, for the more than thirty-eight years he had been on the bench, he generally handed members of the defense bar exactly what they wanted – was about to deliver his view of the Cerone case.
He hadn’t bothered to write out any comments about the case in advance – that would have taken both time and intelligence, two factors of which he was in limited supply. So he began by rambling on a bit about the trial and the pathetic young woman who had testified in his courtroom.
By the end of five minutes it was clear that he had bought the defense position lock, stock, and barrel.
“And quite frankly, I don’t see what the People gain by describing this rape as brutal and violent.”
There was no point in my sitting down at the table. If I could manage to get a word in edgewise, this was going to be lively.
“Your Honor, the Penal Law of this state defines rape as a “violent felony.” Of course this situation was violent it was a forced physical assault by a man who overpowered an unwilling participant.”
“Miss Cooper, don’t stand here and lecture me on the Penal Law. There are rapes and there are rapes. He didn’t chop her up in little pieces, did he? He didn’t cause any other injuries, did he?”
“Thank God he didn’t, Your Honor. The law doesn’t require that either. That’s a separate crime, as you know. Rape occurs without any external physical injury in the overwhelming percentage of cases. She didn’t have to sustain any injury. She was raped and sodomized that’s trauma enough.“
“You’re losing your sense of discretion, young lady, as well as your temper. You can’t differentiate between one case and another, and that’s fatal for a prosecutor.” I took a deep breath and modulated my tone.
“I’m sorry, Your Honor, but I must disagree with you. I see three, four hundred rape cases a year supervise several hundred others – that’s more than any other prosecutor in the country, Judge Hadleigh. I am very well aware of the factual distinctions, the n- uances, the differences in kinds of threats – all of the minuscule features that make each of these cases so distinct to each victim – woman, man, or child despite the fact that several Penal Law definitions cover the entire spectrum. I think I know, as well as anyone in the world, how to differentiate among every single one of the cases that cross my desk.”
“Well, then, you’ll have to agree, Miss Cooper, that this girl is so retarded that she really can’t understand what happened to her, isn’t that so? It’s not like if it happened to you or to my daughter? You’d know what it was all about now, wouldn’t you? She can’t absorb what happened to her, she can’t even explain it to us.”
I was thunderstruck. This was a triple-header: Cerone’s attack was forcible but not violent; other people had abused this victim in her past, so she was fair game for Ernesto Cerone this time; and because she was handicapped – the very reason she had been preyed upon, in all likelihood it didn’t matter as much as it would to a fully abled woman.
“Judge Hadleigh,” I began, unable to let his comments stand unaddressed on the record.
“Most respectfully, sir, you complete fucking moron, I must take exception to the views you have expressed here today. I think it’s fair to say that not since the case opinions generated by the medieval English courts have I heard observations like these about rape victims.“
“What did you say?”
“The three statements you made about this trial, Judge, they really reflect antiquated attitudes.”
“Did you say something to me about the Dark Ages, Miss Cooper? Are you making fun of me, young lady?”
“Not at all, sir. But surely you remember the legislative history of these statutes when the laws changed, just two decades ago?” Give him a hand; he hasn’t cracked a law book since he was in knee-pants.
“Sir Matthew Hale, 1671 all those archaic writings about women being the property of their husbands and rape not being a crime unless the victim had been virginal before the assault. Those views went out-”
”Miss Cooper. I’m going to do you a favor. I’m going to put off this sentence today and let you walk out of my courtroom without holding you in contempt. I’m going to let you reflect upon this for a bit and come back next week with an apology for me and a more reasonable view of the facts of this case.“ Ernesto Cerone was grinning as if he had just been paid a million dollars to do a commercial for Fixodent. He wasn’t going to get out of jail free, but every time I opened my mouth, his sentence time came down a notch.
“Thank you for that opportunity, Judge, but I am ready to go ahead with Mr. Cerone’s sentence today.” I’d like nothing better than to see this whole thing written up in Ellen Goldman’s article and expose this ignorant throwback for what he is.
“You’re flirting with contempt, miss.”
What the hell, Judge, I’m giving up flirting with men.
And I do so love flirting.
My adversary played right into the judge’s hand.
“I’d like the matter adjourned for a week, too.”
“Thank you. At defendant’s request, this case will be put over until next Wednesday, 2 P.M.” for sentence. I expect you to come back a bit more courteously, Miss Cooper.
I don’t want to have to report this as a complaint to the Disciplinary Committee. Has that ever happened to you before?“
“No, sir.” But I would wear it as a badge of honor if you did it with this record you’ve just made today.
Hadleigh strode off the bench and back to his robing room as I gathered my papers and stepped out of the well to join up with Ellen Goldman.
“I can’t believe I heard the things the judge said, but I did.”
“Can you just imagine, if those are the views of an educated jurist, what victims encounter all over this country from people who are uninformed about issues like this?
