people in the spectator seats were a few curious court-watchers and Dan
Manning, a young reporter for the Oregonian who was always trying to
branch out beyond his normal neighborhood beat by picking up crime
stories that otherwise wouldn't get covered.
I liked Dan. He tried to give potential future sources people like me
good press as long as he could do it and still give the straight story.
He stopped me as I was walking in. 'Do you have a few seconds for a
quote? I'm thinking about using this trial as a centerpiece for a
larger special-interest article about the dangers faced by teen
prostitutes. You know, hoping to ride the coattails of the renewed
interest about the Jamie Zimmerman murder, now that Taylor's back in
the news.'
I prefaced my answer by explaining that the Rules of Professional
Responsibility prohibit prosecutors from going very far in their
statements to the media. I was relieved when he nodded; he knew the
drill. For a prosecutor, media interviews are like navigating a
minefield. Stay too safe within the lines, and your typical nitwit
reporter looking for a story will make it sound like you don't believe
in your case. Go too far, and you're looking at sanctions from the
court and the bar.
I told Dan I'd be happy to talk to him if he would assure me that he
wasn't going to print Kendra's name. He agreed, reminding me that the
Oregonian was one of the few papers that had not abandoned its policy
of withholding information about the victims of sexual offenses after
the William
Kennedy Smith rape allegation triggered sensationalist paper-selling
headlines.
I gave Dan a few canned quotes about the trial and also plugged DVD as
an aggressive, proactive unit working to prevent girls from entering
the world of prostitution and to arrest and prosecute the adults who
lure them into it.
When it was time for opening statements, I delivered mine from memory,
without notes.
'Good morning. In case you don't remember, my name is Samantha
Kincaid, and I'm a deputy district attorney for Multnomah County. I
represent the State of Oregon.
'I want to start this morning by thanking you for your candor when we
spoke yesterday during the jury selection process. It is because of
your honesty during that process that the twelve of you have been
chosen to hear this case. And I am thanking you ahead of time, because
I think you will find the next week or so to be a difficult one. It
will be difficult because the process changes now. We don't get to
talk to each other like normal people, the way we did yesterday. You
are now jurors, and the rules of our trial system require a formality
unlike any other setting in our society. You are entrusted with a
profoundly important decision, but the rules require you to sit here
passively, listening, without asking questions or even talking to one
another about the case until all the evidence is closed and you begin
your deliberations. I do not envy your task, but I promise to do my
best to anticipate the issues you might find most important and to
focus on them.
'But I think you will find this week to be difficult for reasons other
than those faced by any person fulfilling a citizen's responsibilities
as a juror. You face an especially daunting task because this
particular trial will force you to focus on the sadistic acts of the
man sitting over here, Frank Derringer.'
I had their attention now. A few of them shifted in their chairs to
move forward.
'You are going to hear facts about what Frank Derringer did to a
thirteen-year-old girl named Kendra Martin the kind of facts that most
people go a lifetime without ever having to contemplate. This man' I
pointed to Derringer 'pulled Kendra Martin from the street, dragged her
into a car driven by an accomplice, and drove her to an isolated
parking lot with every intention of beating and raping her. And as he
brutalized her face and body with his fists and forced her legs apart
to take him, something happened that made Frank Derringer's already
horrific violence escalate and turned this crime into something I wish
I didn't have to tell you about.
'At the pivotal moment when Kendra Martin thought the defendant was
going to force himself inside of her, the defendant found himself
flaccid, unable to fulfill his intentions. So Frank Derringer found a
different way to take out his rage against the scared thirteen-year-old
girl who was pinned beneath him in the backseat of his car. He took a
stick and rammed it repeatedly between Kendra Martin's buttocks. From
the degree of tearing, doctors estimate that the stick was at least an
inch and a half in diameter. They know it was made out of wood,
because they found splinters inside Kendra Martin's anus. And when
Kendra lay bleeding from the defendant's torture, Frank Derringer still
didn't stop.
'The defendant told his accomplice to do what he couldn't do himself
and then watched while this second man raped and then sodomized Kendra
Martin, now barely conscious. And when the whole thing was over, these
two men drove
Kendra to the Columbia Gorge and dumped her like a bag of garbage to
die.
