Stolen Innocence - Lisa Pulitzer [173]
“Ms. Wall, I think you said that your wedding day was the worst day of your life; is that right?”
“Yes, it was,” I replied tentatively.
“That day, or that time in your life, was the darkest time of your life?”
“That is correct.”
“You didn’t want to do it.”
“No, I did not.”
“You were miserable? Is that fair to say? You didn’t want to go anywhere near Allen; is that right? You were miserable all day and night?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Of the day of your wedding?”
“Yes.”
She began to ask me about a photograph taken the day after our wedding of Allen and me reclining on the ground. We were both smiling, a fact that she made sure to point out to the court. I was unsure what she was trying to do, and my confusion mounted as she did the same thing with several more photographs taken the evening of the wedding to Allen, and the following morning.
“So, after your night of misery with Allen in the bed, where both of you, you said, were tossing and turning—is that right?”
“I was, yes.”
“Okay, and you had a bouquet of flowers in your arm…and he has his arm around you.”
“Yes, he does.”
“And it looks like your arm is around him?”
“It’s actually not.”
“You hid it behind him?”
“Yeah.”
“So, you are both smiling, right?”
“Yeah, but it wasn’t by choice.”
“So, you are being forced to smile in this picture?”
I didn’t like where this was going, but I had no way of stopping it, and over the next hour, she pressed me to respond to countless questions intended to show that I’d been untruthful in what I’d said about Allen and Warren. It was hard for me to hear a woman doubting that my pain was real, and after a while I started to tear up. I felt so embarrassed showing weakness and crying in front of all these strangers. But her relentless attempts to discredit me and my claims began to wear me down.
“Okay, so let me just see if you agree with me. Allen’s got his arms around your waist. And you are holding on to a tree. And it looks like he’s trying to pull you into a creek or something?” Isaacson asked about another photograph she was offering into evidence.
“Yes,” I replied, my voice growing timid.
“And are you laughing, smiling?”
“In disgust, yes,” I said, trying to defend myself against this onslaught.
I was so relieved when the judge called a recess after almost two hours of testimony, but when we returned to the courtroom, it was more of the same. Isaacson was relentless, and the way she muddied up the facts made me angry. I did my best to rebut her attempts to paint me a liar and make Allen and Warren appear blameless. I could not allow her to twist the truth.
After I’d been on the stand for nearly four hours, Judge Shumate instructed the lawyers to finish. He openly reminded the attorneys of my very pregnant state, and expressed concern about the length of time I’d been sitting before the court. I was unaccustomed to this type of sympathy and respect from an authority figure. Over the course of the day, I had come to see the court not as simply a blunt-force instrument of the state, a callous machine, but as a complicated tool carefully designed to implement justice. Here I was two weeks from delivery, hormonal and exhausted, and every effort was being made to make me feel comfortable and confirm that my voice was heard.
Yet I couldn’t deny the toll that the gruelling day had taken on me. The questions from Isaacson had been intense, and over the following months I would use them as a model to prepare for what would be in store for me in the actual trial. That first day at the preliminary hearing, I was still too green to understand the connection that her questions were trying to draw and refute her attempt to show that a smile