Opinion ID: 1279175
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Trial Testimony of Richard Jahnke (Summarized from the record)

Text: The witness identified a picture which was taken May 2, 1982. It was a picture of his back with bruises over it as a result of his father beating him. The father first slapped him a few times because he accused him of lying about his homework  then he dragged him by the hair and pushed him and told him to clean up the basement. The father came down the stairs, where he called him a goddamn bastard and accused him of not doing his job right, whereupon he threw Richard to the floor, pinning him down, and started pounding him on the back, face and head. He was hitting with his open hand and fist as hard as he could. It hurt the boy inside  It hurt me mentally because he hated me so much. This sort of thing had happened all his life. When he was a little boy, his father would beat him for leaving the tub dripping. All his life the father would hit him whenever he could, Richard said, because, I was such a bastard and he was so ashamed of me. The father would use a leather belt to whip Richard when he was a small child for doing things like walking with my mouth open. He just loved hitting me anyplace with it, in the face, arms, legs, back. When the boy pleaded for the father to stop, he hit me harder. The elder Jahnke would only stop these beatings when his high blood pressure caused a nosebleed and his heart to pound. Mr. Jahnke would beat other members of the family, including Mrs. Jahnke. Once, when Richard was little, it made his father mad when his mother asked him to drive to the store, and he saw him grabbing the mother and    throwing her up against furniture, putting her down on the ground and pounding her. On these occasions, he would hide in the closet or under the bed because he was afraid. When he was 10 or 11, he became disgusted with himself because he thought he should be protecting his mother. Richard testified that on one occasion I remember watching him. He had my mother pinned down, her face to the floor. He had his knees on her head. He had her pinned. He was just punching her and punching her. She was pleading and she was slobbering because she was crying. She was pleading for him to stop. He was telling her, `Shut up,' as loud as he could say it. `I guess you don't like this?' And I couldn't take it. It hurt too much to just watch that. Q. Tell us how it hurt, Richard. A. It hurt so much. Q. Tell us how it hurt, Richard. He was beating your mother. Why would that hurt you? A. Because it was for no reason, because  to hurt her. Q. Why would that hurt you, Richard? A. I loved my mother. One time, when Richard was five or six, he broke a toy boat and the father came screaming after him. Where is that bastard? the father yelled, and the mother stood in front of the closet door where she had hidden the boy. For this, the husband beat her up, calling her a slut, a fat spick, and saying she was a terrible mother. After this beating, the boy's father took him out of the closet and beat him. He saw the father beat his sister the Saturday before the November 16 experience. One time he observed his father put his hands down Deborah's pants. He was feeling her out. The boy described this conduct on the part of his father this way: Q. Could you see your sister? A. Yes. Q. Did you see how she looked? A. She looked so scared. She was stiff. She was shaking. And Mom was pretending like it wasn't even anything. Q. What do you mean, Richard? A. She saw it but was just going on and cooking. Dad would do a lot of things. Like when she would be taking a shower, he'd always have to walk in the bathroom to see how the shower was running. His excuse would be  or there was something wrong with the pipes, see if it's okay. And when he disciplined her, he would push her up against the doors, rub her breasts, grope her breasts. And Deborah would talk to me about it. She told me she was scared. Q. Richard, did you see anything else? A. One time        Q. What else did you see between your father and your sister, Richard? A. At nights, for a period of time, my dad would tuck Deborah into bed. I remember one time I looked into the room. I saw my dad laying on top of my sister. Q. What did you think when you saw that, Richard? A. At first I thought oh, he's just playing a game, playing around.       Q. How did you feel when you saw that and how did you feel when you saw those other things you testified to? A. I felt disgusted. I knew it was wrong for my father to stick his hands down her pants. At first I thought why is he doing that. I remember when my sister and I talked. She said  Q. Richard, did you ever try and stop that? Did you ever tell anyone? A. I talked to my mother about it. Q. And did it stop? A. My mother got angry at my sister, told her that it was her fault for wearing all those shorts. She said that it was my sister's fault for all that. And she told my sister, `Just tell Dad No, tell him not to touch you.' And my sister did. Q. She told your father not to touch her? A. Yeah. I was not in the  Richard had asthma, and his father would get mad because the child had to cough, and on these occasions would hit him in the mouth. The father would hit the boy and scream at him if he did not eat all of his food at the dinner table. He also made the children eat with plastic table utensils because he said that the ordinary knife and fork made too much noise. Richard testified to the May 2, 1982 incident again. He had been beaten by his father in the basement, whereupon he told his father that he would not go hunting as they had planned. He said: I'm not going on a hunting trip with you. You're such a crazy lunatic you'd probably kill me. And then, the father returned to where Richard was and beat him some more. He then told him that if he did not like the way he was being treated to leave home: Get the hell out of the house. If you don't like it here, leave. Richard grabbed his shoes and ran barefooted out of the house to the ROTC instructor's home. He consulted with the instructor and called his mother and told her that he was going to the sheriff. The boy called the sheriff and then went down to his office and they said they would call the elder Jahnke. Richard objected, because, he said, he was afraid his father would kill him. The father, mother and sister came to the sheriff's office, where the family was shown to a room out of the presence of the officers, and the boy testified that his father was furious and yelled, You're ruining my marriage, you bastard. Richard testified: And I stood up and I said, `I'm not the cause of your marriage being like this. Was it my fault your marriage  when you were beating on me when I was a little baby, beating on my sister, beating on my mother? Now you are going to blame me for the marriage that you have.' And he said, `I don't care whatever happens to you. Just get the hell out of here.' Richard returned home that day because he was afraid they would put him in jail or a detention home, and he was afraid that if he were not there for his father to punish, he would take out his frustrations on his sister and his mother. Soon after this incident, a social worker came to the house and, according to Richard, his father told lies about him but he was afraid to correct them because he was afraid his father would beat him again. Richard related a conversation on a hunting trip when his father said: `You know what, Richard, in my job I have to handle a lot of ass-holes, a lot of ass-holes, but I handle it just fine. When it comes to family, I don't know. It's just  I lose it.' He said, `One of these days, Richard, I'm just going to hit someone so goddamn hard it's going to kill them and they'll deserve it.' And then he looked at me, glared, as if he was saying, `You are that person, Richard.' Q. Is that what you felt, Richard? A. Yes. After that I was  I didn't go on anymore shooting trips with him because I was afraid. Once before I noticed everytime I was shooting a pistol or something he would have his pistol ready, he would have it in his hand and loaded, standing aside. I was always worried that he was going to shoot me because he hated me so much. On one occasion, Richard was beaten by his father after the incident at the sheriff's office, and his father went to attend to his nosebleed, when Richard said: `If you didn't hate me so much, it really could have been great, Dad. We could have been friends.' Q. Speak up, Richard. A. I said, `We could have been friends, but it's too late now. I will never forgive you for all that you've done to me. It's too late. We'll never become friends. We are forever enemies now.' On the Saturday before the shooting, the elder Jahnke had slapped and pushed Deborah. Richard heard her fall down, whereupon he came out of his room and saw his dad grab Deborah by her hair, and he was hitting her. He yelled, Leave my sister alone, bastard, whereupon the father started to chase Richard. Richard felt proud that he was able to help his sister. He admitted that he had often thought of shooting his father after being beaten [b]ecause he was so evil. He hated us so much. All he had was hate. When asked why he didn't just leave, he answered, Where am I to go? There's no place to go. He was afraid to tell his teachers or friends about the beatings that his father gave his family members and he was afraid they would not believe him. On the night of the shooting, Richard and his mother fought. He wanted a ride to school for an open house. She got mad, blamed him for ruining her marriage. She was telling me that I was a bastard. Suddenly, Richard struck the table and said, Shut up. Then she really got angry and threw a can of dog food at him, which hit him. He hugged her, but she kept on exploding. When her husband got home, she said to him, I can't take it any more Richard, they're such bastards, and then she started crying, telling him that I was really nasty to her, saying that it's all my fault. The father then came stomping down to Richard's room and started hitting him. Richard Jahnke then responded to the following examination in this way: `Being disrespectful to my wife?' Started hitting me. He says, `You ass-hole. If you don't like it here, get the hell out.' He told me, `I don't care what I have to do.' Said, `I don't care what I have to do. I'm going to get rid of you. I don't know how, but I'm going to get rid of you, you bastard.' That's when my mother and my sister came to my room and she said, `Where he's going, I'm going, too.' And he went and screamed at her, said, `Shut up, you slut,' and came after her to hit her. I got in the way. I don't know how I did it. He just stomped off down the hall. I told her to get in the room and lock the door. I went in my room and locked the door. Then he came back in a little while, pounded on my door, told me to clean up `that goddamn mess' I made in the kitchen.       He started hitting me again. I wasn't going to be hit. So I was pushing him away, grabbing his fists, I was dodging. He was able to hit me a couple times. And my mother came into the room and it looked like Dad was ready to stop hitting me. She said, `Oh, and he called me a martyr, too.' She was taking pleasure in watching me being hit. And then Dad told me to go into the kitchen and clean up the grape juice. He stood in the way, stood in the door  Q. Couldn't hear you, Richard. What? A. He stood in the doorway so I would have to go through him so he could hit me a couple more times. I gathered my courage. I got hit a couple times. I went to the kitchen, started cleaning up the mess. He was on the other side of the house. There was an argument between my father and my sister. I don't know exactly what happened, what was said. I just remember Dad saying, `Shut up, filthy slut.' My mother was there. I had been down and cleaning all the mess. And she was smelling the flowers that he got her. It was their 20th anniversary since they first met. She looked so pleased and so peaceful. When he came back she hugged him  Q. Hugged who? A. She hugged my father. She goes, `Oh, you are so good to me. I love you.' And he said, `Let's go to dinner. I can't stand the sight of these bastards.' So they got their coats and they got their shoes together, got them on. And Mom walked out the door. Dad, just before he was going to leave, he came back and he shoved me up against the wall and he told me, `I'm disgusted with the shit you turned out to be. I don't want you to be here when I get back.' They left. After the mother and father left, he thought about being trapped in a brutalized situation from which there was no escape  how his sister was unable to get away from this treatment  how Deborah had been planning on college as her way out but was not going to be permitted to leave home for college. After his parents left, Deborah was crying and shaking, and he said: Don't worry, Deborah, he's never going to hurt you again. He testified he felt he had to protect his sister and his mother from the beatings, that he had nowhere to go, he could not go to the sheriff because [t]hey didn't believe me the first time, and he felt that his dad would be able to talk his way out of it if he went there. He could not go to his ROTC instructor, because he went there once and this individual had    told everybody about what had happened to me and he was very pompous towards me. At that time we were enemies. Richard therefore felt he could not trust his ROTC instructor. When asked why he just did not run away, he said he could not:    I would have probably starved to death some place. I didn't have any place to go. There was no one out there. Not even my grandparents would have helped me. No one. Richard Jahnke then described the scenario which saw him place his father's guns around the house for backup. He taught Deborah how to use one or two of them. He put all the dogs and cats in the basement so they would not get hurt. He thought his father would kill him if he missed him the first time because he thought his father was carrying a gun. He closed the garage door. He described what he was thinking about while he was doing these things  what his feelings were. He thought about All the pain he had caused me all my life. Q. How did you feel? A. I felt hurt, felt angry. I felt scared. Q. Scared of what? A. Of doing it, what would happen if I didn't do it. Q. What did you think would happen? Tell us, Richard. A. I thought he would kill me, maybe he might not kill me mentally  physically. He would have killed me mentally. Q. What do you mean by that? A. All these times, all that pain he gave me, everytime I would just forgive him and forget. Q. Describe that pain for us, Richard. A. Helplessness, the pain of disgust towards yourself. My father's son was going to be a man for the first time in his life. My dad always taught me to stand up for myself. I remember times he would even hit me and tell me, `Go ahead. You can get the first shot. Look. I'm open. Go ahead. Hit me. Defend yourself.' I never would. He would always laugh at me. Q. Why wouldn't you defend yourself, Richard? A. I was scared. Q. Scared of what? A. That he'd hurt me really bad, he would kill me. He was a huge man compared to me. When he was angry he was strong. When he lost his temper he showed no mercy. Q. Was this what you were thinking about while you were in the garage, Richard? A. Yes. Q. What happened while you were in the garage? A. I was in the garage, I was thinking of all that had happened to me. Q. Speak up, please, Richard. A. I was thinking of all that had happened to me and I saw the Volkswagon drive up. Dad turned into the driveway and he turned off all the lights to his car and the motor, just coasted into his park place. I saw  I said, `Oh, my God. Am I really going to do it? I can't.' I said, `I can't do it. No. I can't do it.' But as my dad walked toward the garage door I thought, `If I don't do it, he'll see all the guns around the house.' First I thought, `Well, I'll just drop all the guns, and when he opens the garage door I'll just hug him and I'll tell him, `Dad, we need help. I need help.' Q. Why didn't you do that, Richard? Why didn't you just do that? A. I remembered when I hugged him when he was beating me. I told him I loved him, that we have got to stop that. He just kept hitting me and beating me for it. And I thought, `He's going to see me with all these guns.' He used to get really mad even if anyone anyone would touch his guns. `Here I've got them laid all over the house. He'll beat us for sure.' Then I said, `No. He's never going to touch any of us again.' I remember I had this whistle, my command sergeant major's whistle. Used it for courage. At the last second I became a battalion command sergeant major. It was tough. I was a tough person. Don't take any shit from anybody. I remember I learned that from ROTC. I blew that whistle. I opened fire and every shot that I fired hurt me so much. It hurt almost as if I was getting shot also. Q. Did you see your father walking up to the garage? A. Yes. I remember he was stomping. When he stomped down the hall when he was really mad and really prepared to beat someone up, beat on one of us. I remember being a little kid, just sitting in my room. My dad stomping after me to hit me, that I could never stop him. This time I stopped him.