Opinion ID: 1279175
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Trial Testimony of Richard's Mother (Summarized from the record)

Text: Maria Jahnke, the wife of the deceased father and mother of Richard and Deborah Jahnke, testified that on November 16, 1982, the night Richard shot his father, she and Richard had argued. The father came home, heard about it and started to beat up on my son. She begged the father to leave Richard alone. She was crying, and the father told Richard that    he wanted him to get out of the house or he was going to get rid of him. Richard's 15-year-old sister Deborah came to his defense and the elder Jahnke called her bitch and pimple-face and told her to go to her room. The father then went to his room and got a gun out of the holster. Maria and her husband were going out for dinner, but before they left the elder Jahnke pinned Richard down on the floor and he punched him. The mother had observed the father punching and slapping the boy since the child was two years old     punch him or slap him on the head and punch him in the back, slam him against whatever was around. On the night in question, Richard's father called him a bastard and said he wasn't worth anything, that he was useless. He had been saying this to the children ever since they were little. The name-calling and striking might happen every day for awhile and then there would be a period when he would not physically confront the children. He treated Mrs. Jahnke the same way  usually in front of the children. He would call her a spick, a slut  all kinds of bad names. When Richard found his father beating upon his mother on one occasion in Arizona, he came to his mother's defense and the father got up from where he had the mother pinned to the floor, caught Richard, and beat him up very badly. He pinned him down and kept punching him on the head, on the back. Richard had been the primary focus of her husband's assaults ever since he was a little boy. The boy would cry and scream and run into his room. Sometimes the elder Jahnke would chase him and pin him down and beat him. As Richard got older, the father would punch him harder. He would hit him with a closed fist    [a]s hard as he could possibly hit him.    On his back and his head. There came a time when Richard reported to his mother that the father was fondling my daughter, and I told him I already knew about it. The daughter had already reported it to Mrs. Jahnke and she had spoken to her husband about it. The Jahnke boy had trouble with his grades and reported to his mother that he could not concentrate because of what was going on at home. He was referring to [m]y husband's violence toward him. November 16, 1982 was    a violent day, as usual, and my husband was beating up on my son. And my daughter came and she punched her father in the shoulder and said to leave her brother alone, that she was tired of seeing him be so cruel to him. On this occasion, He was punching him with both of his hands, and he had him pinned down in the family room and he was really hurting him very badly. Richard was being punched in the back and in the head. May 2, 1982 was a memorable day in the Jahnke family, because her husband was beating up on my son, and told him to go to clean the basement. Then Mr. Jahnke went down to the basement and beat the boy again. The witness heard Richard crying, and then the boy left. He called later to tell his mother he could not stand it any more and that he was going to go to the sheriff. Richard did report the father to the sheriff, and they went to the sheriff's office, where they met with an officer and a social worker, after which they all went home. The father said he would never forgive Richard for reporting him to the sheriff. On cross-examination, in describing the remarks made by her husband to her son the night her husband was killed, Maria Jahnke testified: Q. Is that what you meant when you are saying he said to Richard, `I'm going to get rid of you,' meant he was going to, he told Richard that he was going to find another place for him to live if he didn't like living at home? Is that what you are  A. No. He was going to throw him out of the house, and when he said  Q. Well, now  A. Meant get rid of him. He was trying to frighten him and to maybe do something else besides just throwing him out of the house. Mrs. Jahnke testified that she was afraid to go to the authorities about the beatings her husband gave her and the children because he threatened her with telling the authorities what a bad mother she was and that the authorities would take her children from her. The witness testified that one of the worst beatings the elder Jahnke had ever given Richard was in Arizona when he beat him all over the body with a belt with all of his strength. The day in May when Richard went to the sheriff's office, he had received a beating which was just as bad as that which he had received in Arizona, and he was, on this occasion, taken to a doctor where pictures were taken of his bruises. Mrs. Jahnke was not sure whether her husband was carrying a gun on the night of the shooting. However, she testified: He always carried a gun. When he carried his badge, he carried his government gun; and when he wasn't  off duty, then he would take one of his guns. On the night of his death, when they were out to dinner, Mr. Jahnke told her how much he hated the kids. For the first time in his life, Mr. Jahnke discussed the possibility of seeking counseling for his problem with his family relations.