S2:E11 Vigilante Sh!t

The music in this episode is “Let it Burn,” by Oliver / Aberson.

 

Find the notes and documents referenced in the episode at okappleseed.org/vigilante-shit.

 

This is the finale of Season Two – we discuss the different measures of justice each survivor got in the courts and we ask: is it enough?

 

_________________________

TRANSCRIPT

SPEAKERS

Leslie Briggs, Colleen McCarty, Marci, Heather, Christen, Karrah

 

Colleen McCarty  00:00

This episode contains references to accounts of domestic and sexual violence, violence against women in particular and language that is not suitable for listeners under 18 years of age. We also discuss suicide, sexual assault, addiction and relapse. Please use caution while listening.

 

Leslie Briggs  00:35

Welcome to the last episode of season two of panic button operational wildfire. Up to now we've been complaining about a system that fails to hold abusers accountable in a meaningful way. We've spoken to survivors, recanters, law enforcement, district attorneys, restorative justice experts, community advocates, and lawyers. We've reached out to Jim and his family, his business partners and generally tried to find anyone we could, who would give us insight into how these events could have unfolded over three decades, three states and many, many victims.

 

Colleen McCarty  01:12

Today, we're going to take you through the survivors efforts to seek criminal and civil justice through our courts. Even where they were, quote, successful in having charges brought the actual consequences of those charges were relatively minor. When Justice was fleeting, or altogether absent, several of the women turned toward each other and employed tactics that may raise some eyebrows when you hear about them. You've already heard about the flyer and the defamation case that followed. But what about the others? Heather, Marcy, and Christen. What justice have they seen through the courts? What measures have they relied on the courts failed them? What should survivors do when the system that's supposed to advocate for them doesn't is raising the village and assaulting the earth? The only choice left?

 

Leslie Briggs  02:06

I'm Leslie Briggs.

 

Colleen McCarty  02:08

And I'm Colleen McCarty.

 

Leslie Briggs  02:10

This is panic button season two episode 11.

 

Colleen McCarty  02:13

Vigilante shit 

 

Leslie Briggs  02:16

It might just be easiest to take this pre and post wildfire that is before and after the flyers. Before the flyers Christen suffered her her violent assault in 2015. And you heard those details in Episode Six. But after officer Rusty Shouse found her in the park bloody and afraid he arrested Jim.

 

Colleen McCarty  02:36

Officer Shouse filed a police report and an affidavit of probable cause. And here's what he wrote on 320 to 2015. At approximately zero to 31 hours. I was on patrol in the city of Cleveland. When I saw black Dodge Charger parked up Billy vessel's Park on West Cherokee Street. I gave the dispatcher the license plate information and advice that I would be making contact with the person in the vehicle. When I approached the vehicle, I saw a woman and I recognized her as Christen Rochelle Norris. Christen had blood on her hands and face and her nose was bleeding. I asked Christen if she was okay. And she said that she had just parked there for a minute before she headed home. I asked Christen if she needed an ambulance. And she said no. I asked her what happened and she seemed reluctant to answer. I told Christen that I could tell something had happened to her and that she was safe. Now if she wanted to tell me what had happened. Christen told me that she had stopped to see a friend during her visit. And he had hit her in the face. I asked Christen who had hit her and she said I'm afraid of him. I told Christen that she was safe again. And if she wanted to tell me what happened, she could. Christen began crying and her nose began to bleed more. I asked her again if she needed an ambulance. And she said no. I asked Christen, who had hit her. And she said Jimmy lumen James Carroll lumen second. I asked Christen if she wanted to file charges against him and she asked what would happen if she did? I asked Christen. If her and Jimmy were dating and she said that they had dated in the past but until tonight she hadn't talked to him in about a month. Christen said that she was coming home from Fairfax when she received a text from Jimmy asking her to come to his house. Christen said that when she got there, Jimmy was in the driveway. And when she pulled up he got into the front passenger side of her car. Christen said that they were talking and Jimmy was placed slapping her. Christen said that Jimmy got mad when she told him to stop. Christen said that Jimmy spilled her pop in the car. And she got out. Christen says that Jimmy got out of the car also, and that is when they thought Christen says that Jimmy grabbed her by the hair and punched her in the face twice and then pushed her face into the ground. Christen said that Jimmy told her to keep screaming and see what that would get at her, Christen says that Jimmy did not want her to leave. So he got into the driver's seat of her car and was arguing that he was not getting out. Christen said that she was finally able to get in the car and when she was able to get into the driver's seat and lock the doors, she left and went to Billy vessel's Park. I asked Christen, how much Jimmy had been drinking and she said it must have been a lot, because he gets to a point that he turns violent. I asked Christen, if she would make a statement about the incident and she said yes, Christen made a written statement and signed to the prosecution notification form indicating that she did want to pursue charges. While speaking with Christen she said that she was still afraid of him and would get a protective order. I photographed Christen's hands and face showing clear sign of assault. Carson's face was swollen and she said that she had bit her tongue when she was being hit. At 03. For six hours, I went to the address and knocked on the door. Jimmy's mother answered. Then I told her I needed to speak with Jimmy. Jimmy came outside and I advised him that he was under arrest for domestic violence. Jimmy was argumentative, but did not resist arrest. I read Jimmy the Miranda warning and asked if he wanted to talk about the incident. Jimmy said no but would not stop arguing. I transported James Jimmy lumen the second to the Pawnee County jail where he was booked in. When I returned to Cleveland I had four pictures from Pawnee deputy Darren var. Now, the pictures were of blood droppings in the driveway at the address and a picture of bloodstained piece of paper with Chris's name on it. The piece of paper is an invoice from Tulsa Hyundai for the Dodge Charger, like Christen was driving. The paper was logged into evidence.

 

Leslie Briggs  06:46

Again, I like it when the police get it right.

 

Colleen McCarty  06:50

He did a good job investigating.

 

Leslie Briggs  06:52

He investigated he gathered evidence got the facts made an arrest. And actually that leads to the prosecution by the Pawnee County District Attorney at the time who was Rex Duncan, who people may recognize his name if you're super into what's going on in the Oklahoma criminal justice world. He is actually the individual who was hired by the AGs office to conduct an independent investigation of Richard Glossip case. And he did find that there was prosecutorial misconduct in that case, and he's a DA, he's a DA. So we applaud Da's who will hold their own accountable for sure. So his his assistant DA files, the charges against Jim for assault and battery. But Christen doesn't feel or did not feel at the time that the DA who prosecuted her case took a very proactive approach. Christen remembers the DA calling her the day before the trial to tell her not to come to court. Ultimately, there was no trial, the DA allowed Jim to plead guilty to misdemeanor A and B and received an 18 month deferred sentence that and, Colleen, Do you want to remind everybody what deferred sentence means?

 

Colleen McCarty  07:54

Essentially, for a layman? It's like probation. It's it's what we call out time.

 

Leslie Briggs  07:59

So what's interesting is you often hear this refrain from DBAs. And we've talked about this, that there, it's hard to prosecute these kinds of crimes without a victim willing to testify. But I mean, we have that here. Right. And we still we don't get the day in court, we don't get the trial, we don't really get the kind of punitive justice that we think violent offenders should receive through our criminal justice system, or that a lot of people think, you know, violent offenders should receive. She doesn't get to get up in front of a jury and have the satisfaction of retelling the story. I don't know just like it's unusual that we have, even when you have a willing victim, like in this case, the case still doesn't get kind of the level of prosecution that I think a lot of people want for these cases.

 

Colleen McCarty  08:48

Yeah. And I'll just say like, for the other side of that argument, it's like, you could have a willing victim and you can have all the evidence that you need. But if the person is willing to make an agreement about a plea recommendation, most of the time, a prosecutor is going to take it because trial is hard. Sure. It's big. It's a heavy lift. It's a very heavy lift, you block off everybody's day for multiple days, the judge, you know, I'm not arguing against going to trial. But from a resource allocation perspective, right. You have hundreds of cases on your caseload, and one person is saying I'm ready to make this go away. I've never seen a district attorney turn away a rec that the person was going to agree to.

 

Leslie Briggs  09:35

Yeah. So in any event for Christen, that she doesn't she doesn't feel that she she got a resolution that really served justice for her. But So Christen actually turned to the civil courts and filed a negligence claim against Jim and his mother, Pat, and I for me, I think there's something a little bit poetic here of like, you know, Jim does PI cases, he's dealing he's in the negligence world, you know, dealing with all of that and then he gets hit with One and his mom gets hit with one and they have to, you know, figure out how to provide a monetary resolution to the assault that he perpetrated. That's a form of justice, right?

 

Colleen McCarty  10:10

I think most people would say, yes. And they would say, drop it now, like you won, you got the settlement, and you gotta get you got a guilty plea in your and in your criminal case.

 

Leslie Briggs  10:22

Justice or not justice. Justice is

 

Colleen McCarty  10:26

really complicated. It's very particularized to the person. And yet it's also very universal. What we've heard from our restorative justice experts, is that a lot of pieces of the legal system actually exacerbate a feeling of injustice, and exacerbate a feeling of non closure, I guess. Because the person is incentivized to never tell you what happened. They're never gonna apologize for what happened, that would be incriminating. I mean, I guess unless they take a plea. But he never apologized. He just took the plea and went on probation. Yeah, I think it continued, frankly,

 

Leslie Briggs  11:07

to deny the severity of it later on down the road, calling it a nosebleed.

 

Colleen McCarty  11:11

But if you ask them, why wasn't this enough? I think they would tell you, it's because he kept doing it. And he kept hurting more people,

 

Leslie Briggs  11:21

right. And that's like, some of what Leigh Goodmark this, like her philosophy on this. And she's the law professor out of law school, she out of University of Maryland School of Law, University of Maryland, she's got that book Imperfect Victims. And a lot of her philosophy is the same as like what what Xavier and aurelius would say, of this idea that like, the criminal justice system,

 

Colleen McCarty  11:44

the carceral system doesn't serve up justice because it doesn't feel good. And it doesn't feel like enough. And it never feels like it's really over either. Like it continues to reopen the wound and reopen the wound. Every time a person gets out. Every time there's a parole hearing. Every time somebody asked to testify at something every time every court is it. Yeah. And it just keeps the pain alive in a way, which is not what true. Restoration looks like. Yeah,

 

Leslie Briggs  12:15

I think so. Yeah. When you when you really peel back on Christen, you know, you look at these two cases she had she had a civil case and a criminal case. And she was she got what we what lawyers as lawyers, I would say she got she got a guilty plea to the domestic violence case. And she got a money judgment for the negligence case. And so that's as good as it can get. Yeah, that's like double win. And the fact that it still doesn't feel like justice, because he continued to then go on and abuse other women, just for me, exemplifies why that system, it doesn't really serve the purpose, I think that we all expect it to.

 

Colleen McCarty  12:54

Yeah, but I mean, the question is, and what we've been posing all season is like what would have? This is something that I've heard from people who are more on the supporters of Jim camp that we've spoken to, it's like, what would ever be enough? What would ever be enough? You think that this person should go into prison for the rest of his natural born life?

 

Leslie Briggs  13:14

I mean, it for me, it's this bigger question of like, I'm still I'm not quite I haven't quite gotten to the point where legged mark is on this on this issue of like, I, I still believe that incarceration serves a function in society to sequester violent people away from nonviolent people. I mean, it's best, that's what that does. But there are so many degrees of harm. And we talk a lot about proportionality in our survivor justice work, and we have to ask ourselves, you know what, like, it's like trying to the same concept as putting $1 value on a body on a body part. You know what I mean? What personal injury attorneys do that all the time, it's like, how much? How much is a numb, useless pinky toe, you've had a slip and fall now your pinky toe is numb all the time? How much is that worth? It's uncomfortable and slightly annoying. It's so bizarre. How much is it? I can't talk about it. You can't talk. Five figures. I mean, it could be as little as 10,000 It could be

 

Colleen McCarty  14:22

okay, but like, Ah, I don't know, there's like so little value to pinky toe. But I would be so upset if I didn't have

 

Leslie Briggs  14:34

come on. So, but it's the same concept of like, this idea of like, okay, well, it was the song battery, your face in the gravel. It's like our system of justice. And that sounds probably maybe like a little insensitive when people hear you but it's like our system of justice. Basically, does this transaction, it's transactional. It's, it's supposed to be proportional. And so

 

Colleen McCarty  14:58

well, this is something that I I've been thinking About a lot of something that we've done with this system with the, quote, criminal justice system that I don't think is necessarily correct is we've taken this idea of like, religious justice. And if you read back in jurisprudence from like the 1800s, or the 1700s, like the judges will acknowledge that there's a moral sense of justice, whatever you want to call it, religious justice, moral justice, karmic justice, whatever you want to call it, that exists separate from our manmade system, our manmade system is full of flaws and is full of people. And it can only deliver this transactional type of outcome. That is never going to feel like karmic justice probably to either side. It's like it's this. It's this in between thing that we've come up with, that's better than people going out and stabbing each other in the street, when they don't agree with something is much better than

 

Leslie Briggs  15:55

better that yeah, it's better than bashing each other with rocks. But it's

 

Colleen McCarty  15:58

not meant to be and it's not intended to be healing, healing, or take the place of moral justice, you have to do your own personal work with yourself or your priest, or your therapist, or your meditation or whatever, to get to a place where you can forgive somebody. Yeah. And a lot of people will tell you, if you continue to carry this around, it hurts you a lot more than it hurts the other person.

 

Leslie Briggs  16:30

That's true. I mean, that's true. And as somebody who holds lots of grudges, I am torture, it's heavy. I'm constantly tortured. The weight of these grudges. No, I mean, but like, honestly, when I like, you know, I'm a grudge prone human, you know, me too. But it has an effect on me mentally. And I'm cognizant of that. And I've done a lot of work, done a lot of self work to try and not be that grudge prone person. But I also I have never been beaten by an intimate partner I have, I can imagine it, I can try to empathize with it. But I really don't know the reality of that existence.

 

Colleen McCarty  17:09

I think he, I don't know what it would take to like, come to a place where you can let it go. I don't know if the system even plays any part in that. If it plays any. Imagine all the people that are like, victims of domestic partner violence, and they walk away, and they never prosecute. And they never want it to be in the record. And they never, it's so many. All they want to do is just get safe and be away and have it be over. And they never seek any type of formal justice, like criminal justice, whatever that means.

 

Leslie Briggs  17:39

Well, and I would say like we have some of those cases in this story. And that, to me, has been the most unfair, I feel the most for those people who felt that after their relationship with Jim, they just simply couldn't do anything about it, but leave it behind them. You do I feel like they're the

 

Colleen McCarty  17:59

most free. God? Well, we have done such a disservice to humans to conflate this stupid dumbass system, with our internal workings of justice inside of our psyches in our hearts, God damn preach Sr. It's just not the same thing. They'll never be the same. They'll never be the same. You could get civil justice and criminal justice, you can get a verdict, you can get a plea. And you'll still feel broken inside because that person committed a harm against you.

 

Leslie Briggs  18:35

Right. And that is why I think I do hope that like the conversation with a really aurelius, Xavier, and the TPD detective Amy Hall, and ADA. Ashley Nix. I mean, I really hope that like when you look at all of those different perspectives that you can see the value in the restorative justice approach, because it is aimed at healing the harm the underlying harm and the root cause of the violence. The reason I feel for the people who didn't do anything is that I'm making an assumption that that's a cross they bear silently, and that they haven't freed themselves of it. I don't know, that's an assumption I'm making, right. But when I think of it in those terms, I love your perspective on it. I hope that that's the case for most survivors who get away and don't, don't have to pursue anything. And this

 

Colleen McCarty  19:20

is the danger of like thinking of victims, like a monolith, which is something that we often do and something that the criminal justice system was especially guilty of. It's like DAs and prosecutors and cops are like, victims want XYZ victims want incarceration victims want prosecution victims want this. And all victims, you meet a victim you meet you meet 50 victims, you've met 50 victims, they all want different things. And from just my personal observations of the all the people that we've talked to the people that and I'm not advocating for people not prosecute, and I'm not advocating for people not go through the traditional systems. So take that but the people who have let this go? They process it in their own way. But they have not been burdened with this idea that it's their fault. What he goes on to do, they have not taken up this mantle of like, well, if nobody else is going to do something, I guess I have to do something, they don't feel the sense of personal responsibility, they don't feel like and they made a conscious choice. They were like, I'm setting this down, and I'm walking away.

 

Leslie Briggs  20:32

But like, Okay, speaking is somebody who, there's one thing I can't abide, it's an injustice. You know, me, I feel the same way. Right. And it's like, so I'm like, if there was any effort, or work being done by Jim, that I was aware of, I'm not aware of at this point is, as of this recording work being done, to heal those harms that he's caused, then I would feel better about it. But like, instead it like about the approach that you're talking about. But instead, what you have is just like, a continuation of the same horrific pattern. And us all all going well, they should just get over it. I mean, you know, like, that's like a very, like, crude summary of it, but it's like, get over it and love yourself. But also, fuck, stop hitting good women and girls, and biting them in the face, stop biting them, stop punching them stop doing weird sex stuff to them, when they don't want it. I call that rape over our unlike, I'm sorry, but Well, hold on, we're spinning out about what they should or shouldn't do, what the system should or shouldn't do, when it's really about what Jim should or shouldn't do one person in this entire equation, it's him. And like, we're trying to figure out a way to stop the violence either either with traditional means with alternative means or with this like vigilante path that emerged. And what it really is, it's like personal responsibility on this guy.

 

Colleen McCarty  22:11

I know it's like we will do ourselves into some contortions around here, to try to make something stop. And to look at every other factor and every other what's, what's the DA, and what's the PD and who's the this And who's that. And who I which jail, was it and what did they do? And why did this happen? And who let him go?

 

Leslie Briggs  22:30

We just spend a live and we just spent 10 episodes doing that. And we're just like, carve

 

Colleen McCarty  22:34

ourselves into more positions to try to accommodate the fact that this person continues to act violently and against other folks. Yeah. Can we just deal with that? Like, can we just for once, like, think about all the resources we've expended to try to deal with this? Yeah, from every other angle possible, all of

 

Leslie Briggs  22:54

1. And it's it didn't work. It didn't work, and people are still people have been hurt for 30 years.

 

Colleen McCarty  23:02

In the same exact way.

 

Leslie Briggs  23:07

Let's think about what Christen, received from the system. I do think like, as a lawyer, that's as good as you can expect, from better actually better. Yeah, most victims don't get a monetary judgment or a monetary settlement. But then, so that really, that happens back in 2015, those criminal and civil cases. And then we have the defamation case against Karrah. And one of the things that I found out from Karrah that I, I think we should discuss here is that she made made attempts to get protective orders before, like she made several attempts with the police to get protective orders against them before she finally just filed one in the in the civil courts, shortly before the defamation case is filed. And what was interesting about that conversation to me is that the police kept telling her, whatever she was saying, or whatever she was asking or going about, it didn't meet this standard that they would generally rely on to get an emergency protective order for her. But that's where that conversation ended. They didn't say to her, they didn't say to her, you can go and file your own, even though we're not gonna I never told her that was an option. No. Like it was because I was five months later. Right? It was, yeah, that is. And they hadn't seen each other in person since then, and so it's just like Karis case, for me is the hardest, probably the hardest one, from a purely legal perspective, the hardest one to like, prosecute and put through that system to an outcome that feels like accountability, if not justice, just because of the delays and the trouble with the evidence that she has in the defamation case, which we talked about in episode nine. I mean, it's just it's that case is fully the kind of case that doesn't get prosecuted,

 

Colleen McCarty  24:56

right. And I am not minimizing what happened to her at all, but people from the outside will look in and be like, it was only three weeks. Right? It was only three weeks. And it was only you didn't even get to know him that well, like, it's not as bad as Heather. It's not as bad as this. Or it's just like everybody wants to just like compare right? The harms. And it's like, it does look like, Well, you got it. You got out fast. What are you complaining about?

 

Leslie Briggs  25:22

Yeah. And the thing, the thing about that, that I'll say is that, like, we know that his pattern is to ramp up these feelings of love and all of this. And if care was at a particularly vulnerable place, I could just see that getting a I could see it getting a grip on her.

 

Colleen McCarty  25:41

Yeah. And we know she was dealing with her mom having a horrible illness. And we know that she was very swept off her feet by his entrepreneurial stuff, and that he lived out by her mom, I think she like created a fantasy in her mind that they were going to live together out there. And she was gonna get to see her mom more in the last couple of months of her life. And it was very emotional. It was a very emotional time.

 

Leslie Briggs  26:07

Right? Right. But then sorry, lawyer might like my lawyer hat is on now. Right? And I say this to just say that, like, here's, here's the reality in front of a jury. You had three weekends with him. You guys broke up. Months later, you were you were still sending him emails and checking in with them, and saying kind things to him. You know, like, I hope you get your kids back. You deserve to have the kid asking for his help with a business and asking for help with a business. And so like, you put that in front of a jury, and it's really a tough sell. I say that as a litigator, not because I disbelieve Karrah, I believe Karrah about the things that happened to her. And I mean, that's my opinion. But like I say that as a litigator that like that would be a very difficult case to bring to trial.

 

Colleen McCarty  26:54

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's why people don't do it. But

 

Leslie Briggs  26:58

it does for me. And so like, because of that, I think, because she's she's not getting the police aren't doing anything with her reports. And so she does pivot to the this vigilante justice the flyer, and again, we don't need to rehash the whole flyer, but it it becomes this thing that feels really good. But it leads to this other horrible experience with the legal system. And a situation where she gets restrained, wrongly, wrongly, and the judge corrects himself. Again, we talked about we talk all about that nine, but like, what another just another horrible, like, how would you have any faith in the system?

 

Colleen McCarty  27:39

And that's the other thing that I continue to hear in her voice. Is this a reverence for what the system has put her through? It's, it's, it's I went to the police, they did nothing. They didn't even bring him in for questioning. And then the system allowed him to sue me against my First Amendment rights. I was I was prior restrained for 441 days, I was, you know, almost, I had to pay a lawyer 1000s of dollars. I like all for things that were true and happened, right. And from a citizens perspective. Like, that's not what we pay for when we are paying our taxes is a system that's just going to rake you across the coals.

 

Leslie Briggs  28:23

Right? Right. And justice prevails in that case, but it's not without a lot of time, money and heartache. It was a close one. It was a close one. And it caught I mean, it cost her a lot of time and it cost her a lot of money.

 

Colleen McCarty  28:37

And that like even that, like isn't justice, though. What happened in that case? Isn't justice. I mean, she got out from under the temporary restraining order and she basically proved at least the ability that she had at the time that the flyer was true enough and but that's not justice. That's the like that's like the that's one on the scale of like the kiss Oh meter. Like as far as Justice goes, like, whatever. I'm comparing two different things hot love that but also like, I'm thinking of the thing where you get the hammer and you Oh, you whack that you whack the thing at the fair. Yeah. And she whacked it as hard as she could. And it went up one thing, right? Like it didn't even go up two things, for sure is going up to the top. You're not getting that. Yeah, that's like what these women keep thinking is going to happen is they've got the big hammer out and they're like, and I here we go bay here your whole life about how the Constitution protects you. And it gives it gives you rights and that's what it means to be an American. And it's like, that's not really how any of that works,

 

Leslie Briggs  29:48

right? It's kind of sad. It's a lot more complicated than that. It's a lot more complicated than that. Really for Karrah. It's like I I don't know. I don't know what what the resolution is

 

Colleen McCarty  30:03

on a quest for justice to stay because part of the reason is because her she was not only traumatized by the assault that happened to her assaults that happened to her, but she was traumatized by the system courts.

 

Leslie Briggs  30:17

Yeah. And the silence or inaction. Yes, them silencing her. Yeah. And the injustice of that is enough to get me really fucking angry. I mean, it makes me angry to think about, like, men or abusers who are successful in these defamation cases like I don't know. When it's real, it's real. When it's real, it is real. When you've been defamed, you have been defamed, and that should be a legal recourse. But I am just so tired of people misusing a system that is too lazy, and too dependent on overpriced lawyers to serve justice. Like it just I, that isn't good enough for me. And it's not good enough for Karrah either.

 

Colleen McCarty  30:58

Never husband. It never has been even to this day. And like, I think that the system has to reckon with that, like, the system has to reckon with that. Yeah, it's never going to be a perfect system. And we've already talked about that at nauseam. But some people would say, and no one in this room would say this, that lawyers are the problem that I might say if we weren't getting our fees jacked up and making the courts inaccessible to people and getting in the way of people telling the truth, because we're restraining people from saying the truth, because that's going to hurt your case. If we weren't standing in the way of the truth coming out, people could just come forward and apologize to each other and heal from this stuff. But because we make a lot of money off of people's pain, and we're incentivized to keep cases going and to keep the settlement tie and to keep people from telling the truth, that that actually makes things a lot worse.

 

Leslie Briggs  31:55

I mean, I don't disagree. I mean, like, look, I don't I make my living as a lawyer but like we so that our system is antiquated, not in like this, the cultural sense of like, we, you know, we don't believe women, although there is that, but it's antiquated, just like in the the actual technical processes that it uses. I mean, when I'm having to drive an hour to the Pawnee County courthouse to stand there on their dos desktop, to search case numbers and ask them to print it and pay them like 55 cents or a quarter or whatever it was per page. When like, we have so much technology. And we have for decades now, that could alleviate that. I mean, if I were charging a client that I'd be charging them for the trip on the county and the trip back and the time I stood there, and all of those pages that I had to have them print because there was no way to email it to myself. And it's like that stuff that like, and I'd be charging mileage to on top of my hourly rate, right. And that's just that is how lawyers make their living. And for better or for worse. We have to charge fees to provide services and assist them that requires our expertise. If you can sense as you're listening to this, that that doesn't feel like there's a resolution here. That's because I don't think there is there simply isn't one for Karrah. No, but so after Karrah's defamation case in 2016, we have Heather in Iowa, she has these 2017 cases, one in Hardin County and one in Polk County. The first one he gets charged with sexual abuse of the third degree, along with domestic violence, assault and battery domestic violence with impeding airflow.

 

Colleen McCarty  33:49

In Oklahoma, we call that strangulation.

 

Leslie Briggs  33:52

But he pleads guilty to the lesser crime of harassment in the first degree, and the domestic violence, assault and battery was dismissed. He didn't go to prison. He got a suspended sentence. Well, so these cases, the Iowa I guess has some really strong harassment laws like in looking at those statutes. It's like there's a lot of different kinds of harassment in that state. And they can come with like, really serious penalties such as registering as a sex offender if it's a sexually motivated harassment. And in Jim's case, they the court found that it was and he pled guilty and had to register as a sex offender.

 

Colleen McCarty  34:25

Okay, so Heather's like, here we go. We finally got some outcome in the criminal system against this person. How much does he get in in jail or prison for this?

 

Leslie Briggs  34:36

It's a year in jail suspended. How long do we serve? Seven days.

 

Colleen McCarty  34:43

But this case, causes his 18 months, the first sentence in Oklahoma.

 

Leslie Briggs  34:51

So yeah, we pivot back to Oklahoma because now everybody is these women are sort of talking to each other at this point. They're finding one another and And they look at what happened in Christen's case, the deferred sentence with no jail time. And they go back to the DA there. And they say, you've got to revoke the deferred because he's getting these charges in Iowa. So again, for Heather, we have two cases, we have two guilty pleas, we have two criminal sentences. Both suspended. Very little jail time.

 

Colleen McCarty  35:24

Seven days, isn't that enough?

 

Leslie Briggs  35:25

Again, and it's like, for me, I sit here and I wrestle with this idea of like, what would more time away accomplish?

 

Colleen McCarty  35:35

Well, if you're a victims advocate, and a lot of victims advocates listen to this podcast, they would tell you, it takes a lot longer than seven days to do several very important things. One, move away, yeah, get your shit and go someplace where that person can't find you, that takes longer than seven days to find a place to sign a lease to get your shit in order to get everything out. That takes longer than seven days. Right? It just does. And then also, the other part of it is to remove yourself from the situation long enough to observe the calculated mental manipulation that's been taking place in your life. Right? You have to get some separation from this kind of a situation in order to be able to see what's been going on. Yeah, you

 

Leslie Briggs  36:14

needed some distance. That's not long enough. It just isn't. No, it's not long enough and far is that all of that is concerned, the problem is the like, that's just like the final sentence. This case is pending for a lot longer than that. And, you know, the bonds that are set in these cases are not that significant, particularly for someone like Jim, who is apparently operating where cash is no concern. I mean, I don't know you heard forcement say that, like money did not seem to be a problem for him. But whatever, man, the money is not a problem. So like, my point in bringing that up is that like, this case was pending for months, he had bonded out and wasn't in jail awaiting any of that. So it was like, but again, I'm just like, left with this question of like, what is going to fix this? And I, there's no good answers.

 

Colleen McCarty  37:09

I know, it's like one of those snakes eating itself. It just keeps coming back around to the same conclusion.

 

Leslie Briggs  37:15

Yeah. And so that's Heather, I mean, again, she gets these two criminal charges against them to guilty pleas. And he has to register as a sex offender.

 

Colleen McCarty  37:25

So he's out again on the streets of El Dora, Iowa. And he meets Marcy, which we know they met through him meeting her when he was talking to the chiropractor's office that she worked with, while he was doing his job. She lives in Oklahoma at the time he lives in Iowa, she very quickly began to relocate and move her life in to his home in Iowa, where a very prolific and scary pattern of abuse goes down. Yep, one of the pieces of that is that he now has, and he also had this with Heather, but he has a brand. Yeah, that has his initials on it. That is a steak brand. So you can go online and you can buy yourself a brand, like your custom brand for your steaks, quote, unquote. Yeah. And he sort of thing if that's your thing. You really like steak.

 

Leslie Briggs  38:17

I love steak. But I don't feel the need to get a brand with my initials. I'm good dish with the steak. That's just the that's the nice part.

 

Colleen McCarty  38:24

Yeah, I don't need to have my name on the piece of meat that I'm eating. That's going to be gone in a second. But so one of the ways that he abuses Marcy, and Heather, is he they both have brands have his initials on their bodies in multiple places. Yeah, there is sexual assault, there is rape. But none of those things get reported in the relationship with Marcy until the incident that you heard about in episode six. And so we're not going to rehash what happened to her, but

 

Leslie Briggs  38:50

well, so with Marcy's case, the charges are bananas. Yeah, so he in Iowa after Marcy's horrible, horrible assault. He's charged with kidnapping in the first degree, willful injury causing serious injury, assault, causing serious injury.

 

Colleen McCarty  39:07

He has dominion or control of a firearm, and he's a domestic abuse offender. So they have a particular felony that if you are a domestic abuse offender, even if it was a misdemeanor, which we don't homeless here, you cannot possess a firearm. You can only not possess a firearm. If you have a felony in Oklahoma.

 

Leslie Briggs  39:26

By the way, there's a case pending before the Supreme Court right now to determine whether or not that's even constitutional. So buckle up friends.

 

Colleen McCarty  39:34

Can we see Clarence Thomas's opinion of domestic violence victims? Oh, Christ,

 

Leslie Briggs  39:39

okay, so two charges for having a weapon a firearm or a weapon and being a domestic having a firearm and being a domestic abuser. one count of domestic abuse assault with intent to inflict serious injury and one count of harassment first degree so excuse me, and then another account of assault with intent to inflict serious injury, this one, including a violation of individual rights, so there are eight counts presented in that case. And that last one is the one

 

Colleen McCarty  40:13

the violation of individual rights. That's the hate crime.

 

Leslie Briggs  40:15

We'll talk to talk to us about that. Because there's this there's this hate crime theory that emerges in this case.

 

Colleen McCarty  40:21

Yeah. So obviously, by this point, anyone in law enforcement would be what I would like to say I'll call it frustrated by someone like Jim, who continues to evade any type of accountability, or penal. You know, process, I think the system's just not working. The thing is, like, as much as people want to hate on law enforcement, they also don't like to see these people walk free. Yeah, it actually bothers them to a deep degree from everyone I've talked to, and they like to protect people. And this, obviously, what's been happening with him is not protecting people. And so there's a female District Attorney in Iowa that gets really incensed by what's been happening. And she actually puts forward this novel legal theory of what he's been doing to these women. He's doing it because he hates women. Just like if you walked up to a black person and started hitting a black person and calling them horrific slurs, you're doing what you're doing because of his race. That's a hate crime. It's also an assault. Let's, you can charge them together. Yeah. So the way she does this theory is she says he always use a very particular slur against women in all of his relationships, and that slurs cunt. Yeah. And in Iowa, they do you have gender as a basis for hate crimes. We don't have that here. Oh, interesting. We have religious affiliation race, I think disability. And maybe one other thing, but we don't have gender as a basis. So we couldn't have done this here. But they can do it there. And so they filed this charge and the DA there goes ham, and she starts collecting all the evidence that these women have have every time he's ever That's right. All the women go to Iowa to give a deposition. Yes, they get called up for depositions. And Jim's attorney deposes them, all kinds of stuff is coming out. Oh, I would not want to be his attorney in those depos.

 

Leslie Briggs  42:26

mean, Heather's being groomed to murder Karrah at the Tulsa County Fair.

 

Colleen McCarty  42:32

So yeah, there's a murder plot that gets uncovered in the depos. Several of the women expose issues of abuse that the his attorney didn't even know about. I think that's probably the moment that his female attorney decided to go ahead and take a plea for this, right. Because like, nobody wants to be the person to take this to trial at this point. No, because

 

Leslie Briggs  42:51

it's going to be bad because there's going to be this parade of women

 

Colleen McCarty  42:54

and hate crimes in Iowa or up to life on the sentencing. Really, wow. And the risk, though, on the prosecutor side, even though I think she did an incredible job, and I do think it has legs. Nobody wants to be the first one to try a novel legal theory just don't want to because there's no precedent and it's just

 

Leslie Briggs  43:12

the stakes are high. You know, what if you lose, I mean, she had lots of padding on like, seven other counts, though, there

 

Colleen McCarty  43:21

are tons of other counts, and all of those probably would have stuck, but they don't have as long as sentences. So that was really like their belt and suspenders sure all the way to life. But you know, he did have a good attorney in this case. And they offered, they came to an agreement about what he would take as a plea bargain. So he doesn't have pleading guilty to this case. So all of the allegations in Marcy's case, and he admits to those. But he admits to them as he takes it, a single from eight felonies on the charging sheet down to one. And it's the causing willful injury to another charge that he ends up pleading to. And he takes the plea the number of years that he agrees to go to prison for is 10. So instead of getting eight felonies in life, he gets one felony in 10 years, which, when you're stacking charges, as a prosecutor, part of the reason you're doing it is because you want to come to an agreement like this. Like it's just like any other negotiation. Sure. When you go in to sell a house, you're going to price it really high.

 

Leslie Briggs  44:33

Sure you put it you start with everything you could possibly ask for. Yeah,

 

Colleen McCarty  44:37

knowing that some of those are going to get plead away knowing that some of those aren't going to go to trial, you're going to have to drop them or maybe she could have made every single one of them. Sure, but it's just sort of more more fodder for coming to an agreement. And I think what they didn't tell the victims and what the victims or the survivors did not know when this plea went through, is that Iowa actually has one of the most liberal days earned laws in the books in the country.

 

Leslie Briggs  44:37

Yeah, I mean, he was earning days at like four times the rate, right

 

Colleen McCarty  44:45

four to one. So every one day counts for four days,

 

Leslie Briggs  45:10

because he was completing so many programs, right?

 

Colleen McCarty  45:13

It's two ways you can earn days. So you can earn days by just having good behavior and not getting any citations going to count all the things you're supposed to do is considered having good behavior, he can get four to one just for that role if we're doing anything less. And then he can go to they have this very renowned domestic violence Offender Program in prison there. But it is like very evidence based, and it does have good outcomes. But because he was having good behavior, and he was taking this class, he was earning a lot of days for every one day. And so he ends up getting out after he has been in for 14 months. Which unfortunately, what's the most unfortunate thing about this is that the the survivors, I think when they left the guilty plea hearing, believed that he would serve every single day of that 10 years and no one disabused them of that. No one said, Hey, he's gonna go in, but the most likely outcome is he is going to be out in XYZ amount of time. Or if he does this, and he does this program, he is going to be out by this time. And so everybody thought, Okay, we finally got some what they would consider to be serious prison time for this person, right. And then he's released and he gets released. He is still on an ankle monitor right now. And he's on supervision. But that won't last forever. Right. And

 

Leslie Briggs  46:52

so I do want to say this, that the outcome rates for the AC T V, which is that program we were talking about, and I just pulled it back up. Apparently, recidivism rates are lower among men who complete that program by about 15%. They have the men who complete the ACTV program, have a recidivism rate of 15% versus men who are just treatment as usual, regular BIP process or have a recidivism rate of 25%. Oh, wow. So it's a pretty effective version of batterers intervention, or better in Iowa, they call it batterers education program.

 

Colleen McCarty  47:26

Isn't that we want? like, Oh, right. That's what we all as people who work in the criminal justice system every day against mass incarceration, that is what we say that we want. We want people to get sentences that are rehabilitative, and prevent them from committing more harm, and make them better so that this doesn't keep happening.

 

Leslie Briggs  47:51

Yeah, that's the system at its best. So we should talk a little bit about that there has been at least one woman who has recanted.

 

Colleen McCarty  47:59

Yes. So we are not naming this person, because they have asked for anonymity.

 

Leslie Briggs  48:07

Right. They initially were willing to go on the record and change course, and had requested anonymity. Yes. So

 

Colleen McCarty  48:14

a few weeks ago, we spoke to this person. During the time when Jim was in Iowa, before he met Marcy. But after he had divorced from Heather, he met a woman in the area, who he hired to work at his organization. Mostly clerical stuff. But during the time when she was working, he was his office was based out of his house. And so she would be there during the day working. And then she would stay past the time when the office closed at five and she would be there late into the night they would be watching TV and drinking. And

 

Leslie Briggs  48:55

while she described it, to me, it's more of a more of a roommate type situation.

 

Colleen McCarty  48:59

Yeah. So it's not clear whether or not they were really romantically involved. Yet, when Jim starts talking to Marcy, and Marcy comes up from Oklahoma and Iowa. The relationship with this person changes in a pretty distinct way, obviously, because now he's married, and he has a wife and he wants her to go home at 5pm. During this time, this anonymous person sent messages to Marcy's son, who's an adult. Yes. Who is an adult and sent pictures of her face with a very large black eye.

 

Leslie Briggs  49:37

Yeah, I mean, really, like, very swollen black.

 

Colleen McCarty  49:41

Yes, and says, and it's actually a screenshot of a picture that she have a message that she sent to a sergeant. Supposedly,

 

Leslie Briggs  49:50

yeah, it appears it appears to be a screenshot of something she was sending to a police officer asking for help about reporting an assault. Yes.

 

Colleen McCarty  49:57

And so the message says something like this I am trying to get help to report an assault from Mr. Luman on October to November time, that message gets sent to Marcy's son, with the claim that she was abused. Right? We also know that this person has brands on their body from the same brand, the iron that was used on Heather and on Marcy right. However, today, this person says that that message was false.

 

Leslie Briggs  50:34

Yeah, she's recanted and said that that that is not that Jim did not assault her. He did not cause that black eye. And then

 

Colleen McCarty  50:41

she gets a black eye then Leslie, what did she tell you? Well, so

 

Leslie Briggs  50:45

the story that she told me was that she had been at a family member's wedding and a fight broke out while she was in the restroom. And on her way back to like the reception area, she walks into the fight, and gets hit in the face during this this fight that's going on during the wedding. And that is what actually caused the black eye and she hasn't she expressed a lot of guilt, having apparently lied about her assault at a gyms hands.

 

Colleen McCarty  51:18

And she did say that she was very sorry for doing it. And she wished she had never done it. And that

 

Leslie Briggs  51:25

that never happened. I mean, the gym didn't hit her. That didn't didn't hit her. So he's had at least one woman recant the allegations. I mean, make it that, you know, you have to everybody that listens to this podcast has to draw their own conclusions about every single thing that we say. And I don't know, I feel I feel for this woman because she's obviously wracked with emotion about about the situation.

 

Colleen McCarty  51:45

I do think it's also worth just mentioning that she is one of the only people that we know is still actively in his, what I would say call orbit like he is still communicating frequently with her. And yeah, they're definitely in touch still in contact with each other.

 

Leslie Briggs  52:01

They're definitely in touch. And so yeah, like, that's that story. I mean, that that really is all that I have to say on that there has been a woman who's recanted those allegations against Jim. So we're in this is the vigilante episode, we have to talk about some of the stuff that I think might make some might make, like neutral observers a little uncomfortable, and that some of the behavior, the online behaviors that start emerging, as like people start feeling more frustration with the justice system, not really the what feels like accountability. I've been using that word a lot, you know, but after having spoken to the experts like like, what feels like the appropriate amount of punishments not been doled out by that system, the vigilante online Facebooking kind of starts happening. And it's not all vigilante, some of it is just very much like, posted from the the main accounts of some of these folks, but there are these fake accounts that start coming into play here.

 

Colleen McCarty  52:57

Yeah. And to, just to be clear, we still do not know who created the fake accounts, who's behind the fake accounts or the posting, or the messages that were sent from those accounts. Right. So while it could have been one of the survivors, it also could have been any number of people in the community that knew about these things.

 

Leslie Briggs  53:23

Nobody has told us that they like we've asked and no one has told us that they were the one that did it. They all some Well, some of them have admitted to using fake Facebook's to track his movements to make sure he's not coming. He's not in their vicinity, or he's if he's in Oklahoma, that gives that gave them a sense of peace of mind if they were in Iowa and vice versa. But there are some accounts that start reaching out to folks, that to Jim's mom, Jim's mom to the canter. And just kind of applying pressure. What I guess what I would call unsavory. I mean, like, there's suggestions of like, maybe Jim will kill this Rick cantor. And wouldn't that be lucky for her kind of a discussion that's happening?

 

Colleen McCarty  54:06

Also, like some stuff to Jim's mom about? I mean, I think that objectively, the worst thing that gets sent is this picture of it's a very scary picture of a clown.

 

Leslie Briggs  54:19

This actually comes directly from Heather

 

Colleen McCarty  54:22

from Heather's account. But then he got sent in a message right to from

 

Leslie Briggs  54:27

there. No, there are messages there. So it's like extremely chaotic and hard to keep it all straight. But there are messages to Jim's mom. You know, it's been it's been alleged to us. There are messages in Jim's mom suggesting that they hope her other child commits suicide as well. And she must have been a bad mother. Like that. Just raise something like that. So it's like, pretty aggressive messages being sent to people still in his orbit. And, you know, like, it's stuff that I wouldn't send it stuff But I wouldn't want my client to have sent, if I'm, if I'm litigating something where they have to go on the witness stand. I don't want a jury seeing that.

 

Colleen McCarty  55:08

And if you're in a potential jury on a case like this, and you saw messages like that, like, how would it make you feel?

 

Leslie Briggs  55:15

Well, as a lawyer on a jury, it would make me feel like, I'd have a knee jerk reaction, like, Ah, god, you know, why are you sending that, but then I would, my lawyer brain would kick in and be like, that doesn't actually bear on the consequences. But most jurors are not lawyers. In fact, almost none of them, almost none of them are lawyers. Most of them are just regular people off the street, who, frankly, make decisions from a place of emotion all the time,

 

Colleen McCarty  55:38

but like use your regular person brain and you see those messages and you're in a jury, and what what does it make you feel about these survivors?

 

Leslie Briggs  55:46

I know, I know, how it plays out in the deliberation room was like, Well, you know, I don't like those messages that they sent the mother like, they didn't need to do that to the mom, why were they hassling the mom. I don't like that about them. And it makes me question. The other things that they were saying, like, why would they do that? Why? I mean, they're why would they go and poke the bear that they didn't, you know, that they were afraid of? Or that they, you know, had these experiences with? Why would they do these kinds of things, instead of just leaving him alone? And where

 

Colleen McCarty  56:17

does that lead? That's the next logical step is they must not really have been afraid of him, if they're willing to say these kinds of things to him and his family. Yeah. And then the next logical step is

 

Leslie Briggs  56:30

I can't trust what they're saying at all. They're not victims. And that is that that's, it's like, it's those four logical leaps, very easily done in a deliberation room, and then you've lost your whatever case it is that you're doing. And that's like, that sucks. But that's how juries think. And this

 

Colleen McCarty  56:47

is the myth, also that a lot of prosecutors and law enforcement struggle with with these cases is that that is the myth of the perfect victim, as we call Yeah, there is no mythical woman, beautiful, shiny hair, who's never made a misstatement who's never drink alcohol, who's never done drugs, who's never showed up at her abusers house to AEM, who's never done any of these survivor behaviors, because it's totally intrinsic to the experience of surviving violence.

 

Leslie Briggs  57:18

Yeah, fully, fully.

 

Colleen McCarty  57:22

And therefore, we have set up survivors of violence to always be unsuccessful in legal situation. Absolutely. Absolutely. Because the nature of survivorship is not credible.

 

Leslie Briggs  57:38

Yeah, the decisions and the things that you do to survive moment to moment, and the decisions and the things that you do to process your trauma, on your own, are like, to someone who has not experienced it, to me, a person who's not experienced it, I go, my knee jerk is like, whoa, why are we? Why are we poking this? And I don't think that I get to say that I don't think that it's my place to actually say that, I think that I want to leave that to an expert who will testify about victim behavior in the case, I want to call an expert, who will talk about survivor behavior, and how it is illogical and how when these women banded together finally, when they, when they started to realize what was going on, they felt they felt newly empowered. And one of the ways that like, what I can empathize with, and I've said this to you before, of like, as a as a queer woman in the state of Oklahoma, I feel some of the power of the state. And some of the things that I think that some people in power in the state we would like to do, so that I don't have the same rights as everybody else. And I feel in the state in this country, even I mean, the 303 creative decision from the Supreme Court, those things cause an emotional reaction to me from a place of powerlessness. And then I'm not equating that to a bunch of abuse. But I am equating that to the idea of I can see myself when I make a quip online about something that the government or that the Supreme Court is doing. It's coming from this place of I feel super fucking powerless, about what's just happened. And I'm angry. And now I need to lash out publicly. And it's I can I can empathize with what they're doing in that way. Yes. But I don't think a jury, it's a harder leap for a jury.

 

Colleen McCarty  59:16

And it's honestly like, even to me after doing this work for the past two years, I still struggle with it. It is so ingrained in our thought processes and in our culture to pick apart and put under a microscope, the behavior of the woman in the situation, right and, and to say, Okay, what would I have done in that situation? What should she have done differently? What could and I just want to put to our listeners, that it's really important to me and I hope it's really important to you to, to understand that this kind of thinking is how we have gotten to this place of systemic inaction. And it is not morally equivalent to post a mean message on Facebook, as it is to bash someone's face in. And the more that we try to focus on the mean posting on Facebook, the less we're talking about the actual violence that's happened. And it takes the lens off of him, and it puts it on them. And it allows this behavior to continue. And until we start asking, Why are you hitting people? Why are you abusing people? Why are you suing people in the legal court of law with no cause of action? Why are you taking these abusive actions and what will stop you until we start asking that and stop asking? Why did you post that? Why do you send that message? Why are you such a bitch? Until we stop asking those questions? None of this is going to get better.

 

Leslie Briggs  1:00:51

Hell yeah. Did McCarty for President 2028. Put her on the ticket, though. But I like everything you just said is fucking fire. I mean, that's the reality of it is that there is no moral equivalence to being nasty on Facebook. And getting in just brutally beating women for 30 years. But because,

 

Colleen McCarty  1:01:12

like I said to see earlier, one grain of sand of bad behavior, or bad traits of a man is equivalent to a boulder for a woman. Yeah. Everything we do is times 10. To their bad thing. That's right. It's an every single fabric of everything we do,

 

Leslie Briggs  1:01:32

right? That is the traditional gender role bullshit that overlays all of the patriarchal structure from this and I'm sorry to fucking go there. But that is that is the expectation of women being meek, demure, people pleasers and kind.

 

Colleen McCarty  1:01:47

And we see it when it comes to die in the justice system because it's where all of our problems get swept to. But it we see it in failure protect prosecutions where women are getting held criminally accountable for the actions of men. We see it in the courtroom when female lawyers say something and a male lawyer says something and everybody turns to look at her and says Wow, she's such a bitch never even focuses on anything that the male said. We see it in the boardroom. When women are getting talked over when people are getting hepeated as we say, like

 

Leslie Briggs  1:02:20

Hepeated. It's okay. It's okay man. I was like He peed. He repeated.

 

Colleen McCarty  1:02:25

It means keeping it as when a woman says something in a board meeting or in a corporate situation. And then the next person that talks is a man and he says the exact same thing, right? And everybody looks at him and it's like, wow, man.

 

Leslie Briggs  1:02:39

Great idea. Snaps you pissed all over this? No joke. Ep a tea though. I got it. I get it. I think it's great. I love the phrase never heard it before.

 

Colleen McCarty  1:02:53

Anyways, but like it's it's ever present for us.

 

Leslie Briggs  1:02:57

Oh, yeah, dude. And if you coined that phrase for me last season of the box of acceptable behavior and there it is just like, suffocating. It's suffocating. Because one misstep, one mean Facebook post one poking of the bear, one resting bitchface one and your whole you all your claims are like Brenda, Andrew,

 

Colleen McCarty  1:03:16

one sexy outfit, one pair, Lacy underwear. Like one. One thing is

 

Leslie Briggs  1:03:21

being sexually liberated. I mean, I just I can't imagine a world where I can imagine a world where someone claims those photos of her where she's got the injuries that are related to the sexual torment were what she wanted, because she wanted some of that, like, you talked about this in Episode Six. It's like, if she wanted a little bit of it, she had to be okay with everything that came after. And there's no nuance to it.

 

Colleen McCarty  1:03:47

You don't get the right to ask for you don't get to put up the stop sign. Your Wholesale Buying this violence against yourself. Because you do not get the right to put up the stop sign.

 

Leslie Briggs  1:04:00

And that we have to shift that cultural mindset. And it starts right here. It starts right here with these stories.

 

Colleen McCarty  1:04:06

And it starts with stop asking what she wrote stop asking what she posted. Stop asking what why did she send him that email? Why did she just anytime you catch yourself like doing that, and I still do it now to

 

Leslie Briggs  1:04:19

this day? I still do it too. And I do have to catch myself.

 

Colleen McCarty  1:04:22

I did it today. I did it today. Right? And also stop doing it about survivors that you don't like.

 

Leslie Briggs  1:04:29

Stop doing it about survivors that you don't like Amber Heard. Yeah, the Recanter.

 

Colleen McCarty  1:04:34

Yeah, there are objectionable things about those people that made me not like them as a person. Sure. It does not devalue or discount their experience of violence. Right. And it's like because we think we because we hate women so much. When women give us an excuse to not like them. We fucking get on that boat and we ride it all the fucking way.

 

Leslie Briggs  1:04:59

Yeah, yeah.

 

Colleen McCarty  1:05:02

And it's just not sustainable.

 

Leslie Briggs  1:05:06

And it's not the same as beating people over the course of 30 years, it just isn't. If he

 

Colleen McCarty  1:05:13

if they have one boulder for posting something on Facebook, he has 1000 pebbles for every person that he's hurt in this situation, right. That's how the scales of justice weighed, when that's why we found this case, so compelling. And I know we're coming to the end of this. And I just want to say, a lot of people are mad at us for telling this story. A lot of people think we shouldn't have picked this one. A lot of people think there's unique things about this case that aren't exemplary of the rest of the system, blah, blah, blah. The reason we picked it, is because there is so much harm here so much, how can you possibly say that because someone posted on Facebook, it's equivalent to this, it is a mirror to our society's face to say this isn't working anymore. That's what this case is.

 

Leslie Briggs  1:06:40

And, you know, Jim, you guys have heard periodically, throughout this podcast that I've referenced that Jim initially agreed to give me an interview, and then just kind of stopped responding to me. And I found out later through someone, again, who reached out on a kind of in support of him that he thought he might be accidentally via, well, he thought I might be trying to entrap him into violating his no contact order. But I had not seen the provisions of that no contact order so, I can promise you, it wasn't trying to entrap you. It just wanted to get your side of the story. But so apparently, on the advice of a legal counsel, he's he elected not to participate. Because he did not want to violate that no contact order, indirectly by participating in the podcast, which I don't blame him for that. But you know, has Jim Luman changed? We can't answer that question. Without I will say

 

Colleen McCarty  1:08:38

that to date since being released

 

Leslie Briggs  1:08:41

six months ago, seven months ago, seven months ago from this recording.

 

Colleen McCarty  1:08:47

We have no indication that new offenses have been committed. And there's been no new charges filed. And he's not been back in any type of prison or anything like that. As of this recording.

 

Leslie Briggs  1:09:03

Yeah. So did the ACTV. program work?

 

Colleen McCarty  1:09:11

To date,

 

Leslie Briggs  1:09:12

the due date? Yeah. And do we hope that Jim has changed for the better? Yeah, I do. Do we help that like, that level of turnaround is possible after 30 years? Yeah. I hope so.

 

Colleen McCarty  1:09:28

I hope so. That's what we all hope because the whole point of all this is that less people get hurt.

 

Leslie Briggs  1:09:34

But I don't know Colleen so we come to the end of this season. And I feel like there's not a real great resolution here. It doesn't feel resolved for me.

 

Colleen McCarty  1:09:44

Why?

 

Leslie Briggs  1:09:46

Because I am grappling internally with my desire to punish violent offenders with my desire for a system that is less punitive and more restorative and I don't I don't know, if it has worked out that way. In this case, I want to know I want to, I want to feel like Jim is able to heal whatever internal trauma he's had that these women are able to heal. And that, at the end of all of this, our communities are safer because someone who has previously had a long track record of committing violence against women, has found a way to stop. I want that to be that happy ending that we all get. But I don't we don't know that. We have no way of knowing that.

 

Colleen McCarty  1:10:34

No, and I think what's frustrating too, is like when we were recording April's season, everybody knew what they wanted to happen, and still knows what they remember Wilkins, April Wilkins should not be in jail, they believe. And we believe that she was sentenced excessively for what happened probably shouldn't have even been prosecuted to begin with, and should be home now with her son and her granddaughter, and it's been too long, and she needs to be free. Right. And

 

Leslie Briggs  1:11:02

that was a nice, neat little bow.

 

Colleen McCarty  1:11:06

That was very satisfying from a listening perspective, because it's like, I know what I'm fighting for. When I'm listening to this, I know who the hero is, I know what I want to happen. From a hero's journey perspective, the most satisfying ending to that story would be her coming home. And so we can all agree that's what should happen. And we're all fighting for that with this, I think people are going to feel differently, a lot of people are going to feel differently than Yeah. Like, if you asked Xavier, what he thinks should have happened, he would say that they should have facilitated a restorative circle, with Jim, with his family, with the survivors. And it maybe would have taken multiple times and multiple months, but maybe they could have come to some type of restoration. Yeah. And I think that aurelius would say that these types of systems are always weaponized against marginalized communities. And they're always built to let people like Jim walk free. Yeah. And that in and of itself means we shouldn't have the system, because it's only used as a tool for oppression. Yeah. And I think Ashley would say, actually, to the district attorney, that it's not the system's fault, that it hasn't been used properly. And that if you have someone who knows what they're doing and can do evidence based prosecution, and who cares, and who wants to prevent violence against women, the system can work. Yeah. And I think the cops would probably agree with that. Yeah. But I do think most people listening to this are going to leave this podcast feeling like, Justice hasn't been served here.

 

Leslie Briggs  1:12:58

I mean, Colleen, where do you stand on all this? Where are you girl? Where am I at 1000s of hours of research hundreds of documents.

 

Colleen McCarty  1:13:10

So many people say that it makes me depressed because I'm actually in the exact same place I was at when we started this, which was where? Okay, it's a little bit of a diatribe. So you're gonna have to hold on to your hat and

 

Leslie Briggs  1:13:22

buckle up.

 

Colleen McCarty  1:13:24

I have worked in criminal justice reform since 2018. And I have been in prisons in Oklahoma, where I've sat face to face with people who are serving 10, 20, 30 years were crimes that are based in conduct that I myself or friends of mine have committed and never even had the cops called, like, someone who hotbox the vehicle when they were 19 years old. And they had drugs and alcohol on them. And they were under 21. And they were, you know, prosecuted for possession with intent to distribute, and sentenced to 20 years before they got their sentence reduced.

 

Leslie Briggs  1:14:07

I think about all the parties I went to in high school is a privileged white girl,

 

Colleen McCarty  1:14:11

and to sit face to face across from that person and see how arbitrarily the system works, and how much it hurts. How much mass incarceration hurts our communities. And how just facially unfair, so much of it is. I've always come at this from the side of like, we need less people in prison. Sure, because our economy is being damaged. The fabric of our communities is breaking apart because so many families have been broken up by mass incarceration, and that is crimes that are victimless crimes that are tearing apart rural communities like fentanyl possession and marijuana possession.

 

Leslie Briggs  1:14:59

My God, the man who who bought like, small amount of fentanyl, he and his friend took it friend died. Now facing a murder charge of first degree murder in the state of Oklahoma. Yes. I mean, it's just like that, like, the way that your felony murder rate

 

Colleen McCarty  1:15:18

criminal code or criminal code has been weaponized against our communities in ways that are so out of whack with what it's intended to do, which is to keep people safe. And then to look at it from the other side of so you've got those people behind the walls that are not supposed to be there that I don't feel like justice has been served. Right. And they're serving too long. It's not proportional to the conduct, right. And then you could look at it from the other side. And you see these people are justice also has not been served. Because they didn't get what I feel like I'm saying is they didn't get enough time. Right. But I'm not

 

Leslie Briggs  1:16:05

on some level. I mean, we're raising that question of like, is more time the answer, is it

 

Colleen McCarty  1:16:10

like, I'm not calling on the legislature to go and put in a bunch of punitive laws that are going to put more people behind bars in Oklahoma, because that hasn't worked for us. It hasn't worked to abate the public safety nightmare that we're living in

 

Leslie Briggs  1:16:27

now. How do we keep families safe and together though, like, we have this rampant problem, and I like I hear you 100%. And I think it's just like the most eloquent thing ever I agree with

 

Colleen McCarty  1:16:40

1. I don't think it's eloquent. No, it I think it's just me struggling like living on the middle of the scale, like, yeah,

 

Leslie Briggs  1:16:46

what do we do? What do we do, because I don't like I cannot fully get to the place where I say that I'm a prison abolitionist, because I where I have consumed too much true crime to know that people like Israel, Keyes and Ted Bundy. And these people who are serial abusers, serial rapists, and serial killers, the programming hasn't worked, or we haven't figured out the right program. And they are a danger and a threat to everyone else's safety.

 

Colleen McCarty  1:17:18

But the reason that they're allowed to continue what they're doing, and the same with Jim, is because they exist in a patriarchal enabling system that's been groomed to allow abuses from people that look like them.

 

Leslie Briggs  1:17:32

Yeah, wholly, wholly and completely.

 

Colleen McCarty  1:17:37

And like, until we reckon with those problems, the system will continue to be administered on equally.

 

Leslie Briggs  1:17:48

Fuck. It's like a Gordian knot inside my brain. Seriously, I can't unravel it.

 

Colleen McCarty  1:17:54

I mean, what I want. And I'm sure all of the district attorneys that listen to this podcast and like want to hate on us are gonna love

 

Leslie Briggs  1:18:01

hate you, we will invite you into our discussion. They're gonna

 

Colleen McCarty  1:18:05

love this. But what I want is I want people to be safe in their physical bodies. I want the people who are the most impacted by community violence, who are women and children, all women and children, but mostly probably women and children of color. I want them to be safe and protected. I don't want them to get arrested and go to prison now, because the system fucking failed them every step of the way.

 

Leslie Briggs  1:18:35

Right. And we know when there's an up when we introduce new crimes, or we increase sentencing. It is like you're saying it's administered in an unequal way against black and brown communities. It just is the data. Sorry, guys. The data doesn't lie. It's not a it's not it doesn't have to be a CRT diversity thing. I know, there's lots of big feelings about that in this state right now. But the data itself, over and over again, will show you that black and brown communities are over represented in our prison systems. And anytime you try to increase incarceration, you automatically increase the harms in those communities.

 

Colleen McCarty  1:19:16

Yes. And that's ultimately the conclusion that Leigh Goodmark comes to is, if you don't want to be a carceral, feminist, when we yearn for punitive measures and longer sentences and more time in prison, more punishment, what we're doing in practical reality is hurting people of color, because those measures will always be deployed stronger and harsher against them. Yeah. Jim is a very good example of that.

 

Leslie Briggs  1:19:51

Yeah. So I think probably the we don't have we don't have a resolution if you can't tell we get we could sit here until midnight discussing This, but I think the way that we have to end this season is with the end of each of the interviews with these women, we asked them if there was something that they would want the greater public to know about domestic violence and about their experiences. And I think we'll just let them talk to you. And we'll see you next season.

 

Heather  1:20:16

I learned very early on to lean on like people. And I, unfortunately, was fortunate enough to have other women who went through the exact same abusers, like progression. So he could help me on a personal level, I understand him, and why things were happening to me. But without them, having gone through what they went through, and helping drive me where I needed to go, I don't know that I would have had the strength to keep going. Because you don't know where to turn. And when. When you're a layman, and you're asking law enforcement for help. The general public thinks the cops are everything, you catch the bad guy, you file the charges, you make everything happen. And law enforcement is just the initial go to from law enforcement, it takes them getting involved, whom have been tainted by people who are lying, or who want files, charges, and then they want to fall in love again and drop the charges. So then their work is all for nothing. But then the law enforcement, if you get them to believe you, then it goes to the DA and the DA has to believe you. I'm still fighting and I'm so frustrated. I still feel defeated. You just have to keep having a voice. And you can't, I don't know, you just can't give up. But I understand how it's easier to just give up, which is what I initially wanted. When I walked away, I just wanted to be done. I don't want revenge, I don't want revenge karma will get him he will eventually answer to our maker. I don't want revenge. I don't want somebody else to go through this. I don't want somebody else's Prince Charming, absolutely perfectly amazing husband, to have to watch his wife hurt, and feel like there's nothing he can do to help her because of what he's done. That's exactly what happens at my house. When the demons come back. And I have to relive this. My husband watches me helpless. And he's done nothing. Nothing. I just I don't want other people's children to go through this other people's families.

 

Christen  1:22:38

how I felt about it, how I still feel is that it's just tragic that women are not perceived in a different way. And within the court system. It's it's sad to see how many police officers and how many judges and how many attorneys and how many domestic violence advocates don't have a clue about what goes on with a person who's been through that. And to see that abusers are allowed to continue to abuse. And to see that. You know, you can you can tell you know from from a history of someone's record that they are repeat offenders of this, but at no point can you? Can you bring any of that up? Whenever someone new is getting hurt, it just is mind boggling to me.

 

Karrah  1:23:39

I would say don't first of all, if something happens to you. Don't wait a second to report it. Because if you do your hosed do they you they will the system will treat you the system treated me like I was crazy. And I've been treated like I was a rambling woman on my period for since 2014. Like I have been. I have I've been treated like I was bothering someone's sandwich. I learned that you can't just go fill out a police report and that they're going to do something about it. That's naive thinking to think I'm just trying to not say I told you so anymore. I originally made the flyer because I didn't want him to hurt another woman. And i i The state wasn't stopping him from hurting other women. So I was going to try to stop him hurt from hurting other women. But that didn't work at all. Like he continued to hurt other women and the state continued to treat me like I was crazy for a long time. But for so long. I was so shamed for my form of vigilante justice like I can't believe you did that. Well, I didn't have a choice. The only thing that I do take some sort of solace in, is knowing that I am fucking happy. I, I love my life. I love the friends in my life and the people that I have seen. I've got such a great support system that I have been able to notice. And I know that he doesn't. And to me, that is a big win here, because I've got all the things that he'll never have. And, and I love that about me.

 

Marci  1:25:36

oh, it's horrible being in a relationship with somebody like that. It is a complete mindfuck, the entire relationship. Getting away, it's freeing. It's given time, but it's dealing with find out how strong you really are getting away. And when when you know, in my case, just when I think I can't take any more. My God I push through keep going. And so yeah, you learn how strong you really are.

 

Colleen McCarty  1:26:18

You can find links to pictures, documents, and all our sources in the show notes of this episode. These cases serve as a reminder of the devastating consequences of domestic violence and the importance of seeking help if you or someone you know, is a victim. If you are in immediate danger, please call 911 or your local emergency number. For confidential support and resources you can reach out to the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233. Thank you for listening to panic button Operation Wildfire, and for joining us and shedding light on the importance of ending domestic violence for good. I'm Colleen McCarty, and I'm Leslie Briggs. Panic Button is a production of Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice. We're recorded at Bison and Bean studios in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Our theme music is by GYOM additional editing is provided by The Wave Podcasting. Our music supervisor is Rusty Rowe. Special thanks to our interns Kat and Alison to learn more about Oklahoma Appleseed or donate to keep our mission of fighting for the rights and opportunities of every Oklahoman a reality, go to okappleseed.org