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The Michigan Man

Filed under: Domestic Violence,General — Downunder @ 8:55 am Thu 9th February 2006

Will the real New Zealand journalists please step up to the plate and write the New Zealand stories.

Michigan man lingers in prison on questionable rape conviction.

By Phyllis Schlafly

Feb 6, 2006

William J. Hetherington has been incarcerated in Michigan prisons for more than 20 years for having sex with his wife Linda. In 1986, he became the first man in Genesee County convicted of the new Michigan crime called spousal rape.

Linda was not a battered wife; she testified at the trial that he had never beaten her in their 16 years of marriage. Hetherington was honorably discharged from the U.S. Air Force, received a National Defense Service Medal, and had no police record of any sort.

The sentencing guideline for this new offense was 12 months to 10 years. But, without showing cause, the judge sentenced him to 15 to 30 years (twice the time served by the average convicted rapist in Michigan). Twenty years later, despite an exemplary prison record, the parole board routinely refuses to parole him, giving as its sole reason “prisoner denies the offense.”

Hetherington has always maintained his innocence. It was a he-said-she-said case during a custody battle; he said it was consensual sex, she said it was rape. The judge used Michigan’s new Rape Shield Law to prohibit cross-examination of Linda.

No physical evidence of rape was produced at the trial. A pelvic examination of Linda at the hospital three hours after the alleged offense showed no evidence of injury or forced penetration. Apparently, what persuaded the jury to convict was the testimony of two police officers that they had observed tape marks on Linda’s face.

The court-designated psychologist who examined Hetherington, Harold S. Sommerschield, concluded: “This is not a man who would force himself sexually or hostilely on another individual, as this would be foreign to his personality dynamics. … his histrionic personality … would substantiate his explanation of what has occurred in regards to the relationship with his ex-wife.”

The rape charge was prosecuted simultaneously with the custody case, and the divorce court had frozen all Hetherington’s assets so he had no money to hire a lawyer or make bond. Nevertheless, the criminal court ruled that he was not indigent and refused to provide him with a lawyer.

For 12 years, the court refused to provide Hetherington with a transcript of the trial. Without funds, he was unable to buy one, so he was effectively denied his right of appeal, and no appeal has ever been heard on the substance of this case.

At the sentencing, prosecutor Robert Weiss called Hetherington’s alleged offense equivalent to “first-degree murder” and falsely accused him of beating Linda. Weiss was running for a judgeship. Observers sized up his prejudicial statements as grandstanding for support from feminists.

Linda walked away with custody of their three daughters, the marital home, and all marital assets.

Ten years after Hetherington’s conviction, a volunteer attorney, Jeff Feldman, using the Freedom of Information Act, obtained copies of five photographs taken of Linda by police at the alleged crime scene immediately after the alleged offense. The photographs were in a locker in a police garage. The prosecution had never disclosed them to the defense.

The photographs were then examined by a forensic photographer John Avlor in Miami using all modern techniques. Valor’s four-page notarized report detailed his impressive expertise, including service as the lead forensic photographer in the trial of serial killer Ted Bundy.

Valor’s sworn statement, dated Jan. 8, 1998, states that the pictures of Linda showed absolutely no scratches, tape marks or abnormalities of any kind, and that marks would have been clearly visible if there had been any. If a government witness gives false testimony a convicted prisoner should be entitled to a new trial. But Hetherington didn’t get one.

Years later, a completely unsolicited letter was sent to the parole board by Melissa Anne Suchy, who had been employed by Linda as a baby sitter. Suchy’s letter is hearsay but has the ring of authenticity.

Suchy wrote that Linda told her she made up the story about rape because she was then pregnant with the baby of her boyfriend. Linda said that her boyfriend pushed her to press rape charges, saying that she would have to “get rid of Hetherington or he wouldn’t take care of the baby.”

Over the years, several pro bono lawyers and concerned citizens have tried to secure a pardon or a parole for Hetherington, but Michigan appears determined to make him serve 30 years because he won’t admit guilt and because the bureaucracy won’t admit it made a mistake.

Almost everyone who reads the record of what happened to William Hetherington concludes that he was unjustly accused, unjustly convicted, unjustly sentenced, unjustly denied his due process and appeal rights, unjustly denied a new trial based on physical evidence of inaccurate testimony by government witnesses, and unjustly denied parole.

A man’s life has been sacrificed, and three children have been denied their father by malicious feminists who have lobbied for laws that punish spousal rape just like stranger rape and deny a man the right to cross-examine his accuser. They have created a judicial system where the woman must always be believed even though she has no evidence, one in which the man is always guilty.

4 Comments »

  1. Thanks Bevan,
    Phyllis is an incredible woman.
    A very compassionate and benificent leader IMO.
    Two thoughts I have when reading her op-ed and your attached comment.
    First off it seems to me that with a few rare exceptions journos in NZ aren’t interested in men’s plight. To them men just aren’t worth that much consideration. They have subconciously bought into the 30 or so years of demonising misandry that we’ve witnessed. My mind keeps going back to Arthur Miller’s great play – ‘The Crucible’ which chronicled the Salem witch hunts where everyone lived in fear of being accused of withcraft and thereafter being killed. Come to think of it you could twist this play to make an amazing modern day version portraying modern day man in Western culture as the ubiquitous suspect in an ongoing hysterical witch hunt.
    Second, revaluing men means a major paradigm shift for the vast majority as TV programmes, magazines, comic books, video games, novels, movies, sports contests, videos and DVDs are awash with the blood of MEN being butchered, tortured, pummelled, crippled and disfigured for entertainment. Just sit down on any given night and watch a major TV channel for examples.

    It seems we have a huge thirst for this.

    One might then ask Why? and conclude that we need this to emotionally distance ourselves from men – so that we can do the psychological objectifying trick of treating them as expendable work horses and cannon fodder useful for our sustainance and protection – success objects.

    Comment by Stephen — Thu 9th February 2006 @ 2:55 pm

  2. I agree with you Stephen. I sent my story to Ian Wishart of the Investigate Magazine. I got no response so I spoke to a lady called Debbie who said sorry please send it again. I still haven’t had a response some 6 mths later. My story illustrates just the sort of injustice that this magazine purports to expose so it surprises me.

    One of the biggest problems with getting men to help men I think is Homophobia. It appears to me that it’s a lot more comfortable for men to be empathetic towards a female, after all its instinctive for us. It is still hard for most men to differentiate between sexual love and brotherly love. Women on the other hand have no difficulty with it and support another woman by touch and even crying with her in her agony. I have heard that during the 1st world war in the trenches men became very close and tremendous friendships were made. I think there is a subliminal belief that Homosexuality is contagious and any resemblance to it should be shunned. I believe that the strongest trait of masculinity is when a male is able to identify with another man’s pain and respond to it in an appropriate way.

    Comment by triassic — Thu 9th February 2006 @ 10:53 pm

  3. What a chilling story. I wonder why the police acted in such a corrupt way. What did they have to gain from it? It sounds like someone powerful has a grudge against Hetherington.

    Comment by Livus — Fri 10th February 2006 @ 6:11 pm

  4. Livus – don’t be so naïve.

    One of the easy ways to create social change is to create a precedent in a court case so other judges will follow suit. He is just the poor bastard that got stitched up for the sake of feminazi jurisprudence. It is changing the law by judicial activism instead of changing the law by act of parliament. Perhaps you might go and study a few family court decisions and find out what happened behind closed doors.

    Comment by Bevan Berg — Fri 10th February 2006 @ 9:13 pm

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