Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, November 9, 1993 TAG: 9311090259
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune and The Washington Post
DATELINE: MANASSAS LENGTH: Long
But then Smith is not exactly impartial.
She shot and killed her husband two years ago because, she claims, he raped her and physically abused her for 3 1/2 years. She was acquitted of the slaying last year.
Smith was one of hundreds of spectators who showed up Monday at the Prince William County courthouse in suburban Washington to watch John Wayne Bobbitt go on trial on a charge of marital sexual assault. Because his wife, Lorena, retaliated by cutting off his penis, the trial attracted more than the ordinary share of trial watchers - and everyone seemed to have very strong opinions about the matter.
Lorena Bobbitt's only mistake was telling police officers where she threw the penis as she fled from her apartment in the wee hours of June 23, Smith said.
"I wouldn't have told where I threw it," said Smith, 36, of New Carrollton, Md., another Washington suburb. "I'm sorry she did. . . . I'm not saying he deserves to have it cut off by her, but he just doesn't deserve to have it back. He don't know how to use it."
Joe Fletcher, 35, a printer in Manassas, thinks Lorena Bobbitt's action was a little extreme. He showed up at the courthouse because his girlfriend is a witness for John Bobbitt.
"I can't imagine having something like that done to me," he said, visibly shuddering. "There is no imagination that wild. . . . Rape does not justify that."
Despite the crowd that gathered on this chilly morning, few were let into the tiny courtroom where jury selection of nine women and three men was completed by noon. The trial is expected to last only a few days.
Those allowed inside saw Lorena Bobbitt sob as she described a rape that allegedly occurred the Friday before the June 23 wounding. "I said I didn't want to have sex," she said. "He pushed me and held my hands. I said `no' twice." But her husband forced her to have intercourse with him, she said.
After he finished, "he said forced sex excites him," Lorena Bobbitt said.
Sitting less than 10 feet away, John Bobbitt, 26, occasionally shook his head "no" during his wife's testimony and tried to whisper to Greg Murphy, his defense attorney, who waved him off.
When pressed on inconsistencies in her testimony by Murphy, Lorena Bobbitt, who is from Ecuador, lapsed into long silences. Once she said, "I don't understand," in her thick accent. At other times, she simply cried.
She denied Murphy's assertions that she had refused several opportunities to leave her Manassas home and stay with other people, even though she had told them she feared that her husband might rape her and beat her again.
She said she didn't scream, because she was embarrassed to let a house guest know that she was being attacked.
Lorena Bobbitt described her trip to the kitchen after the alleged rape, and the knife she picked up from the counter top. She returned to the bedroom.
"I pulled the sheets up and cut him," she said.
John Bobbitt's severed penis was flung from the car by his wife as she fled the couple's home. It was recovered later by Prince William County rescue officials. During 9 1/2 hours of surgery, doctors reattached the organ.
One of those inside the courtroom was Peggy Shaffer, a 54-year-old private investigator from Gainesville.
"No matter who it [rape] happens to, it's wrong, and men have got to learn that `no' means `no,' " said Shaffer, who said her sister was a victim of spousal abuse. "I think for too long men have taken `no' to mean `yes' or `maybe.' "
Kenneth Tarbett, 30, who works for a swimming pool company in Woodbridge, disagreed.
"In this country, we're not supposed to take the law into our own hands," said Tarbett, who was denied a chance to witness the entire trial. He was rejected as a juror.
But not all women and all rape victims support 24-year-old Lorena Bobbitt.
Take Samantha Stevens, a 25-year-old dancer from Woodbridge, who came to watch the trial out of curiosity. She and her friend Beverly Price were able to get into the courtroom.
Stevens was raped twice, she said coolly. One rape she reported. The other she didn't. Both times the men went free.
"I can understand her getting angry with him," Stevens said. But she thought Lorena Bobbitt's retaliation was "too extreme."
Price, a 30-year-old student who says she was abused by her boyfriend for a year, agreed.
"I wouldn't cut my husband's penis off, for fear he would live and kill me," she said. "And there's other ways to get justice done to him."
Meanwhile, outside the courthouse, Arlene Barton, a Manassas homemaker, stood alone.
She did not come to watch the trial or to offer her sympathy to either party. She came to make a quick buck.
And how was she doing that?
Selling T-shirts with the logo "Manassas, Va. A CUT above the rest." The words were written in red, with the word "cut" underlined with a knife dripping what was supposed to look like blood.
"It's the old American dream of entrepreneurship," said Barton, who sold about 100 shirts at $10 apiece.
If convicted, John Bobbitt, a bar bouncer and former Marine, faces up to 20 years in jail. Lorena Bobbitt's trial on a charge of malicious assault begins Nov. 29. She faces an identical penalty if convicted.
by CNB