Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 22, 1994 TAG: 9401220234
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: MANASSAS LENGTH: Medium
When a court official read the verdict - not guilty by reason of insanity - a shriek of disbelief rose from the crowded courtroom. But Bobbitt herself showed no emotion.
Later, Lisa Kemler, one of Bobbitt's lawyers, said the Ecuadorean-born manicurist had either not heard or not understood the jury verdict when it was read.
"She said, `Is that good?' and we told her, `Yes, it was good,' " said a beaming Kemler.
The verdict did not mean that Bobbitt could go free, however. Denying her attorneys' request that she be released on bond, Judge Herman A. Whisenant Jr. ordered her to undergo 45 days of psychiatric examinations, as required by Virginia law in an insanity verdict. She was to be taken to Central State Hospital in Petersburg.
Outside the snowbound courtroom, about 50 supporters who had kept a vigil during the trial cheered when the verdict was announced.
"We were so afraid for her in the beginning. But this is a great demonstration of the legal system here in America. We are just overjoyed," said Eduardo Amaguana, an Ecuadoran-born immigrant who lives in Maryland.
A close friend, Janna Bisutti, read a statement from Bobbitt to abused women. "She encourages you to reach out, talk to someone today," Bisutti said.
The verdict, reached by the seven-woman, five-man jury after seven hours of deliberation, ended an eight-day trial that even Bobbitt's own attorney described as one of the most bizarre legal episodes in U.S. judicial history.
Although Bobbitt admitted she had used a 12-inch kitchen knife to cut off her husband's penis in the early morning of June 23, she and her attorneys contended that she did so in a moment of insanity resulting from years of abuse by her husband, John Wayne Bobbitt.
The abusive behavior reached a crescendo, the defense said, when a drunken John Bobbitt came home the night of June 22 and forced his wife to have sex with him.
Bobbitt, a 26-year-old bar bouncer whose penis has been surgically reattached, was not in the courtroom when the verdict was read and had no immediate comment.
Although he had been acquitted of marital assault in the same courtroom two months ago, new evidence introduced at his wife's trial led even the prosecution to concede that he had physically and emotionally abused her many times over the course of their four-year marriage.
Indeed, as the painfully embarrassing and sometimes shocking details of the Bobbitts' lives were laid bare before millions of cable television viewers, it often seemed that it was John Bobbitt who once again was on trial.
"It's hard for anyone who watched that trial to believe that Lorena Bobbitt was not a woman who was pushed over the edge by years of abuse," said Kim Gandy, executive vice president of the National Organization for Women.
"We are glad that the jury rejected the twisted argument that a battered woman should be locked in a prison cell while her long-time abuser gets rich on pay TV," Gandy added.
Had she been convicted of the charge of malicious wounding, Bobbitt faced a sentence of up to 20 years' imprisonment and deportation to Venezuela, where she was raised.
Blair Howard, the Virginia attorney who headed Bobbitt's defense team, said his client would now begin the difficult task of trying to put the episode behind her.
"She wants to heal now. . . . She wants to do whatever her doctors tell her to do so that she can heal and get on with her life," Howard said.
Commonwealth's Attorney Paul Ebert, the lead prosecutor in the case, said, "I hope this is not going to send a message that there is no deterrent. . . . When you violate the law you have to be punished."
by CNB