Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 3, 1995 TAG: 9503030099
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
An 18-year-old woman who says she was raped in a Roanoke house did not scream for help or tell her assailant ``no.''
Even if she could have, he would not have heard her.
Neither can speak or hear, lawyers say.
After the woman recounted the events of Feb. 5 in court Thursday - communicating with sign language through an interpreter - a judge ruled there was probable cause to support a rape charge against Roger Allen Barr.
The unusual case is expected to raise difficulties for the prosecution and defense alike when it goes to trial later this year, with both the accuser and the accused unable to articulate their versions of what happened.
The woman, who met Barr several years ago at the Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind, testified that he locked her in a bedroom and raped her when she visited his Eastern Avenue home with a friend.
Barr, 20, has told authorities they had consensual sex. At Thursday's hearing in Roanoke General District Court, he watched an interpreter translate the testimony into hand signals, and wrote notes to his lawyer on a legal pad.
Assistant Public Defender Marian Kelley said it is the only way she can communicate with her client.
But just one day earlier, Barr was in a Franklin County courtroom to plead guilty to charges that, while unrelated to the rape, raise questions about the extent of his hearing and speaking disability.
Barr was sentenced to three years in jail for impersonating a police officer by using a flashing blue light on his car to stop motorists. Franklin County authorities say Barr - who committed the offenses while on bond on the rape charge - was able to tell motorists they were speeding and ask for their driver's licenses.
Mary Harkins, a Rocky Mount attorney who represented Barr, said his voice was so slurred and distorted because of his deafness that motorists immediately became suspicious and drove away.
The woman's handicap also may play a role in the rape prosecution. She seemed confused Thursday by some of the questions put to her, and prosecutors fear that details of her responses may have been lost in translation.
``There is some lack of communication,'' Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Joel Branscom said. ``Any time you're translating back and forth, there are going to be problems.''
To complicate matters even further, all five adults who were in the house at the time of the incident also are deaf. ``Statements made by all the witnesses, who to some degree are deaf, may have been misinterpreted,'' Kelley said.
The 18-year-old testified that she used sign language to resist Barr's advances. ``I told him I didn't want to have sex with him, that he had a wife,'' she told the interpreter.
But under cross examination, she said she never tried to leave the room; that Barr never threatened her, struck her, or held her down; and that she resisted ``a little bit'' when he started to remove her clothes.
Kelley asked why the 18-year-old did not offer more resistance.
``I don't know,'' she said.
``Were you afraid of him?'' Kelley asked.
``Yes,'' the woman replied.
``Why?'' Kelley asked.
``Because of his wife,'' the woman said.
After the incident, she said, a friend saw her in the room and became angry at her for having sex with a married man. ``I felt bad about it,'' she said. It was only after talking with her mother later, she said, that she realized she had been raped.
After police were notified, Barr gave his account of what happened. Detective M.S. Rubeiz testified that Barr told her, through an interpreter, that he had just taken a shower when he found the 18-year-old in his bedroom. She initiated the sex, Barr said.
Kelley asked Judge Julian Raney to dismiss the charge, arguing that even if the woman initially said no, she eventually acquiesced to sex. But Raney ruled there was probable cause and certified the case to a grand jury in Circuit Court, where Barr will stand trial.
by CNB