The Madness of Joe Francis: "I thought we were all just having fun. I was wrong." (52 page)

You were comparing their testimony to the facts?

“That’s correct.”

If they had come out and said something closer to what was shown on the video, would that have changed your opinion at all about this case?

“No, they had a choice in what they did. She said they were coerced, she only did it because I wanted them to go away. A big impact was when we got back into the jury room and we got all the evidence. We didn’t get shown the evidence of the FBI seeking out these people. That’s not something that was told us. So the first thing we did was we started going through the exhibits. (The FBI) started seeking these people out. These people didn’t come forward, they were sought out. Why were they sought out? I still believe there is somebody behind this. That we might not ever know who it is, but somebody in the community’s daughter that went out there and they are pissed off. That’s what I honestly think because of the opening statement that they made.

“When I brought that up I said, ‘Ladies, do you not remember the opening statement they made? I can tell you almost verbatim what they said.’ And they just looked at me and I said, ‘This right here tells you that they sought those people out. They were sought out and they were told that they were fixin’ to get a bunch of money. We’re a sue happy world. The more money they get the more money the attorneys get. So if they honestly were hurt and there is free help for you out there and you don’t take it, and you tell me that a guy caused you an incomprehensible amount of distress and you go and get him a towel you picked the money up off of the table, and you go and you follow him and you want to ride in his car, and you take him to your house and you come back and you call him to get into another party. Tell me where’s he’s done all this at?’ And it was like light switches that were startin’ to come on.

“When it got brought out that (Plaintiff V) had followed him, close to the end, the next day when we come back in, the one that had always been so upset, she said to me, ‘I want you to know I have peace about this.’ She said, ‘What you said is right, it is all in the choices that you make.’

“And she said, ‘I don’t have to like him but it doesn’t mean that I have to persecute him and that’s … the law’s the law and he broke the law and he paid criminally for what he did.’ Are we here because they all were angels? No, they were not angels by no means. And they kept bringing into the fact that B’s father dying and all that. B would’ve never had a problem if she had not got cut off financially and when it finally come out from the boyfriend that she got cut off financially, that’s where it all come about.”

Let me ask you about B’s father. When Selander did his opening he very carefully crafted that opening to not actually say that GGW caused her father to die. But they kept coming back to it. When you heard that in opening what did you think?

“I honestly thought that … when they brought the girls out before he did his opening statement … there was more to that chick. Her body language. She would flip that hair back and back again. It was died jet black. She was very nervous. I watched her hands. I watched her mess with her jacket all the time, and that flipping of the hair. It was like, ‘I don’t really want it all to come out but I’m gonna do what I think I need to do.’ That’s what I took from her.”

You felt like she was hiding something?

“Yes, I did. Her body language. The other young ladies that come out, every one of them had on skin tight clothes and skin tight pants. Every one of them. Why would you come dressed to court like that?

“When (plaintiffs J’s and S’s) mother come out, you can’t tell me you’ve lived in this town you’re whole entire life and you’d never been to the beach. I’m not buying that cup of tea. I’m sorry I’m just not buying that cup of tea. Now, one of our jurors shared with us that they went to Brother Hunt’s church. When she said that, I’m watching people the whole time and I can tell you this, someone from Brother Hunt’s church, a woman especially, she don’t have tattoos on her. And the mother had a tattoo on her. Yes, they are pretty strict. Those girls, if they were pressed so hard, why didn’t the driver do it? And I said that to the fellow jurors: ‘If they were put under such duress why didn’t the driver do it?’ Neither one flinched in the little bit of audio we got.

How do you feel about never seeing the other videos?

“There was something to hide. We got to see the packages, the empty packages. That’s what I feel was an injustice. If you want to admit, admit the whole thing. Don’t admit bits and pieces that’s gonna make me just think one way. And my thing was, a big part of it was, if it was as bad as the prosecution said, why don’t you put it out there? That’s the first thing I asked to my fellow jurors.”

When you began deliberations, you started by going through the exhibits. That’s when you found out why Joe Francis was no longer representing himself.

“That was the first time we saw the contempt of court. We couldn’t figure out how, okay, he’s here and then he’s gone. We didn’t know. So I’m looking through the exhibits and I say, ‘Okay, here is a contempt of court. Ladies, that’s why he isn’t with us any longer.’”

It was obvious that when they began deliberating the case they were split 6-2 or 5-3, with the majority in favor of finding that Girls Gone Wild had not damaged the girls. But two, definitely, were of the opposite opinion.

The first thing they all agreed on was the issue of a minimum award for damages if they found Francis or his companies had intentionally inflicted emotional damage.

Everyone thought it was appropriate that Francis pay something.

“But we don’t believe we should be told a minimum amount he should have to pay. I said, ‘I don’t have a problem with a dollar, but a dollar meant fifty-thousand dollars.”

She took a calculator out of her purse and put it on the table. She figured up fifty-thousand dollars times the four defendants, which meant that each plaintiff would receive two-hundred thousand dollars.

“Everybody was not okay with the fifty-thousand dollars, times the four, times the four. So when we got through the first page it was like, it was 5-3, with 5 for zero and no and three for yes, but they didn’t want to give them any dollars.”

One of your first questions was: if we award punitive damages who does the money go to? Everybody thought what you were trying to do is, you wanted to punish him but you don’t want to reward the girls
.

“That’s correct, because we said, if we can say that it went to counseling and only to counseling we would be willing to entertain giving some money. But when it was told to us that that we couldn’t tell them how they were gonna be able to spend their money, it all changed and it changed for everyone, all eight of us.”

That question came four hours into a 12-hour deliberation. What issue took you the rest of the way?

“The questions that we answered yes to and zero dollars.”

What you guys were doing was trying to fashion a verdict that was going to send a message but not reward these girls?

“When we went through it initially it was basically 5-3. There was one or two questions that all eight of us … there was one person that stood alone, that was a holdout. The school teacher, on every one of them she was a yes.”

So she believed that Joe Francis had damaged them and she wanted yes on everything?

“Yes.”

What were her feeling as far as damages?

“She thought they deserved something but she didn’t necessarily agree with the fifty-thousand dollars. That was too much.”

Even that was too much? So the 17 million was probably something that didn’t even cross your mind?”

“No. No. So I said, ‘This is what I think we need to do: We need to start with each question and we’ll see if we can come to a unanimous decision. If we can’t we’ll go on to the next one. And if we get to a point where we can’t talk it out amongst ourselves, we can’t come to a complete decision, then we’ll leave those to the side and we’ll come back to them, and that’s what we did.”

What was the question that hung you guys up the most?

“The first one on the second page that we finally voted yes to. I don’t even remember what it was. That was a stickler.”

There were people who didn’t want to vote yes?

“That’s right, there were people who did not want to vote yes.”

Why didn’t they want to vote yes on that?

“Because we didn’t think he … it was a no, no he didn’t have the impact on them.”

He didn’t harm them to the point where they were damaged?

“That’s right, he didn’t cause the emotional distress. It got down to, it was 6-2. Besides the school teacher, there was the other one, the young black girl, Juror 1. It was No. 1 and No. 5 and No. 5 said, ‘It sounds like to me that it’s a hung jury.’ I said, ‘No, it’s not a hung jury.’”

How late in the evening was it when she said that?

“Probably 10, 10 o’clock.”

They’d been allowed to step outside to stretch their legs and get some air late in the evening. The hung jury comment was made just before they went outside, so it was a topic of conversation.

“I said, ‘We’re not gonna have a hung jury.’ My Wassau friend (Juror 3) said, ‘No, we’re not going that way. They’re not gonna get another chance.’ We come back in and we started going through it again and at, was it at one o’clock when we finished?”

Yes
.

“It must have been about 12 o’clock, Wassau was telling the school teacher, ‘I’m not buying it. I’m not buying it. You tell me how he can do that to them? You’ve seen everything.’

“The school teacher was very emotional, ‘I just cannot let him off. I cannot let him off.’ It’s a debate back and forth and back and forth and, at this time, I just backed out of the conversation. I sat there and I listened to it. I was sitting at the end of the table, the school teacher was sitting here (to her right). The Wassau woman was sitting here (to her left). I looked at her and, ‘I said, okay, let me ask you this school teacher: if I agree with you on ‘yes’ will you go for zero dollars?’

“And she looked at me and my Wassau friend said, ‘I’m not buying that. and I said, okay, let me ask you this: do you not feel that you could vote for a ‘yes’ but not give them any money? Do you not think that that doesn’t send a message?’ At this point in time it was 6-2, six no’s and two yeses, and everybody said, ‘I’ll go with what you go with foreperson.’”

So you’re the one that finally decided it was going to be yes and zero?

“I put it out there. And I looked at the school teacher and said, ‘Can you go for that?’ And she said, ‘Yes, I can.’ I said, ‘I’m not going for 50 it will have to be zero.’ And she said, ‘I can go for that.’ And I looked at Wassau and I said, ‘Can you not go for that?’ And she said, ‘I’ll do that.’ I said, ‘That’s better than a hung jury and doing this again with taxpayers’ dollars.’”

There were jurors that were crying during the reading of the verdict.

“I was one of them.”

Why?

“Because I never knew I was gonna have to sit up front. That wasn’t told to me until we got right there to the door. They told me, ‘You have to sit up here at the very front.’ And I said, ‘They’ll know who the foreperson is.’ And they said, ‘Yeah.’”

“It was emotional for me in two reasons. I think that the attorneys played and painted a big picture to them girls and I think those girls thought that was gonna be a nice payday for them with the money they were gonna get and I was fixin’ to change their lives drastically because I wasn’t gonna give them what they thought they wanted.

“I believe right’s right and wrong’s wrong and I believe that people make mistakes, but if that man hadn’t a had any money would they have come after him?”

So you really didn’t have any hard feelings even against the girls?

“No. No. I think they were just trying to make a fast buck. Their names were not published, so unless you were there, and it was 90 percent of Burke and Blue’s office that were there, and Robert Fleming’s father sitting there watching him, who knows me very well, and he made a lot of eye contact with me. I looked at him. I think they were truly upset.

“I was emotional, but I focused on the (plaintiffs’ attorneys) as the things were being read and it was, (she drops her head incrementally as if she’s being deflated with each finding). When that ‘yes’ was read it was like, ‘Okay, here we go. We’re finally fixin’ to get into the money.’ But when that zero dollars was read, I think I could have just (she blows gently through pursed lips) and they would have just fell over. They were some upset kitty cats.

“Did I want to be on the case? No I didn’t. But in hindsight I was glad I was because I felt like I served justice. And I believe the judge believed we served justice because of the remark he made to us after it was all over with. We asked if we could speak to him. We wanted to thank him and he said to us, ‘I appreciate your deliberation. I believe you did a very good job and you have restored my faith in the judicial system.’ That’s what he said. He said that to all of us jurors in the deliberation room after it was all over with and we were getting ready to leave. He come in there and said he appreciated what we had done and we had restored his faith in the judicial system.”

What this case boiled down to was, the law could be read in a really, really specific way and those things were argued over and over again.

“Oh, those questions were very very tricky.”

But you guys brought in a lot of common sense.

“We read it and we said, ‘Okay, what do you think that means? Okay, where is the law on that? Did he prove that he broke the law?’ And it’s about the law. It’s not about whether you like him or you don’t like him because, I said that, I don’t like him. I think he’s a scumbag. But did he cause irreversible emotional distress? No he didn’t. No he didn’t, because it was brought out that those girls had a chance to change their lives and they chose not to.”