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vanessa place 1: Statement of Facts Statement of Facts is a book about limits and boundaries: physical, psychological, legal, literary, and conceptual. It is about speech and its transcription, and the strange distortions of language that have evolved to serve the legal system. It is about actions that leave a mark on the body and the soul. Most readers will find themselves disoriented and longing to escape from the scarred flesh of this text, but it is a journey worth taking because it reveals just how frail the fabric of justice is. —Ken Gonzales-Day By repurposing legal prosecution and defense documents of violent sexual crimes verbatim, Statement of Facts takes on issues too messy to benefit from further elucidation which only grow more disturbing presented in their purest case material form. For some, what Statement of Facts brings into the public square is salacious, but Place is in effect saying: ‘I move the ball out of this arena and take it into this arena’ in order to pump up the socio political volume on this legal/moral battlefield. Her definition of injustice is sweeping.Statement of Facts does not care what the reader thinks about content and in essence, Place’s relationship to content is like Oprah Winfrey’s to money. It is straightforward, and you are free to project onto it whatever you need to. However you respond to this fierce book, it is indisputable that Statement of Facts has carved out a place for itself as a touchstone of poetic push back. As Pasadena Superior Court Judge Gilbert Alston famously quipped in his dismissal of a 1986 rape case because the victim was a prostitute: ‘A whore is a whore is a whore’—Statement of Facts counters by unflinchingly reminding us ‘a rape is a rape is a rape.’ —Kim Rosenfield Statement of Facts is poet/lawyer Vanessa Place’s masterful demonstration of day-for- night writing. Alternately nauseating, cold, gripping, philosophical, and relentless, this volume is an analytical portrait of a writer writing in double-time, simultaneously producing legal language caught in the trap of trying (and failing) to secure the self-evident meanings of the factual; and poetic language procedurally measuring the way facts are fundamentally also instruments of violence, building toward the legitimation of a legal edifice from which no one can escape. These descriptions of heinous sex crimes, detached from their original function as depositions, are a treatise on contingency; a discourse on the moral lenses of narrative; and an institutional critique of the aesthetics and ethics of juridical administration. —Simon Leung Vanessa Place is a lawyer and, like Bartelby, much of her work involves scribing appellate briefs, that task of copying and editing, rendering complex lives and dirty deeds into “neutral” language to be presented before a court. That is her day job. Her poetry is an appropriation of the documents she writes during her day job, flipping her briefs after hours into literature. And like most literature, they’re chock full of high drama, pathos, horror and humanity. But unlike most literature, she hasn’t written a word of it. Or has she? Here’s where it gets interesting. She both has written them and, at the same time, she’s wholly appropriated them—rescuing them from the dreary world of court filings and bureaucracy—and, by mere reframing, turns them into what is arguably the most challenging, complex and controversial literature being written today. —Kenneth Goldsmith vanessa place Tragodía 1: Statement of Facts Blanc Press Los Angeles, California TRAGODÍA 1: STATEMENT OF FACTS Blanc Press June, 2010 Los Angeles, California © 2010 Vanessa Place ISBN 13: 978-1-934254-18-9 Some portions of Statements of Facts appear in modified versions inExposé des faits (France: éditions è®e); An Anthology of Conceptual Writing (Craig Dworkin and Kenneth Goldsmith, eds., Northwestern University Press); Tina n˚5 (France: éditions è®e); mark(s); as the chapbook Statement of Facts (Norway: Audiatur); and as part of UBU Web’s Publishing the Unpublishable series (#42). Vanessa Place would like to thank Kenneth Goldsmith, Marjorie Perloff, Robert Fitterman, Kim Rosenfield, Teresa Carmody and Mathew Timmons. All quotations and accounts in this book were taken directly from the trial tran- scripts of cases that Vanessa Place handled on appeal. All these transcripts, and the appellate briefs filed in each case, are matters of public record. However, the names of the people herein, as well as other direct modes of identification, have been changed to protect their privacy. Blanc Press Los Angeles Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one. When the rim is bent it will press against the works and impede the proper action of the currents. blancpress.com TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. STATEMENT OF FACTS ……………………… 9 2. STATEMENT OF FACTS ……………………… 13 3. STATEMENT OF FACTS ……………………… 23 4. STATEMENT OF FACTS ……………………… 47 5. STATEMENT OF FACTS ……………………… 53 6. STATEMENT OF FACTS ……………………… 73 7. STATEMENT OF FACTS ……………………… 79 8. STATEMENT OF FACTS ……………………… 101 9. STATEMENT OF FACTS ……………………… 107 10. STATEMENT OF FACTS ……………………… 121 11. STATEMENT OF FACTS ……………………… 131 12. STATEMENT OF FACTS ……………………… 143 13. STATEMENT OF FACTS ……………………… 149 14. STATEMENT OF FACTS ……………………… 167 15. STATEMENT OF FACTS ……………………… 193 16. STATEMENT OF FACTS ……………………… 197 17. STATEMENT OF FACTS ……………………… 219 18. STATEMENT OF FACTS ……………………… 231 19. STATEMENT OF FACTS ……………………… 241 20. STATEMENT OF FACTS ……………………… 247 21. STATEMENT OF FACTS ……………………… 267 22. STATEMENT OF FACTS ……………………… 273 23. STATEMENT OF FACTS ……………………… 281 24. STATEMENT OF FACTS ……………………… 299 25. STATEMENT OF FACTS ……………………… 307 26. STATEMENT OF FACTS ……………………… 311 27. STATEMENT OF FACTS ……………………… 319 28. STATEMENT OF FACTS ……………………… 325 29. STATEMENT OF FACTS ……………………… 333 30. STATEMENT OF FACTS ……………………… 347 31. STATEMENT OF FACTS ……………………… 357 32. STATEMENT OF FACTS ……………………… 361 33. STATEMENT OF FACTS ……………………… 375 STATEMENT OF FACTS Prosecution Case On October 21, 2007, Ben was 13 years old, living with his family in Los Angeles. At 4:00 that Sunday morning, Ben was sitting alone on his front porch, reading his Bible. Appellant was walking down the street; he stopped at the gate and asked Ben about smoking. Ben understood this to mean marijuana, and the two walked to an alley three blocks away, talking and smoking. (RT 2:1831-1836, 2:1849-1850, 2:1871) In the alley, they continued smoking. Ben felt his pants coming down; he tried unsuccessfully to pull them up. Appellant was behind Ben. (RT 2:1836-1837, 2:1851) Ben felt appellant’s penis penetrate his bottom, and remain there for five minutes. Appellant never asked Ben if he wanted to have sex. Ben had sex with appellant “out of curiosity.” After Ben saw appellant ejaculate, Ben returned home. (RT 2:1838-1840, 2:1851-1852, 2:1869) Ben’s mother Madison was on the porch;1 she asked Ben where he had been, and he eventually told her. She became upset, he embarrassed. Ben wrote a statement about what happened, saying he had been forced, which wasn’t true.2 Ben wanted to have sex with appellant, but didn’t want his mother to know that. Madison called the police. (RT 2:1840-1842, 2:1852- 1853, 2:1866-1867, 2:1871, 2:1875) Ben told the police the same story he told Madison, adding that appellant had initially asked him for help, and that appellant offered Ben weed, but that Ben did not smoke. Ben said he screamed as appellant pulled down his pants, and appellant ran away when a lady came outside and asked what was going on, then returned after the lady left.3 The police took Ben to the hospital, where he was examined and a sexual assault kit collected. Ben told the examining nurse the same story he’d told the others. He was then interviewed by a detective at the police station, and identified appellant from a photo lineup. Ben initially lied during that interview, telling the truth only after the detective said he had some problems with Ben’s story. Ben did not care about the consequences of his lies to appellant. When 1 Madison testified she woke up to use the bathroom and discovered Ben wasn’t home. She called family members, then waited on the porch. She saw Ben walking up the street, a little out of breath. Madison questioned Ben; he told her that he would prefer to write down what had happened instead of telling her. (RT 2:1871-1874) 2 Ben said appellant pushed him against the wall, held his arms and raped him. (RT 2:1852) 3 The detective’s investigation produced no other witnesses. (RT 2:1888) 9 vanessa place Ben later discussed the case with the detective and the prosecutor, he told them a story similar to his first story, saying he had initially consented, then withdrawn his consent and been forced. Madison was not present during any of the police or hospital interviews. (RT 2:1842-1849, 2:1853-1865, 2:1867- 1869, 2:1881-1882, 2:1885-1888, 2:1890, 3:2131) Ben knew it was a sin to lie and to bear false witness. At the time of trial, Ben’s mother still thought he had been forcibly assaulted. (RT 2:1849, 2:1865-1866) The detective arrested appellant the day after Ben’s identification; appellant was subsequently examined at a different hospital, and biological samples collected. (RT 2:1883-1884, 2:1890) The registered nurse who examined Ben found no injuries. Anal and oral swabs were taken, as well as genital swabs, and these items were given to the police. Ben’s physical examination was consistent with the history provided. It was also consistent with not engaging in anal sex.

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