JOE McGINNISS

Hello again to any and all of you who were reading this blog last year.

Suffice it that Sarah Palin is now a part of my past, America’s past, and, I hope, yours.

Andrew Sullivan, among others, says he thinks THE ROGUE played a large part in keeping Sarah out of the current race for the Republican nomination.

Whether or not that’s true, she is out. In fact, she is done.

And I’m done with her.

I’ve moved on to 15 Gothic Street, Northampton, Mass., home of Hampshire County Superior Court, about which I’ll be writing my next book.

I’ve been there every day since January 3 and plan to be there almost every day when court is in session.

The sessions, while often enthralling, are but the tip of the iceberg.

The people who come to superior court–judges, attorneys, clerks, bailiffs, defendants and their families and friends, and victims and their families and friends–all have lives beyond 15 Gothic Street, but lives that have brought them together there.

In 15 GOTHIC STREET I’ll be telling the behind-the-scenes stories that illuminate and amplify the courtroom events.

In this blog, I’ll write about what I observe inside the courtroom–the iceberg’s visible tip.

For example:

Today brought the first day of jury selection in the trial of David Fried Oppenheim, 37, who has been indicted on five counts of child rape for having had various forms of sex, between October, 2005 and June, 2007, with a girl under the age of sixteen.

Fried Oppenheim was, during that time, the director of the Pioneer Arts Center of Easthampton and the girl was a student and/or intern there.

She says he did stuff to her.

He says he didn’t.

Given the nature of the charges, this is an ugly case, although no pretty ones make it into Superior Court.

Fried Oppenheim’s lawyer is Hampshire County’s go-to guy for criminal defense: David Hoose.

Hoose said last week that there’s only one defense in a case like this: the alleged victim is lying.

It will be his job to persuade the jury that they should not believe her when she testifies as to what she says Oppenheim did to her, when he was in his thirties and she was just turning fourteen.

Destroying the credibility of a girl who says a much older man persuaded her to have sex with him when she was still a child is, on the face of it, a dirty job.

But suppose Fried Oppenheim didn’t do it? Suppose she’s making it up? Suppose she became spiteful because he resisted her flirtations?

Just suppose.

Could the case get this far? Could totally unfounded allegations of such a vicious nature actually drag an innocent man this far into hell? If so, how could that happen?

I don’t know, but I do know, as the judge will instruct the jury, that Fried Oppenheim doesn’t have to prove his innocence.
The prosecution must prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Jury selection should be completed by Wednesday.

The trial will probably run through the end of next week.

Much of the testimony will be XXX, not PG-13.

David Fried Oppenheim, the founder of a performing arts center, finds himself on the biggest stage of his life, with the remainder of his own life in the balance.