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11 For the Defense
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164 chapter eleven For the Defense “What I believe of what he tells me is irrelevant . From a pure legal standpoint, if he tells me he did something for some reason , I am legally obligated to take that story and try to prove it to the best of my ability.” —Frank Jackson Abdelkrim Belachheb’s Defense Attorney I You now know what happened at Ianni’s on June 29, 1984, and now the defense is going to tell you why it happened.” So began the defense of Abdelkrim Belachheb.1 Belachheb’s wife, Joanie, was Jackson’s first witness. She began by describing how she and Belachheb first met and how they came to fall in love and marry. She described her husband as a Moroccan of the Berber Tribe and a Shiite Muslim. As she responded to Jackson’s questions, she revealed the details of their unusual relationship —one where love and violence coexisted. She described her husband as “sick enough to kill.” She said that she had told many of her friends that he was a time bomb waiting to explode. But she also said that he could be warm, loving, and sharing. During her testimony, Joanie related the two most harrowing incidents of her life with Belachheb: the time he rammed her head “ FOR THE DEFENSE • 165 against the back of her sofa and sent her to the hospital for three days, and the time he knocked her to the floor, knelt on her shoulders , placed a gun to her head, and threatened to kill her. Despite the horror she experienced, Joanie asserted that during those instances “he was in terror of me.” She said that he was in an “altered state of consciousness” (a term she undoubtedly learned from his doctors) but that she could “see his eyes come back to a state of awareness.” In spite of her fear, she kept returning to Charlie (Belachheb), she said, because she loved him. Norman Kinne’s cross-examination completely exposed Joanie and Belachheb’s abnormal relationship and Joanie’s co-dependency: Kinne: Now, let’s see, you say that—how long had you been married before Charlie beat you up? Joanie: Oh, that happened before we got married. Kinne: Oh, before you got married he beat you up. Joanie: Uh-huh, that’s right. Kinne: That was the first time he beat you up? Joanie: Yes. Kinne: All right. He put you in the hospital; is that the time he busted your skull across the sofa or whatever it was? Joanie: Yes. Kinne: Put you in the hospital? Joanie: Uh-huh. Kinne: All right. And you went ahead and married him anyway ? Joanie: Yes, I did. When I moved in with him, I was married to him. Kinne: I beg your pardon? Joanie: When I moved in with him, I considered myself married to him. Kinne: All right. But you went ahead with the ceremonial marriage after he busted your skull across the sofa? Joanie: Yes. [3.239.13.1] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 08:46 GMT) 166 • CHAPTER ELEVEN Kinne next questioned her about the other incident she used to illustrate Belachheb’s “mental lapse”: Kinne: He has a gun to your head and he is frightened? [Italics added here and below] Joanie: Yeah, like he is protecting himself from something, and that’s the way he looks. Kinne: He looks frightened? Joanie: Frightened. Kinne: Okay. He looked frightened when he put the gun to your head and threatened to kill you? Joanie: Yes. Kinne also reminded her that, one week after the shootings, she had told DPD Officer Paul Lachnitt that, “He [Belachheb] is not crazy. He’s a no-good revengeful son-of-a-bitch!” “I deny that. I don’t know him,” she said of Lachnitt. “I don’t know who you’re talking about,” she insisted as her voice rose. Then she added, “[B]ut I don’t recall much of anything that week.” As the heated exchanges continued, Judge Meier had to warn Joanie on three occasions to answer Kinne’s questions. After more of Kinne’s relentless cross-examination, Joanie finally admitted, “my mind is in shock. It’s hard for me to remember things.”2 Frank Jackson’s first expert witness was an anthropologist named Harrell Gill-King. Dr. Gill-King was the anchor of the “culture shock” portion of the defense strategy. “My particular interest in anthropology as it applies to this issue has to do with...