Washington Courts

The witnesses for Morning Star Boys Ranch were, to a person, decent, forthright, and caring. They were people who did their work as care-givers to the young boys at Morning Star over the years in concern and simple dedication. They were people who cooked, cleaned, wrangled the horses, took the boys on outings, tutored them when they came back to the ranch after school and played games with them in the evenings.

Two of these innocents were people who came together in respect and love of one another, came together free of any sort of artificiality, as a result of meeting at the ranch. And, who in innocence began to make a life together. The two we learned about during the trial were Doyle Gillum and Tricia Gillum.

Tricia grew up in Washington in the Anacortes area of Puget Sound. She came to Spokane after high school and worked at a bank on the South Hill. Doyle had grown up in the Omak - Okanagan area just east of the Cascades – an area connected to Canada and surprisingly to Seattle, yet a farming - ranching area. Tricia enjoyed doing volunteer work. When she came to Spokane she began volunteering at Morning Star Boys Ranch after becoming aware of Morning Star at the bank.

Afer work, she went to the to the ranch 2 - 3 times a week to help with dinner, play games with the boys, help them with their homework. Doyle Gillum was there every time she was there. He was on the evening shift. They worked together. She came to know Doyle. They became friends and after she stopped volunteering, they started to go out. She went back to the West Side — “the Coast” we say over here.  Doyle visited her every weekend. Their love grew.

That Christmas she came over to Spokane and she and Doyle went horseback riding at the Ranch. It was then he proposed. And, they were married.

Doyle went into the Air Force. After Doyle’s training, they moved to Omaha, Nebraska. In late 1994 Doyle went bird hunting with a friend, a neighbor. The men were accidentally caught up in a train accident – Doyle was killed.

Tricia gradually put her life together again. She married and now has an 11-year old daughter. She teaches 3rd grade at a Christian school and lives with her husband and daughter in South Carolina where her husband, Michael Schmidt, works for the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

This person, Tricia, is a fine and good person. She loved Doyle Gillum. She was drawn to him because of his goodness, his love for others, his integrity and essential decency. There was nothing but good in Doyle. She knew, she testified. Even the darkest of souls would not have questioned the goodness and truth of Tricia Schmidt.

One wondered how could anyone pursue accusations against Doyle, against the goodness of this man, against what was the goodness of the choice Tricia had made in Doyle.

To those observing there was a strange unreality taking place. One wondered whether the plaintiff and his attorney were just trying to impress a lie on the jury, on the court, on the public mind – to gain what? Money? That could be it, but may be there was something more, it may be that it was an insidious desire to do injury. A desire to presume good people were bad people and to get a jury and a court to join them in what could only be false taking of money from a good institution and to get a jury and a court to indulge in some sort of great lie that decent people were instead – well, instead, – evil people.

Tim Kosnoff, the attorney for the plaintiff, the attorney advancing the absurd claims of his client, tried to besmirch the character of Tricia Schmidt. He tried to suggest there was something odd in Doyle Gillum’s going into the Air force and not seeing her more often than weekends when he was in training across the state from her. He tried to suggest there was something wrong in relocating to Omaha. He tried to raise suspicion as to Doyle’s tragic death.

I sat and listened in amazement to this slick lawyer as he tried to raise doubts. Somehow it seemed to me he must be thinking he could create some negative aspect by asking questions, as if there was something sordid behind the question – that all he had to do was to ask the question and somehow connect it to a public prejudice, connect it to some sort of negative spirits in the minds of the jurors. I shuddered.

There were no public responses to these efforts by Mr. Kosnoff. But, some were watching. Some caught up on what he was doing. Some did not think his conduct was appropriate –

In fact, it was not even appropriate as far as those who would use our judicial system as some sort of personal injury lottery – a lottery where you try to get a jury or a judge to join in plays for money.

This sort of law is the “legal enterprise phenomenon” of plays on “public prejudice.” Kosnoff and Company are masters of the process, it seems. Sad. What is the process of law becoming?

Despite the efforts of Kosnoff and Company, the jury saw the truth, the innocence and good will, of Doyle and Tricia Gillum.

To those who attended the Putnam v. Morning Star Boys Ranch trial and who listened carefully to the story of the life of Kenneth Putman, a great sense of sadness for the young man was, had to be, felt. 

Kenneth Putnam is one of those people who, as a newborn, was rejected by those who should have loved him.  I sensed there was a great rift in his spirit, his soul – a great deep pain and an unrequited longing.  I sensed that the real cause of this was the rejection and the emotional and physical suffering he experienced in the “care” of his mother and father.

Things might have been different for Mr. Putnam if the state, as parens patriae, had stepped in at his birth and put him in the hands of loving people.  That did not happen. The state simply did not do that, though it could have.  It had the power, but it did not have the will.  I wonder if the state has the will to take such steps today?  One wonders how many children are terribly damaged due to the lack of real love from parents.

Is it possible for the broken soul of Kenneth Putnam to be repaired today?  I think it is, but I think it will only come about as a choice by Mr. Putnam.  The choice, if he is to make it, is a choice to see the substance of being in himself.   The choice will be made when he chooses to live and and when he chooses to stop denying the “death” he experienced as an infant, a small child.   The choice will have nothing to do with self-discipline or being tough.  It will have everything to do with a quiet, unspoken, acceptance of that which is transcendent.

Kosnoff and Company go through the state of Washington telling people who are alleged to have suffered as children at the hands of those who may have sexually abused them that they should sign contingent fee agreements to let them bring an action damages here or there against this or that “evil” entity — for example, the whole of the Catholic Diocese of Spokane or Morning Star Boys Ranch or some other organization which was 30 years ago or more  being taken advantage of by a bad person.  They say they will get justice, that their efforts will make their lives better.  

This, of course, is nonsense.  Money damages may be gotten but money is not going to repair the damage which might have taken place.  Kosnoff and Company pitch a falsehood, an impossibility.

And, in doing so they make millions.  One wonders how much of the $50 million paid out of the Bishop of Spokane Bankruptcy went to Kosnoff and Company?  Was it $20 million.   Maybe more?

Kosnoff and Company are running a money gathering enterprise by which they get a percentage of the money they can obtain.  This enterprise may be dressed up in the words of justice and so on but it does not provide true help to those who suffer.  And, the enterprise certainly does not help those who make false claims.

Tim Kosnoff has not helped Kenneth Putnam.  Not at all.

In the hallway outside of the courtroom yesterday (February 3, 2010), I talked with two people - one who had been observing the trial every day, and one, a former radio talk show co-talker who was observing that day.

The radio talker was of the opinion that men engaged in sex with boys and seemed to believe that if a person said a man had come out and said a man had sex with him when he was a boy, it was probably true. She was a bit in disbelief when I said the evidence in the case, at least as far as I had understood it, did not establish that Kenny Putman had been sexually in contact with anyone at Morning Star Boys Ranch.

She seemed to be a bit uncomfortable with my observations, so I changed the subject and we talked of various pleasantries – of Mark Fuhrman becoming a counter-terrorist specialist for Fox News and that soon he would be heading off to Israel. That will be interesting, I said. (And I meant it.)

The other person I talked with said he had “at least 200 cases” of confirmed priest sexual abuse. He must be part of some sort of group against priests or the Catholic Church or someone. I have seen this man before and remember he was in the courtroom one time when I observed a hearing in the Spokane Diocese bankruptcy appeal before District Court Judge Justin Quackenbush. See this Spokesman - Review piece.

We also talked about the circumstances of man-boy sex abuse. He said it always occurred in private. I said hetero sex also takes place in private.

His point was that if people thought that such things took place in public from time to time, a person who had been sexually abused would never be able to prove his case. Consequently, if the boy, now a man, said that sex took place 20 -50 years ago, it was probably (was he thinking “must be”) true?

I did not go into his argument. I did not tell him that such events may take place in private, but that the private trysts would have to be established, could be established by evidence that man and boy actually were together alone in a private place. For example, that people saw them go into a private place.

I wanted to tell him that men and men and men and boys engage in something on a regular basis in High Bridge Park and its environs every day in good weather in Spokane. How does one know this? Because one can observe while he is walking his dogs that men and boys regularly leave their cars individually and walk deep into the park near Latah Creek and into the bushes, the same general bushes. Thus, the tryst could easily be established. What goes on at the time of the tryst may be “secret,” but the meeting would not be.

I wanted to tell him these things, but did not. I sensed it would be a waste of time. I left the man and the conversation with a shudder rising in my being. A shudder because his prejudices seem like they might be the hidden reason why people could easily get away with false claims of man-boy sexual abuse. I wondered how many false claims had been approved and paid in the Spokane Diocese Bankruptcy.

There is no evidence in this case that establishes Kenny Putnam was ever alone with Father Joe Weitensteiner or Doyle Gillum. There is no evidence, other than his statements, that he ever had sexual contact with anyone at Morning Star Boys Ranch.

There is something deeply wrong with Kenny Putman, but it has to do with the treatment he received from his mother and father, not the treatment he received at Morning Star Boys Ranch. This deeply-troubled young man is not being helped by the bringing of this action. And, he will not be helped even if he prevails.

The second witness on Tuesday was psychologist Mary Dietzen. Ms. Dietzen is a pleasant pixie of a woman in her late 40s or early 50s. She is well spoken. She impresses one as thoughtful and sincere. She testified to the psychological and the emotional condition of Kenny Putnam. There is no doubt Kenny Putnam is a troubled soul. In her testimony she tried to connect Kenny’s present troubled condition with the so-called abuse he alleges in his complaint with respect of Doyle Gillum and Father Joe.

She testified to circumstances of a good deal of physical and emotional trauma of Mr. Putnam prior to the time he went to stay at Morning Star for a few months. Testimony was elicited about the terrible rejections Mr. Putnam went through at the hands of his mother, a drug and alcohol abuser of substantial success. And there was testimony of the physical and emotional abuse of him by his father Doyle Putnam – the man who married Putnam’s mother when he was five years-old. The impression one was left with was that Kenny Putnam had been deeply emotionally and physically abused by his mother and his father.

Ms. Dietzen, it was said, first met Kenny Putnam when attorney Kosnoff sent Putnam to Dietzen for therapy. After the therapeutic relationship was established, Dietzen then became a forensic psychologist with respect of Mr. Putnam. As I listened to this testimony, I wondered about the sequence. About this witness first being a treating psychologist and then later becoming a forensic psychologist with respect of the same person. I suppose I was wondering how one could have a therapeutic relationship where the relationship was based on personal loyalty and trust and then turn that relationship into a supposed objective relationship where the client was merely looked at in an objective manner. In my mind, this confusion of roles created a taint with respect of the testimony which was supposed to be objective.

Dr. Dietzen carried her notes and records regarding Kenny Putnam in a stack of loose papers held in her arms in front of her. I was reminded of former Spokane City Council woman Sherry Rogers walking around month after month with her stack of papers, notes, and other ephemera pertaining to her activities regarding Spokane’s River Park Square. She too kept her files in a stack held in front of her in her arms.

There were discussions between Ms. Dietzen and Jim King, the attorney for Morning Star, about the various tests Kenny Putnam took. These tests were for the purpose of giving people like Ms. Dietzen an understanding about Mr. Putnam. The tests were something like the tests we used to call the Minnesota multi phasic inventory test or something like that. In a whole series of questions, if answered candidly, a picture of the person taking the test would emerge. The tests Mr. Putnam took were to be sent back to the specialist company having to do with the test for what is known as scoring and interpretation.

Mr. Putnam took the main test on two occasions. The test was sent off for scoring. The interpretive results were sent back to Ms. Dietzen. In both tests, the scoring company determined that the tests taken by Mr. Putnam were not valid. There was something wrong regarding the whole list of answers provided. Strangely, Ms. Dietzen could not provide the interpretive results which were sent to her. The interpretations seemed not to be in her files. There was record of one, but as I recall, both were missing. She could not explain this even though it was her standard practice to retain the interpretive results.

There was another aspect of Ms. Dietzen’s testimony which was troublesome. This had to do with the supposed connection between Kenny Putnam’s allegations of sexual abuse and the condition he is in today. She testified that Kenny’s condition was the result of traumatic events in the past. She went through a whole host of traumatic events. She testified that many of these dramatic events, if not all of the dramatic events, related to Kenny’s condition today.

That was all well and good until she said that Kenny’s condition was tied to his allegations of sexual abuse. That simply defied logic. There may be a connection, but if the allegations were true, they simply could not be the sole connection. What became obvious was that Kenny Putnam suffered severe, traumatic, emotional and physical abuse at the hands of his parents when he was a very small child, years before he was rejected yet again, abandoned yet again by his mother and father, and had no place to go but to Morning Star Boys Ranch.