McMartin Case Judge Silences Defense Lawyer

The key defense lawyer in the McMartin Pre-School molestation case adopted tougher tactics Wednesday by objecting to nearly every question posed to the 9-year-old girl just beginning her testimony, prompting the judge to silence him altogether.

After attorney Daniel Davis tried to prevent the child from stating even her age--on grounds that her answer would be “speculation, irrelevant, hearsay”--Los Angeles Municipal Judge Aviva K. Bobb noted that he had objected to 80% of the questions being asked to determine whether the child could qualify as a witness.

Bobb also said that Davis had objected to more than half of the questions asked of the previous two witnesses, although she sustained few of those objections.

Bobb said Davis’ objections were “not made in good faith, but (tactics) used to upset and confuse the witness,” adding that she would assume he had a running objection. She then ordered him to remain silent.

From that point, Wednesday’s hearing deteriorated into what defense attorney Bradley Brunon characterized as “a grade-school-level proceeding.”

Prosecutors complained that defendant Virginia McMartin, 77, was snickering and vigorously shaking her head “no” during the child’s testimony. Defense attorneys countered that the prosecutors were haranguing and giving signals.

Davis told Bobb he is convinced that she is “personally prejudiced against me and my client,” and fellow defense attorney Forrest Latiner lamented that prosecutors were being allowed to determine what “areas of chitchat” (casual questions intended to relax the child) were allowable in court.

Meanwhile, the 13th young witness--wearing bows in her hair and hugging a doll--recounted her memory of events at the Manhattan Beach nursery school where she was enrolled from 1978 to mid-1981.

The girl, like many of the 12 children who have preceded her on the witness stand, said she was raped and sodomized by key defendant Raymond Buckey, 27, and molested by Buckey’s mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, 58, and Betty Raidor, 65, at the day-care center, in the bathroom of a Manhattan Beach car wash, inside a “green house” and at a farm.

Served as ‘Lookout’

She testified that she and her classmates were photographed by Raymond Buckey and several strangers. Many of the young witnesses have described being photographed.

She also told of serving as a “lookout” on the school’s playground, running inside to warn Raymond Buckey whenever a parent approached. In a breathless burst, she described the scene:

“I was outside swinging on the swing. Inside was Ray and some children. They had their clothes off. Ray was molesting and abusing the children. I’d run in and tell Ray the child’s mother was coming. He’d put the children in the bathroom and (tell the mother), ‘Go in the little yard, and they’ll be there.’ He got the child dressed, peeked out the door and said he had found the child in the classroom.”

Asked what Raymond Buckey did to the children, she replied: “For little girls he was sticking his penis in their vaginas and his fingers in their behind, and for little boys, he (put) his penis in their butt.”

She testified that Peggy McMartin Buckey and Raidor penetrated her with their fingers and rubbed themselves against her.

The girl told of being sexually abused repeatedly, and a physician has testified to finding scars indicative of such molestation.