McMartin Judge Rejects Added Witnesses; Defense to Rest Case

After 10 months and 40 witnesses, the defense in the McMartin Pre-School molestation case said it will rest its case Monday.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William R. Pounders, who earlier precluded the defense from calling another 40 witnesses, rejected four of five more witnesses proposed late Friday by lawyer Danny Davis, who represents defendant Ray Buckey, 31.

Pounders said their testimony would be “irrelevant,” “cumulative” or too time-consuming in a trial that has already lasted nearly 2 1/2 years.

“This case will go to the jury on or before Dec. 1,” the judge vowed. Still to come are rebuttals by both sides, followed by lengthy closing arguments. Buckey and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, 62, are charged with 65 counts of molestation and conspiracy involving 11 children who attended their family-run Manhattan Beach nursery school.

The judge became angry upon learning that Davis wanted to call another physician, after London coroner David M. Paul completed nine days of testimony Friday. “I would not have authorized an expenditure of $20,000 to bring Dr. Paul from England,” Pounders said, had not the defense contended that no doctors in this country were willing to touch the case.

He agreed, however, that Davis could call Barbara Dusky, the woman with whom Ray Buckey testified he had had an ongoing sexual relationship. Dusky earlier told a prosecution investigator that her efforts to seduce the young man had been unsuccessful, despite their spending a night together in a mirrored motel room in South Lake Tahoe.

Although Buckey then whispered to his attorney that he did not want her to be a witness, prosecutors said they will call her anyway as a rebuttal witness.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Lael Rubin said the prosecution’s first rebuttal witness Monday will be an investigator who trailed Buckey for several months in early 1984.

Paul, the last defense witness, testified that he found strong evidence of molestation in only two of the 11 alleged victims in the case, after reviewing their medical records. Six physicians testified for the prosecution that they found physical evidence indicative of sexual abuse in nine.

But Paul, who quipped his way through the tedious proceedings and graphic slide-show presentation of the alleged victims’ anatomy, said there are no reliable signs of long-past sodomy and few indicative of vaginal molestation. He testified that he believes that some so-called signs of molestation have “non-sinister” origins, such as diarrhea, constipation and even nylon panties riding up, while others are normal anatomical variations and “of no significance.”

He said there is disagreement among physicians about how to diagnose sexual abuse more than two years in the past and admitted that, despite three decades of experience in the field, in many cases “I can’t tell either way.”

During cross-examination, however, Deputy Dist. Atty. Roger Gunson attempted to undermine Paul’s credibility by showing him a photograph of a child’s anus with apparent abnormalities that resembled those of at least two alleged McMartin victims.

“Perfectly normal,” Paul said with certainty. The slide, taken from a recent study, depicted the anus of a 3 1/2-year-old girl whose father had admitted sodomizing her. Afterwards, prosecutors said Paul had not dented their medical evidence, but rather corroborated much of it.

But defense attorney Dean Gits, who represents Peggy McMartin Buckey, summed up Paul’s testimony as having told the jury that, “There is no physical evidence consistent (only) with abuse. Therefore my diagnosis neither confirms nor denies” molestation.

“I think he has been absolutely convincing in establishing the correct state of the art--uncertain--with respect to signs of molestation in the distant past,” Gits said.