1. Belittling Children's Testimony

The children's testimony was corroborated in numerous ways by physical evidence. At least three examples stand out: (1) items the boys described and that Mr. Brenner found near his property, (2) the specific description of numerous weapons, and (3) the description of how to get to Halsey's house. Ms. Manning belittles the testimony in the second and third instances. (She misrepresents the facts concerning the other items, choosing only to mention the grocery cart and not the pornography.

a. Description of weapons

Ms. Manning belittles significant passages in the boys' testimony. First, by selecting the vaguest possible snippets, she leaves the impression that the children's identification of various items in Halsey's arsenal constituted nothing more than saying general words like "knife." After all, "how do you describe rope?" she complains. But Ms. Manning does not acknowledge the vast array of weapons recovered from Robert Halsey. Among the weapons introduced at trial were four guns, six knives, three bats, two kinds of rope, and several kinds of tape (all introduced between State Exhibit 13 and 31). Moreover, the children provided far more specific detail than Ms. Manning acknowledges—and their testimony was cross-corroborative.

All of the children described Halsey’s red pocketknife (Andrew at 569; William at 850, 862; Lauren at 1023; Michala at 1060; and Ivory at 1086). The twins also accurately described a "dagger" like knife (Andrew at 599; William at 840) and a boot knife (Andrew at 569; William at 844). All five children described guns, mostly those in the glove box (Andrew at 570; William at 883; Lauren at 1016; Michala at 1061; Ivory at 1086). The twins also describe a BB gun (Andrew at 582; William at 820, 828) and a brown gun with a holster (Andrew at 656-66; William at 832). When the judge allowed one of the guns into evidence he noted that Andrew "identified [the gun] by virtue of the markings and the colors and the shape and size" (tr.577).

Three children described the red plastic baseball bat (Andrew at 622; William at 857; Michala at 1060) and two described the steel bat, also (William at 861; Michala at 1060). Finally, three children described gray duct tape (Andrew at 569, 590-91; William at 883; Ivory at 1087). Lauren also described tape—the white tape used to secure her hands on occasion. But Ms. Manning finds this testimony all worthless because Lauren, the youngest witness, did not also specify gray duct tape.

b. Describing how to get to Halsey's house

Ms. Manning also belittles the fact that William was able to describe how to get to Halsey's house and what it looked like. She claims that "especially because Lanesboro is a small town," this testimony is not remarkable. But there were over 3,000 people in Lanesboro at the time and 3,500 more in Cheshire. (The boys lived in Cheshire for purposes of mail delivery; tr. 1101.) The boys lived to the east of Route 8, while Halsey lived to the west of Route 7. Moreover, Halsey resided on a dead-end street in a residential area that would not be "-on the way-" to anything. For this young boy to know how to get to a house that he had no reason to visit, a house that Halsey told the police that the boy had never visited, cannot be explained away by the glib statement that they lived in the same town. Quite simply, this belittles the boy's accomplishment.

a. Lauren and Ivory C.

Two witnesses who helped corroborate the boys' statement about Robert Halsey were sisters who had moved to Florida spring before Halsey was arrested. They had not been in contact with the twins' family and knew nothing of Halsey's arrest when Mrs. C. was contacted by the Lanesboro Police in January 1993. Arrangements were made for a Massachusetts State Trooper to come to Florida and interview the sisters. Both girls corroborate the boys' stories about threats and weapons on the bus. For example, when the officer asked the younger girl simply whether she had seen any tape, this girl immediately started talking about mouths being taped. As Patricia Driscoll of the Massachusetts State police testified: "I asked her if she remembers seeing tape, and her response was that Bb was tape their mouths" (tr. 1662, lines 14-15). Her mother verified that neither "tape" nor "rope" was mentioned in the course of her conversation with the chief before the girls were interviewed.

Ms. Manning goes to extremes to dismiss the testimony of Lauren, the younger of the two. She discards Lauren's entire testimony because she did not correctly identify the color of the duct tape in response to one question. "It is not nit-picking," Ms. Manning protests, "to object that duct tape is gray."

But it is nit-picking - of the highest degree. To select a single answer to a peripheral question as the litmus test for the entire testimony makes no sense. Especially since many aspects of Lauren's testimony triangulate with several other children, particularly on these items: "pocket knives and sometimes guns in the glovebox" (tr. 1023), "white and yellow rope" (tr. 1016), and "tape on the mouth" (tr.1014). This testimony corroborates several additional aspects of the detailed statement that the twins had already made thousands of miles away. No wonder Ms. Manning would rather talk only about the color of duct tape.

But Ms. Manning is silent about the significance of this issue when it comes to the older sister, Ivory, whose testimony Ms. Manning basically ignores. Ivory was on the bus less often than the other kids. She was also by far the most articulate of the child witnesses, demonstrating her superior developmental and educational level. She identified "gray duct tape" without any difficulty (tr. 1087). Under Manning's child-hostile approach, however, not remembering this kind of detail is apparently fatal but remembering it is worth nothing. She also places no weight on the rest of this girl's testimony, even though she further corroborated the testimony of the twins about the "yellow rope" (tr. 1084), a knife "shaped sort of curved and had a cover over it" (tr. 1085), a "gun in the glovebox" (tr. 1086), a "pocket knife in the glovebox" (tr. 1086) and Halsey's threat to "put [tape] over your mouth until you stop breathing" (tr. 1088).

Virtually everything that the girls interviewed in Florida had to offer was cross-corroborated both by statements made earlier (in Massachusetts) by the twins and by items found in Halsey's house (unbeknownst to the family in Florida). Dismissing all of this testimony as irrelevant because the younger girl did not remember the color of the duct tape is beyond child-hostile, it is child-intolerant. (Note: this intolerance is not applied equally, however-defense witnesses and the defendant himself are not dismissed by Ms. Manning for want of a single answer.)

b. Michala K.

Michala K.'s testimony corroborated Halsey's reign of terror over the children in his charge. She also corroborated "pocket knives in the glove box" (tr. 1060); "a red plastic [baseball bat]" (tr. 1060), "yellow and white rope" (tr. 1061), "a foam bat," (tr. 1063), and his taunting use of the word "bitch" (tr. 1064) -- to a five-year-old girl.

Ms. Manning has two nits to pick with this testimony. First, she argues that Michala's credibility is damaged because "she had to be corrected as to when she told" her parents. Ms. Manning supports this claim by a gross misrepresentation of the testimony. Rather than rely on the actual testimony, Ms. Manning summarizes a few lines of testimony as follows: "Shugrue also corrected [Michala K.], who testified that ‘the first day’ she saw guns and knives on Halsey’s bus, she told her parents at that time and they even had a conversation about it" (original emphasis). But here is the actual exchange:

Q: Did it hurt?
A; Yes
Q: Now, did you tell your mom or anybody else about that right away.
A: Yeah, my grandma first and then my mom and dad. (tr. 1062, lines 16-20)

Mr. Shugrue’s clarifying question did not contradict the earlier testimony; it tried to provide an explanation for those, like Ms. Manning, who would analyze children’s testimony in a rigid and over-literal fashion. As the prosecutor clarified immediately:

Q: You told your mom and dad over time, is that right?
A:Yes. (tr. 1062, lines 21-23)

It reads too much into the words of a seven year old to think that "grandma first and then my mom and dad" necessarily means the same day. That obviously is not what she meant – nor is it what she said, Ms. Manning’s text-emphasized error notwithstanding.

Ms. Manning's other objection is that neither the knife nor the choking incident wasmentioned in her original police interview. This ranks as another child-hostile technique: require complete disclosure the first day (knowing that few, if any, children ever disclose abuse in that fashion) and then impugn the initial disclosure if any details are added later, even if, as in this case, later details were corroborated by physical evidence (such as the pornography the boys saw in the woods on Nobody’s Road).

Ms. Manning does not want to consider anything the girl remembered after her initial interview. She also wants to eliminate from the discussion any evidence about Halsey's "prior bad acts." Apparently acknowledging the existence of such information, the defense argued strenuously that "prior bad acts' should not be admitted into evidence. They also fought to keep out evidence concerning the grandmother's questioning of Michala that was initiated because the grandmother became suspicious when the girl was "unbuttoned." Ms. Manning ignores this evidence because it cannot possibly fit into her fantastic claim that the whole case stems from "child suggestibility" - that is, unless the grandmother was also part of a giant conspiracy.

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