CHAPTER 23

The next morning, the panel members looked relaxed and confident. Henry hoped there would be now more gaffes, especially since The Pope had gotten after them. He congratulated himself for thinking to ask. He knew from experience that The Pope could be very persuasive.

The first witness called by the panel was the university attorney, Mark Rogers. He entered the room, spoke to everyone there, addressing them by name, and took the seat indicated just across from Diana.

Mark would never be called handsome. He carried a bit too much weight in his face for that. He was, however, garrulous. This part of his character endeared him to the administration that he served so well, since his long winded approach to any problem brought to him, bored most people to death before they got any answer.

This saved the administrators the problem of dealing with most complaints brought by faculty and staff. If the administrators wanted some legal answers, they contacted a real lawyer, usually Simon Murrain, from a high priced law firm in town.

Mark had never had any success as an attorney in the real world, but here in the cloistered world of academia, he flourished. In the rapidly changing meaning of words, Mark knew which side of the butter the bread was on. He could lie or tell the truth with the same absolute conviction.

And now he was giving an ample demonstration of this to the panel. He knew that he had been called in because Henry was terrified that the document examiner's evidence had been overturned by the defense testimony. He also knew that the three women on the panel were not disposed favorably to the analyst who had come to testify. Well, by golly, he thought, old Mark will put out the fire.

In answer to a simple question, Mark replied by starting from when he graduated from law school and tracing his entire career. Along the way, he revealed, he had discovered these particular document examiners.

For all his verbosity, he was convincing. Henry was pleased. After all, he was an attorney. Who would know better how courts and evidence worked than an attorney? Then too, Mark had been the one to send the

`suspect' evaluations to the analyst that he, himself, had recommended. Mark had ordered the material from Diana's personnel file, so he could attest to the legality of it.

Jane observed that the other members of the panel, immersed in his tale, seemingly failed to realize that he confirmed several interruptions in the chain of custody of the documents he was referring to. Most notable was when he was asked to identify the various packets of handwriting evidence that was marked as exhibits for this hearing. He either, "hadn't reviewed them closely enough to determine. . ." or claimed that he "honestly didn't recall who I received the note from (the note Lyle's friend had found `strange')," as answers to direct questions from the panel.

Henry, hoping to create some clarity, put the finishing touches on the breaks in the chain of custody of the `suspect' documents that were being discussed. "Oh, the problem here must be because some of the packets have been separated apart."

Jane noticed that Mark also had only vague recollections as to when all these things took place. He prefaced every phrase with, "to the best of my recollection" or "at best I can recall," in proper attorney fashion, proving that he had, after all, gotten something out of law school.

Having agreed, with Henry's prompting, that he did remember getting five radiology SmurFFs from Lyle, two nursing nutrition SmurFFs from Jimbo, he was handed a note, referred to as `Lyle's friend's strange note' by Henry and asked, "And did you also sent the document examiners this note?"

"This would appear to be the original note; the only thing that I have seen is a copy of this note. I don't believe until now I had actually seen an original."

Good Lord, thought Jane. Surely someone should question this. The document examiner testified that ALL the `suspect' documents were originals and now Mark, the guy that sent them to the examiners, is saying he has only seen a copy.

He's vague and unsure of most everything he claims he was involved in and most of his evidence is what someone else told him or that he `had assumed'. This was the kind of testimony that Henry had been so critical

of when the defense witnesses were examined, calling it second hand information. Apparently, coming from the university attorney, it is considered to be all right, Jane commented to herself. At one point, with help from Henry, Mark brought forth information that Jane thought might be triple hearsay.

He said, "I remember now that Jimbo told me that Lyle told him that Lyle's friend had found the note."

Not a voice was raised in complaint from the panel. And not from me either, thought Jane. I'm not sticking my neck out when a lawyer is testifying.

Henry appeared to be pleased. Mark had done well enough even though he had been a bit shaky on dates. Anyway, the panel didn't seem to notice. He had established handwriting analysis as nearly infallible--not by evidence, not by proof, but solely because he said so.

He was pleased when cross examination by Diana was continually broken into by the panel. As a result of this, the question of the dates when these things happened was never really established. As things stood, Lyle, Randy and now Mark had all given conflicting dates concerning when these documents were sent out for analysis, when each received them and what each received.

However, under tenacious questioning by Diana, Mark divulged that the `strange' note, apparently sent as an afterthought, had only been looked at by the examiners the day before coming to testify. That was why he had only seen a copy of it since the original was given to them on their arrival by Henry. Their opinion was not conclusive, but they thought it probable that Diana had printed it. They were wise to vacillate on this, Mark observed, since their supply of printing standards was very limited.

Because of the way Mark presented this, the panel was left with the impression that had there been enough standards, the document examiner would certainly have found that Diana had printed it.

An angry exchange occurred when Diana protested strongly that here was another piece of evidence that she was surprised with after being told that she had received all of it.

Henry smiled vacuously and said, "It was introduced yesterday."

"I never saw it."

"It was in the analyst's report for you to see." "Now you tell me."

"You could have read it anytime."

"When? Every time there was a break, you shooed me out of here." "We needed this room to confer."

Anuse broke in to hammer home another spike of explanation in the maze of questionable activity engaged in by the administration. "Mark, from a legal point of view, can an employee's personnel records be sent out for this type of analysis without the individual's permission or verification?"

Mark answered, again with the qualifier, which was not deemed noteworthy by the committee members. "In my opinion, they may not be used for just any purpose, but they certainly may be used for those purposes."

Well, sure. Ask the guy who did it if it was all right. Some legal opinion! thought Diana.

It was, however, the benchmark, the criterion of the prejudice exhibited by the hearing panel throughout. The Attorney General, after her investigation was complete, wrote in her report that, ". . .the panel utilized a procedure in which guilt was not investigated, but assumed. The university placed the burden of proof on Diana Trenchant to prove she was innocent, but denied her the evidence to do so.

"In fact," The A.G.'s report continued, "the process was so fundamentally unfair and reflected such an aggressive determination by the university to discharge her, that its actions have strengthened the inference of discrimination."