I tried to copy and paste the relevant information into this one post but sadly was unable to do so. I will have to spread it over several posts. Here is part one which covers 'events leading up to this incident' to 'my release papers'.
My Arrest and Conviction for Domestic Assault by William McGaughey
PART I
events leading up to this incident
After eleven years of marriage, my wife and I had been discussing divorce. Either we could agree to an amicable settlement or fight it out in the courts. My wife was fishing for financial information to use against me. I was still trying to decide if we should have a divorce.
Matters came to a head on Friday, February 18, 2011. This was three days before my 70th birthday. My wife Rose (not her real name), born and raised in China, was 54 years of age. She was in the process of mailing packages of books to her daughter who lives in northern Virginia. My wife and I live in adjoining units on the second story of a four-plex that is located in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
On that day, I took two boxes of books to the post office and later helped my wife carry suitcases between a storage place in the basement and our second-floor living quarters. I had mailed ten similar boxes the day before on behalf of my wife.
In the afternoon on Friday, I paid bills. An identity thief had charged his or her cell-phone bills to my checking account. Since the thief had my account number and routing number, the bank had requested that I close the account and open up a new one. As a result, some checks written on the old account bounced. There were also problems with accounts set up for automatic payment from my checking account. I mailed at least ten letters to vendors to pay my bills and restore automatic payment from my new account. This problem required immediate attention.
Later in the day, I turned to other business. I had promised two friends who were landlords that I would send them by email some information about Minnesota statutes pertaining to landlords. I needed to compose letters to each with the requested information. I had finished writing and sending a message to one, and was working on the other.
As I sat in my office in front of the computer, my wife came into the room and took a chair immediately behind me. She peered over my shoulder to see what I was writing. Perhaps it was something pertaining to our prospective divorce?
My personal checkbook was lying on the table next to the computer. My wife grabbed the checkbook and started reading entries aloud from the check register. $1400 - what was this? She wanted explanations for several items. For a time, I continued working at the computer. However, my wife’s persistent questioning began to bother me. I felt that she was invading my privacy in looking at my check register. Her intent was obviously to find “dirt” that could be used in divorce proceedings.
For all these years, my wife had given me no help in managing my rental property. I would just give her money when she needed it. Normally this was three hundred dollars a month. Additionally, my wife had access to my credit card; I paid the monthly bill. Even during the three years when she worked at Target, my wife contributed little to our household expenses. Much of her income went to help pay our daughter’s tuition at a private college. Much of the rest went into my wife’s 401(k) retirement fund. Meanwhile, I accumulated several hundred thousand dollars in personal debt that I did not previously have.
a physical altercation
I became angry that my wife was looking through my check register which recorded both personal and business expenses. I repeatedly demanded that she give it back to me. My wife ignored my request. Suddenly, I tried to take the checkbook from her hand. She switched it to the other hand. At this point, I put both of my hands over the hand that clenched the checkbook and pried it loose.
As I was struggling to take the checkbook, my wife put her face down on my hand and bit me. She bit me on the top of my hand in an apparent attempt to make me drop the checkbook. To free my hand, I made a quick move to pull it out of my wife’s mouth and push her away from me. At no time did I strike my wife or try to hurt her. When I had the checkbook firmly in my hand, I placed it in a pocket of my trousers and left the room.
Later, according to a police report, my wife claimed that her mouth was bleeding because I had struck her in the face. I did not see any blood at the time, and there was no blood residue on my hand that she had bitten. It’s possible that my wife deliberately bit her lip after the incident. It’s also possible that an injury occurred as a result of my pulling my hand up and away from her mouth.
My wife threatened to call the police emergency number, 911. With foolish bravado, I said: “Sure, go ahead.” Although I did not listen closely to the conversation, I could hear my wife sobbing into the telephone. She was telling the 911 operator that she was afraid of me. I do not know all of what she told the operator but had the impression that she was “pushing all the right buttons” to make the police come quickly.
I remained calm. A tenant in my adjoining apartment building had called to ask if she and her infant daughter could have a ride to a nearby building. I had agreed. Now she was standing at my front door. I walked down the stairs to the front door and walked outside. My car was parked on the street in front of the house. I drove the tenant to a building several blocks away and promptly returned.
For a few minutes before the police arrived, my wife and I sat together at a table in the hall. She had calmed down by then. We did not argue about the incident with the checkbook. While I do not have a clear recollection of our conversation then, I think I might have told my wife that it was a mistake to have called the police because the matter was now out of our hands.
arrested by the police
There was a knock on the front door. Our little York terrier, Do Do, began to bark. Since the door was unlocked, two Minneapolis police officers let themselves into the building. One was a white-male officer and the other was an Asian female. Most likely she was Hmong. Our dog was standing half way down the steps barking at the officers.
I walked down to where Do Do was and picked him up in my arms. Then I walked back up the stairs, opened the door to the unit on the right, dropped Do Do on the floor in that room, and then closed the door. Now that the place was quiet, I expected to have a rational conversation about the incident with the police.
Immediately after I had closed the door, the white-male police officer standing in back of me ordered me to face the door and put my hands behind my back. He slipped handcuffs on my wrists. Then the female officer led me down the steps to the squad car parked in front of my house. I said nothing and the officers asked me no questions. Neither did they examine me for possible injuries. I thought there might still be bite marks on the back of my wrist.
There was barely enough room for me to sit in the back seat of the squad car. I had to position myself sidewise to have the legs fit between the seat and a barrier in front. My two arms were held tightly behind my back. The female officer turned on a computer and asked me a routine set of questions. I asked her if she would take a look at the bite marks on the back of my hand. She said she would in a few minutes, presumably after she had finished with the computer checks.
The time dragged on. I was sitting in the back seat of the squad car for perhaps half an hour as the male officer questioned my wife inside the house. The handcuffs were squeezing my wrists so tightly that I felt a loss of blood circulation. When I pointed this out to the female officer, she loosened the handcuffs and the circulation began to return. During that time, she asked me no questions about the incident that had precipitated the 911 call. Neither did she look at the bite marks that I had mentioned.
At length, the male police officer returned to the car. He read me my “Miranda rights”. He said I could talk with him now or talk in the presence of an attorney; and, if I could not afford one, the court would appoint an attorney for me. I chose the third option. I asked the officer if he had read the same rights to my wife. He said, no, he was arresting me, not her. I told him about the bite marks. He said he would look at them at the booking station downtown.
It’s a ten-minute drive from my house to the jail downtown where the Minneapolis police book arrested persons. The detention center is right next to city hall. We first approached a garage door operated by remote control. Once inside the building, I was ordered out of the car. I slid along the seat with my wrists handcuffed behind my back.
booked at the county jail
I entered a room where several Sheriff’s deputies were standing. The first step was to place my right and left index fingers on a glass sensing device to record my finger prints. The male officer who had arrested me then appeared with a flash camera. He took a photograph of my hand with the bite mark from an arm’s length distance. Since I have freckles and more than an hour had elapsed since the biting incident, I doubt that much showed up in the photo. The officer remarked that the bite had not pierced my skin.
Then another deputy ordered me to stand against a wall and spread my legs. When I headed for the wrong wall, he sternly corrected me. The officer patted down several parts of my body and removed everything that I had in my pockets. It was primarily my wallet and the checkbook over which my wife and I had fought. I was not wearing my glasses. I also was not wearing a watch or carrying my house keys when the officer led me away from my house.
Next I was asked to go into a small room and remove all my clothing except for the underpants. I was given a pair of sandals and a pajama-like shirt and pants which were to be my jail attire. I was not allowed to wear my undershirt or white-cotton socks.
The jail property room was across the hall from the changing room. I put all my clothes in a bundle and, standing at a counter, handed it to a receiving clerk behind a glass panel. The clerk told me that I could keep my cotton socks. After removing my sandals, I put the socks back on my feet. I was given a red paper band to wear on the left wrist.
All my personal belongings were examined. All the money, credit cards, and assorted pieces of paper were removed from my wallet. A pair of clerks counted the money twice. I had exactly $320 in my wallet, including $200 in rent recently collected from a tenant. The property-room clerk inventoried my shoes and street clothes. He gave me a piece of paper marked “Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office ADC/ Inmate Personal Property Receipt”. I was “Book # 2011004511”. The paper indicated that I had been received into the jail on 02-18-2011 at 1757 (5:57 p.m.)
Now a sheriff’s deputy asked me to go into a numbered holding room. An apple was lying on the bench. I washed it in the sink and kept it with the paper that I carried around with me. I then availed myself of a stainless-steel toilet in the corner.
A young white man whose last name was Hopkins was sitting on a bench. At first, neither of us spoke to the other. Finally, I asked him why he had been arrested. It was because he had failed to keep a court appointment. A bench warrant had been issued for his arrest. The young man’s closest relatives lived in Texas. He himself lived in the Salvation Army shelter downtown.
Now it was time for mug shots. I stepped into a small room to be photographed from two different directions - from the front and from the side - while standing in foot prints outlined on the floor. A kindly, elderly woman sat behind a counter on the other side of the glass. She asked me about tattoos, scars, and other names that I might use. I dared her to find the facial scars I had received as a boy. She took it in good humor.
Now it was back to a holding cell. This one held five or six persons. Next to me was a black inmate sleeping on the bench. Periodically, a Sheriff’s deputy would open the locked door and call someone’s name. Then the released inmate would be directed to the next place involved in the processing routine. The wait time in each cell was about twenty minutes.
At one point I was asked to visit the nurse’s station down the hall. A male nurse asked me some questions about my health. Did I have any on a list of diseases or allergies or use certain medications? I could think only of the cavities in three teeth. The nurse said that dental services might be available next Wednesday. If I had been smart, I might have said that I had recently been bitten. Perhaps a doctor’s report would confirm the injury. However, the question did not occur to me until later.
Returned to another holding cell, I was in the company of six other inmates. Three of them were black and three were white. This group was more talkative. A young black male recognized me. Was I still married to Sixpack’s mother? Did I still own rental property on Glenwood Avenue? The answer to the first question was “no”; to the second question, “yes”. This man’s name was “Sean”. He was the son of a former tenant and brother of two other tenants who had rented apartments from me in the mid 1990s. The mother now lived in Brooklyn Park.
Several of my fellow inmates were in jail because of bench warrants issued when they failed to make court appearances. One man said he had been arrested three times in connection with the same offense. We were all aware that people arrested on that day, Friday, February 18th, might not be released until Tuesday, February 22nd. The next two days were on the weekend and Monday was the President’s Day holiday. However, it was rumored that a judge might review cases on Saturday and possibly release some people or reduce their bail. Mine was set at $2,400.
I was released from this holding room to talk with a young man at a desk who asked me about my finances. My sources of income were Social Security retirement, a state pension, and profits, if any, from my rental-property business. I explained that my federal income tax showed that I had lost money last year as a landlord. Rent collections and maintenance costs varied greatly from year to year. How much would I make “in a good month”, the man asked? I said: $1,000. He put this number down as a part of my income.
I later realized that the purpose of this questioning was to decide whether I should have a court-appointed attorney or be required to hire my own attorney. The extra $1,000 put me in the latter category. The man encouraged me to seek the services of a private attorney after my release from jail.
I now realized that I had answered the arresting officer’s question incorrectly. He had implied that a court-appointed attorney would be available when the police questioned me. In choosing that option, however, I was allowing my wife’s testimony to the arresting officer be the only information included in the police record. There was no court-appointed attorney available in the jail and, due to my inflated income, it was unlikely that one would represent me in the court proceedings. The judge would have only my wife’s testimony to decide what had happened.
The young man at the desk also asked me for the name and number of a contact person. I chose Joe Nelson (not his real name), my former wife’s brother, who helps manage my rental property. I also gave my wife’s name and telephone number so she could be contacted concerning my whereabouts. It was here that I learned that my wife had blood on her lip when she spoke with the arresting officer. There was a photograph.
After that conversation, I went back to a holding cell. The racially mixed group of inmates there revealed interesting facts about themselves. Some had $5,000 bonds; I was comparatively lucky. While there were telephones in the cells, the inmates could use them only to make collect calls costing $10 per call. Incoming calls could not be received on those telephones.
Some inmates were “PC”. This meant they were arrested “with probable cause” (not that “political correctness” was a factor in their arrest). I remain unclear whether PC arrests are more serious than the other kind. I did know that inmates such as myself who wore jail clothes were charged more seriously than the people wearing street clothes. I was considered a violent offender.
Now it was time for one of the more significant parts of the booking operation: finger printing. The prints captured when I first entered the detention center were supplemented by two other sets of finger prints that were received electronically.
First, both my left and right hands were run over an optical scanner. I had to press down firmly on the glass to make a legible impression. Then each of my ten fingers, including the thumbs, were screened separately on a scanner. I had to roll each finger side to side while pressing down on the screen. If this did not leave an adequate impression, a “reject” message would appear on the screen which meant that the operation had to be repeated.
On average, it took three attempts each time to achieve a satisfactory result. I almost felt sorry for the Sheriff’s deputy in charge of this function. He would spray the machine with a cleanser hoping for a better result. When we had a fully extended image with red blotches in certain places, the result was OK. Eventually, we got through all ten fingers. Words at the top of the screen read “Criminal booking: William McGaughey”
Then it was time to step over to a table across the hall for another set of finger prints. This time I had to slap both hands on a sheet of inked paper. With wet ink on my hands and fingers, I rolled my fingers on a sheet of paper, leaving inked impressions. I completed this procedure two times.
I was now allowed to make my free phone call from jail. There was a bank of telephones on a nearby wall. I wanted to call Joe Nelson but bungled the procedure. After a person picks up the phone, he is asked to choose one of three options. Having little idea what these meant, I picked option 3. I was hoping that Joe would pick up the phone and we could talk. Instead, I listened to a recording which seemed to suggest that I was leaving a message for Nelson. He never received any message from me.
After the finger printing, I was returned to another holding room. A young black man and I started talking about our arrests. He, too, had been arrested for domestic assault. The man admitted that he had struck his girl friend who was pregnant with his child. That had happened several days earlier. The girl friend had not wished to file a complaint. Instead, the complainant was the girl friend’s female friend. The police searched for this man in a number of places. He was in the back room of an apartment unit when they finally caught him.
We both agreed that the legal system is focused on punishing male domestic-abuse offenders. In his case, the state prosecuted him even if the victim was opposed to the prosecution. If a victim initially complains, the state will not allow her to change her mind. Personal relationships mean little to the state - they want a male scalp. In my case, it was necessary only to have evidence from one party to the dispute - the female side - to launch a prosecution. The male is inherently the guilty party.
I was then taken to a desk where an Asian woman asked questions pertaining to my mental health. Did I have suicidal thoughts? Did I think people were out to get me? That was the tenor of her questioning. I answered “no” to each such question. At the end of the interview, I said that, in my opinion, I was in jail due to “manufactured” charges. With surprising candor, the woman remarked that this sometimes happened.
The woman asked me if I wanted an inmate’s handbook. I said I did. She asked me if I wanted to stay with a group of inmates or have my own cell. If the latter, I would be locked up for twenty-three hours in the day. I chose the group setting. If I wished to change my mind later on, I could tell a deputy when he made the rounds. I received a light-green plastic wrist band with bar coding that displayed my frontal mug shot.
I went back to another holding cell with some of the same persons as before. It was approaching 9:00 p.m. I had been in jail for over three hours while being processed for intake. I finally ate the apple that I had been carrying.
off to my permanent cell
A female deputy came for the people in my room. There were four men and one woman. In the hallway, we were each allowed to pick out bedding that we would use for the next several days. There were two sheets, knotted at the end, and a light blanket. We were not given a pillow. We marched down one hall after another on the way to our cells. The deputy made us walk along one side of the corridor as we went to another building.
When we reached our destination, a deputy would call out the name of someone in our party and assign him to a particular room. Mine was the “F” room. The deputy said that I had the “4 down” bed, meaning the lower berth of a bed that was straight ahead and a bit to the left.
A man was occupying the berth on top of mine. Other men were occupying the lower berth of the beds on either side of me. There were perhaps nine or ten men in this room. A large television set was sitting across the room from my berth. At this hour, it was turned off.
The half-bearded man in the bunk to my right was evidently the dominant personality in this room. He asked if I was another “light-rail offender”. Several inmates here were persons who had neglected to buy tickets before boarding a train on the Hiawatha light-rail line. Unlike buses, there were no drivers who checked tickets as riders boarded the vehicles. Instead, Metro Transit police do spot checks in the rail cars. Now I was learning that persons who could not produce tickets went to jail. Even for a person who used to work at Metro Transit, this punishment seemed on the draconian side.
I identified myself as someone who had been arrested for domestic assault, explaining the circumstances of my arrest. I said I would be spending my 70th birthday with the people in this room. (This happened not to be true. I spent my 70th birthday writing this narrative.) They said they would give me a birthday party when the time came. The man in the neighboring bunk gave me the nickname “old school”. There was a man in a bunk on the end nicknamed “bed rash” or something like that.
I learned that we were a group of older inmates. I was lucky not to have been thrown in a room with young punks out to prove themselves by abusing older people. The man in the neighboring bunk called our unit the “battered men’s shelter”. He would remain in the unit until March 15th. “Bed rash” expected to be released on the following day. A judge would be visiting the jail around noon on Saturday to make release decisions.
My fellow inmates speculated on my fate. Since I was a first-time offender, the court would probably treat me with leniency. The prosecutor would try to persuade me to plead guilty to a lesser charge, promising that I would be immediately released. If I were convicted in a trial, the most I could receive would be a $500 fine. There would be no time in the work house.
The disadvantage of accepting the prosecutor’s offer would be that, if I pled guilty to a lesser charge, I would then have a record. If a similar offense happened in the future, the penalty would be more severe. On the other hand, if I pled innocent, the prosecution would have to prove the case against me in trial. If my wife did not attend the trial, I would be unable to cross-examine the prosecution’s chief witness. The court would then be forced to dismiss the case against me. On balance, it seemed best not to plead guilty to anything.
With fake bravado, I said that I did not care what the court did. I knew what had really happened in the altercation with my wife. In fact, I was looking forward to spending several days in jail. After the stressful events of the past several days, this would be like a vacation. I would force the government to spend money to provide me with food and lodging while I sat here.
Promptly at 10:00 p.m., the ceiling lights went out. A dimmer set of night lights remained. That did not stop the conversation from continuing. Some of it concerned female deputies who were seen as sex objects. The man in the neighboring bunk told dirty jokes. The black man in the bunk to my right and the man above me joined the conversation. We were all having a good old time in this “Club Med” of the county jail.
I settled in for the night. The bed was reasonably comfortable. Even though it was hard for me to fall asleep, I was not unhappy or depressed. The group conversation eventually ended. The room became still.
I am released with bail
Then, around midnight, a deputy suddenly called my name. “McGaughey, get up. You’re being released.” It was a complete surprise. I was asked to gather my bedding and come out into the hall. Before leaving, I told my fellow inmates that I had enjoyed our brief time together. I shook hands with the man in the bunk next to mine.
Out in the hallway, I told the deputy that my fellow inmates were a great group of guys. He said he disagreed with that assessment. Even so, we walked amiably down the set of corridors back to the property room in the neighboring building. The deputy said he walked this course maybe fifteen or twenty times a day. I told him I wished I had his job since I needed the exercise.
Another deputy sat at a desk processing my release papers. My friend Joe had provided bail through the Goldberg bail bond firm. First, I needed to recover my clothing and other belongings from the property room. After dressing in my street clothes, I should take an elevator to the upstairs lobby and then walk a block and a half to the Goldberg office where I could use the telephone to call my ride. The directions to this office were shown in a map. I asked if I could keep my colored wrist band as a souvenir of this experience and was told I could.
my release papers
This deputy also gave me my release papers. Here I learned that I was being charged with “Domestic assault - misdemeanor - intentionally inflicts/ attempts to inflict bodily harm on another.” I wondered how the arresting officer could determine my intent if he had declined to ask me any questions.
My court appearance was set for Wednesday, February 23, 2011 at 9:30 a.m. The hearing would be held in the Public Safety Facility at 401 South 4th Avenue in Minneapolis. This was the building from which I was now being released.
The deputy also gave me a yellow sheet of paper marked “NO CONTACT ORDER / CONDITIONAL RELEASE ORDER”. It was signed by the printed signature of a district court judge whose name was Mark Wernick. The order stated “To the defendant: You are hereby released from custody and ordered to obey the following terms and conditions. Failure to comply with these conditions may result in your arrest.”
Four boxes were checked:
1. “Post Bail/Bond in the amount of $2,400.”
2. “ Do not commit any criminal offense. It is a crime for a person charged with a felony, convicted of a crime of violence, convicted of domestic assault or subject to an order for protection to possess a fire arm.”
3. “Do not have direct or indirect contact with (my wife’s name). (A box marked “female” was checked.) Stay away from (my home address) Except with a police escort to recover prescription medications, personal clothing, toiletries, and ___.”
“ You must appear at all COURT APPEARANCES.”
Condition number 3 was the kicker. Here I was being released in downtown Minneapolis right after midnight. The temperature was hovering around zero degrees Fahrenheit. The court order forbade me to stay in my own home which was within an hour’s walking distance from downtown. Either a ride was waiting for me and a place to sleep would be provided or I would be spending the next several days seeking late-night admission to a homeless shelter or sleeping under a bridge.
What kind of justice was this? How did the judge know that I would be a threat to my wife if I slept in my own home? Was there even a real judge, and not just a printed signature, behind this piece of paper? No, it seemed to be a “one-size-fits-all” policy in a judicial system run amok.
I had better luck at the property room. The clerk gave me my clothing back along with the wallet and check book. The cards and papers were in envelopes. Instead of cash, I had a check for $320 signed by Richard Stanek, Hennepin County Sheriff. I had allowed him to put a lawn sign in my yard when he first ran for Sheriff.
Then the property room clerk handed me a black-leather coat warm enough to withstand even the cold winter temperatures experienced in Minneapolis. She also produced a thick wool hat and a small pair of gloves. I asked where I might return the coat after using it. She said that I did not have to return the coat but, if I wished to do so, I could return it at this facility. It was my first experience with welfare for criminals or persons charged with crimes.
Screenshots of website
Picture of actual arrest band for William McGaughey
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