The verdict isn't in yet, but the fate of the 11 Branch Davidians being tried in San Antonio will probably turn on the jury's evaluation of the testimony of the government's two star witnesses, Victorine Hollingsworth and Kathy Schroeder. But the defendants don't believe that. Their fate, most of them believe, will turn upon God's plan, not upon anything said in court. Defense attorneys are caught in the middle. Most of them would be happy to have the case decided by what the government's star witnesses have said. But they must represent their clients, some of whom are concerned only about representing God. The case is an unusual one, in which it's hard to determine who, really, has the defendant's interests at heart- -because the interests of the defendants are not necessarily those that are presumed by proceedings in court. In court, it's supposed to be innocence or guilt not Judgement or Revolution-- that is being resolved. The two government witnesses, who testified early this month, were as different as could be: their Davidianism, or as they would say, God, had made them friends. Hollingsworth, a fifty-nine-year-old native of Guyana, is a heavy-set spinster. Kathy Schroeder, a dainty white American, 31, was widowed last year two times, she would say. Her legal husband and the father of her children, Davidian Michael Shroeder, was killed in the "second shooting" related to the Mount Carmel assault on Feb. 28 last year. Her lover, who considered her a wife, David Koresh, died in the Mt. Carmel blaze on April 19. When Hollingsworth
spoke to the court on Feb. 1, her manner was formal, like the Britons of our stereotypes. Shroeder, by contrast, could have been the ex-hippie girl next door. The separate testimony of these very different women placed guns in the hands of seven of the defendants. If what Hollingsworth and Schroeder say is believed barring a finding of self-defense the jury will probably decide that those seven defendants are at least guilty of the reduced charge to which Schroeder has confessed: not murder, but using a weapon to impede federal agents in the course of their work. That charge carries a ten-year sentence. But the indictment of the 11 accuses them of murdering federal agents, and conspiring to murder them. Conviction would bring life without parole. And testimony from Hollingsworth could help prove those full-strength charges,' if only against two of the accused. She told the court that defendants Brad Branch and Livingstone Fagan bragged of having shot ATF men. The problem for the government and the virtue of the women's testimony, from the point of view of the defense is that their testimony must be weighed against inherent conflicts. Hollingsworth may have heard Fagan brag, but at the moment when he should have been outdoors, firing at ATF agent Erio Evers who says that it was Fagan who wounded him she claims to have seen him indoors, near the Mt. Carmel kitchen. This conflict has given rise to a joke. "Livingstone Fagan will be the new Davidian prophet," reporters who've watched the trial say, "because he can
be in two places at the same time." Jurors may be telling the same joke among themselves. In a letter written last year, Hollingsworth also said that she'd seen Schroeder with a weapon during the siege, and the prosecution at one time claimed to have evidence, from an ATF agent, to the same effect. But Schroeder denies that it's true. Her story is that she was defenseless, and that the ATF whose agents say that they only returned fire shot several rounds into the room where she had huddled with her children. To make a coherent decision, jurors will have to decide which of the government's witnesses it believes: Hollingsworth, Shroeder or a half-dozen men from the ATF. A second, and perhaps more important, issue raised by the two star witnesses concerns the issue of self-defense. Hollingsworth testified that during the, Feb. 28 firefight, she heard a voice from inside the compound shouting, "Women and children are in here! Stop firing!", and further said that, "My fear never went away after Feb. 28." "We were afraid that they [the ATF and FBI] would bomb the place or something," Schroeder told the court. Neither star witness heard ATF agents announcing their purpose as they charged on Mt. Carmel, shouting the agents say "Search Warrant! Police! Lay Down!". And the prosecution was unable to elicit testimony from either woman that the Davidians fired the shots that started the fray. Both Hollingsworth and Schroeder testified that as Branch Davidians, they thought that God's true believers were
headed for an armed showdown with the forces of the Revelation's Beast. ThiB was simply a matter of prophecy, they said. Both denied that, as Branch Davidians, they had ever been part of any conspiracy or plan to murder government agents. Schroeder told the court that she believed that such a conspiracy might have existed, and she named those who she thought might have been a party to it. But all of them are dead! Her testimony leaves open the possibility which the defense wants to prove as fact that those on trial are mere dupes, members of a collective whose leadership, and only whose leadership, had secret, sinister plans. The San Antonio trial is in some ways reminiscent of the McCarthyite proceedings of the '40s and '50s. Both Hollingsworth and Schroeder, and Davidian defense attorneys have told the court, in effect, that the defendants were mere fellowtravelers. The real criminals were in Moscow, or in David Koresh's armory room, this line of argument says. It is reminiscent of the McCarthy era in another way, too. Some of the defense attorneys are engaging in strategic discussions with their clients which echo a McCarthy-era dispute. During the 'fifties, one group of Communists, those partial to the Soviet state, argued that their lawyers should pursue a defense based upon the Bill of Rights. When asked if they'd belonged to conspiratorial organizations, their strategy said, they were to take refuge in the Constitutional protection against self-incrimination, pleading the Fifth, and in their rights to 4
freedom of speech and association. But a minority strategy was pursued by a few Trotskyists (and during the 'teens and 'twenties, by dozens of Wobblies as well.) It held that the accused should use courts and the Congress as a forum. When asked about having conspired to overthrow the state, this strategy said, they were to reply, "Well, sure I did that, and here's why". Shroeder, Hollingsworth and the defense attorneys picture the defendants as fellowtravelers, not real conspirators--and some of the defendants feel slighted by that. Several of them want to waive their Fifth amendment rights and take the stand, to tell the world what they really believed. These defendants will also tell the court, if they get the chance, that they did, or would have, resorted to arms to defend David Koresh. Some of them believe that, on principle, they should not admit that they didn't use guns: having done nothing to defend David is, in their view, a matter of shame. More than one of the accused is opposed to the very idea of reduced or individualized charges, as well. "Let's play all or nothing: either life in prison or an acquittal," these defendants are saying. If the most innocent of them draws a sentence equal to that of the most guilty, that's fine with them, so long as they do not, in effect, bargain with the devil over the length of their prison terms. Theirs is a reasonable strategy, as far as they're concerned, because they won't be spending life in prison, anyway: the world will end within a few months, they believe.
It's as if, in the 'fifties, some Communists had believed that the Revolution was at hand, and that what counted was not spending a few months in jail, but the chance to issue a call through the courts and the press. This sort of attitude among defendants, some of whom, by their own admission, were not a part of David Koresh's inner circle, speaks to the strength of both Koresh's charisma and the lure of the theology that tied people like Hollingsworth and Schroeder into a group. The government's case is McCarthyite because it equates interpretation of Biblical prophecies to a conspiracy to commit crimes. Many of the Communists of the 'fifties believed that the overthrow of the government was inevitable, though not necessarily anytime soon. And some of the Davidians believed that the war between Christ's followers and the Beast wasn't on the horizon before,the ATF came charging at Mt. Carmel on Feb. 28. If the government succeeds in convicting the Davidians of conspiracy, it will thereafter be illegal to take certain actions, and to have certain conversations, based upon religious belief, even though those actions and coversations would be legal, absent such belief. None of this is new. It's analogous instead. Today, any American can advocate the theory of the violent overthrow of the state. And almost anybody can, for example, buy a gun. But buying a guy, when one is a member of a radical group, can lead to conspiracy charges, as the demise of the Black Panthers, among others, has shown. In American law 6
today, "Power flows from the barrel of a gun," is a criminal heresy of the Maoist sort. If the Davidians are convicted of conspiracy, the nation will have established that Luke 22:36 is a counterpart to Mao's dictum, and the New Testament, an analog to Red Book. Quoting Jesus of Nazareth, the scripture says, "..and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one."