The state alleges the 55-year-old Guill, of the small Sanders County community of Heron, repeatedly raped and molested his daughter over a period of 16 years. He is charged with two counts of incest, two counts of rape and one count of sexual abuse.
Boiled down, the defense's expert, Dr. Janice Ophoven, testified that the medical records of the daughter she reviewed revealed “defects” in the vaginal area that could have been caused by either consensual or non-consensual sex.
Dr. Karen Mielke, appearing for the prosecution, has called what Ophoven labeled a “defect” a “substantial injury” that could only have been caused by childbirth, a brutal rape or the penetration of a prepubescent girl.
Guill's daughter has never given birth.
The daughter has testified that her father began touching her inappropriately when she was 6, first attempted to have sex with her when she was 8 and successfully had sex with her when she was about 9. Over the years, the state alleges, the rapes came to include the girl - now a 23-year-old woman - being forced to engage in three-way sex with her father and her father's girlfriend when the daughter was a teenager.
Defense attorney Mike Sherwood of Missoula and prosecutor Dan Guzynski of the Montana Attorney General's Office got on the judge's bad side when they argued whether Ophoven could testify as to records she reviewed from the Panhandle Health Clinic in Sandpoint, where Guill's daughter had pelvic exams conducted while growing up.
No one from the clinic has testified.
Sherwood said that of the six to seven medical reports Ophoven had reviewed concerning Guill's daughter, at least four contained no comments regarding any irregularities that would have been noted in a pelvic exam.
Guzynski argued that only the nurses who conducted the exams should be allowed to testify as to what they saw, and added he understood from the defense team that they had “made contact” with Panhandle officials and “chose not to bring them in here.”
Sherwood glanced at Guzynski and warned him to never again represent his actions to the court.
“I've fought tooth and nail” to get someone from the clinic to testify, Sherwood said, but he has never been in contact with anyone at Panhandle, only with the clinic's attorney.
“I'm going to put both you guys in jail and you can sit down there and talk it out,” Christopher told them. The judge warned the two to only address each other through her, or “Somebody will be cooling their heels in the Sanders County Detention Facility.”
The jury had been dismissed for a recess before the exchanges occurred.
Otherwise, Tuesday was largely a battle of the experts.
Ophoven, who described herself as a pediatric forensic pathologist, said the DVD of a pelvic examination of Guill's daughter done at First Step Resource in Missoula - the same DVD Mielke reviewed for her testimony - revealed an “irregularity” or “defect” about one-eighth of an inch in size.
The injury, Ophoven said, was consistent with one that “occurred during sex - either consensual or non-consensual.“
“There is no way,” Ophoven went on, “to make a determination whether the injury occurred before puberty.”
Recalled to the stand, Mielke, the medical director at First Step, said she would never ask someone with Ophoven's background to review records in this case “for the same reason I wouldn't go to an asthma doctor for a toothache. The scope of a practitioner of forensic pathology wouldn't have the experience” to review such records.
On cross-examination, Ophoven said she was not board-certified in pediatric medicine, had not performed a vaginal examination on a live patient since the mid-1970s, and had determined incorrect causes of death at least twice during her years conducting autopsies.
Specifically, Guzynski asked her about a case where she initially ruled “accidental death” in the case where a person later turned out to have been murdered and the body placed in a staged car wreck, and another where she put down “natural causes” for a child who it later turned out was smothered by its mother.
On redirect, she explained that the first person had gone through the windshield during the staged wreck, and the skull fracture she found was consistent with the information she had at the time. Likewise, she said, there was no way to know the mother had smothered the child until, 15 years later, the mother admitted it.
In addition to being reimbursed for her expenses, Ophoven said she was paid $4,000 by the defense to review Guill's daughter's medical records, and another $4,000 to testify.
She has been studying tissue injuries for 30 years, Ophoven told Sherwood on redirect, and repeated her conclusion that “you can't look at injuries” such as the one to Guill's daughter “and determine whether they happened through consensual or non-consensual sex.”
Four other witnesses were recalled to the stand late Tuesday afternoon.
The alleged victim was questioned about her sex life since leaving Heron. Another, Sanders County Undersheriff Rube Wrightsman, said his presence was requested when Sherwood took photographs of Guill's pubic hair, and testified the hair in a photograph Sherwood showed him Tuesday was brown.
A deposition taken earlier by Sherwood had Guill's daughter calling it gray, and the daughter testified last week that the pubic hair was black with some gray in it.
Sue Stevens, who sees both Guill's daughter and the daughter's mother, Candace, in counseling, told what Candace related to her about an incident involving his partner in Advanced Systems, a heating and air conditioning firm.
Guill's longtime girlfriend and current wife, Nicole Christensen Guill, has testified that Guill and his wife broke off normal marital relations in the early 1990s, after Candace had an alleged affair.
Candace has testified her husband kept asking her to sleep with different men, and she finally did, with his friend Rick Christensen, Nicole's brother and Douglas Guill's business partner.
“She related that she resisted and resisted,” Stevens said, but when she finally relented, “she felt pleased that she had pleased Douglas, but then she felt dirty.”
Douglas watched the encounter, Stevens said Candace told her, and afterward told his wife she was “filthy.”
He also “pressured her to do it again.”
Candace decided to prove her love for Douglas she wouldn't do it again, but “he became enraged and punished her.”
Normally protected by patient-client confidentiality, Guill's daughter and ex-wife signed waivers allowing law enforcement to examine Stevens' notes from her sessions with the Guills, and Christopher ruled they be admitted as evidence during pretrial motions.
Guill's daughter is “extremely distraught” that the notes from their sessions were made public, Stevens said.
“She's horrified about how the notes have been handled,” Stevens said.
Christopher must return to Polson on Wednesday to deal with other cases in her jurisdiction. The Guill trial resumes at 1:30 p.m. Thursday at the Sanders County Courthouse, and is now expected to last at least until Friday.
Reporter Vince Devlin can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or at vdevlin@missoulian.com.
|
 |
 |
Add your comment now! Write your comment in the form below.
(Email address is for verification only. If you'd like to email a story, look for the link above)