Thursday, September 22, 2011

The Unforgettable Ms. McKinney


THE UNFORGETTABLE MS. McKINNEY

© 2011 by Hugh Stevens

            To borrow a phrase from the Reader’s Digest, Joyce McKinney is “one of the most unforgettable characters I ever met,” but I had not thought about her in years until a couple of months ago, when I read The New York Times’ review of “Tabloid,” a new documentary film about her by Errol Morris.
If you have been fortunate enough to have had Ms. McKinney escape your notice until now, here’s a summary of her background by Washington Post writer Michael O’Sullivan:

Though McKinney is less than a household name in the United States, in 1977 the former beauty queen from small-town North Carolina made headlines in England when reports surfaced that she had abducted a 19-year-old Mormon missionary in London named Kirk Anderson, allegedly holing up with him in a remote cottage for several days of nearly nonstop sex. Handcuffs may or may not have been involved. And Anderson — with whom McKinney apparently shared a romantic history of some kind back in Utah — may or may not have been a willing participant. Once the British tabloids got hold of the story, it turned into a lurid tale of the “manacled Mormon,” as headlines at the time referred to Anderson.

            To me, Morris’ choice of Ms. McKinney as a documentary subject is unfathomable --especially now that I have seen a DVD version of “Tabloid”-- but many critics, including the legendary Roger Ebert and The New Yorker’s David Denby, have given the film high marks (though Denby did label it “strange”).   Ms. McKinney herself has stimulated interest in the film – and numerous postings on You Tube® -- by showing up at festival screenings and loudly denouncing both Morris and his movie.
            Although Morris’ film will tell most viewers much more about Ms. McKinney than they probably care to know, it does not mention the libel suit that she filed against The Avery Journal in the late 1980s.   Together with Kelly Johnson, a Newland attorney, I defended the suit, which is how I came to meet the eccentric, self-absorbed woman whom Morris inexplicably has rescued from the obscurity to which she is so richly entitled.
            Ms. McKinney’s lawsuit against her hometown’s weekly newspaper and its editor, Bertie Cantrell, arose out of an altercation in August, 1986 between her and her neighbor, Judy Benfield, over the incessant barking of Ms. Benfield’s hound dogs.   After exchanging threats and insults, the two women swore out criminal warrants charging each other with “communicating threats.”   The Journal’s first story about their dispute included the following paragraphs:

Miss McKinney made international headlines several years ago for allegedly kidnapping and raping a Mormon missionary in London, England.  Miss McKinney fled Europe before the trial was over and it still listed in INTERPOL although authorities in England have made no attempt to extradite her.

[Mrs. Benfield’s] warrant had not been served at press time as the Avery County Sheriff’s Department has been unable to locate Miss McKinney.

The Journal’s story the following week included these statements:

Sheriff Clinton Phillips said he notified both women to come to the jail and be served, as is often done in misdemeanor cases against county residents.  Judy Benfield came to the jail for her warrant to be served against her and signed a written promise pending court action.  Joy McKinney never came in to have the warrant served and make bond and has apparently left the county in an attempt to avoid arrest.

            A few weeks after the articles appeared Ms. McKinney sued the Journal, Ms. Cantrell and Mrs. Benfield for libel.   She voluntarily dismissed that suit in September, 1987.   In January 1988 she filed a similar suit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, which swiftly dismissed it on jurisdictional grounds.   Undaunted, she re-instituted her state court action in July, 1988. 
            My first face-to-face encounter with Ms. McKinney was at her deposition, where she turned out to be one of the most combative, argumentative witnesses I have encountered in more than 40 years of law practice.  She was feisty, fidgety and frustrating.  She could have given Bill Clinton lessons in hair-splitting.   Two of her favorite techniques for evading or finessing a question were to pretend that she didn’t understand it, or to respond to it with a question of her own.  Another was to launch into a soliloquy about how she was a victim of “Mormon lies” or how Ms. Cantrell had conspired with Ms. Benfield to ruin her reputation. 
            We based the Journal’s opposition to Ms. McKinney’s libel suit on the “wire service” defense, a legal doctrine which provides that a writer is entitled to rely on and repeat factual statements published by reputable news organizations such as the Associated Press so long as he or she has no reason to believe that the statements are untrue.   At the time, the defense had not been recognized in any North Carolina case, but Ms. Cantrell’s files were replete with stories about Ms. McKinney’s U. K. escapades clipped from The Charlotte Observer and other newspapers from around the country.   When we confronted Ms. McKinney with the clippings she didn’t deny that the stories had been published, but dismissed their contents as lies planted by the Mormons to discredit her. 
We also asked Ms. McKinney about stories published in two British tabloid papers, The Daily Express and The Daily Mirror, including an article in the latter that was illustrated by a nude photo of her sitting on a horse (which also was bare-back).   Ms. McKinney testified that “to the best of my memory” she had never posed for such a photograph.  She theorized that the photo was created either by superimposing her face on another woman’s body or by stealing and “retouching” an actual photo of her in which she had been clothed.
            The Avery County sheriff provided us with an affidavit confirming the Journal’s statements that Ms. McKinney was still listed in INTERPOL and had avoided his attempts to serve her with Ms. Benfield’s warrant.
            Armed with Ms. McKinney’s deposition transcript and the sheriff’s affidavit, we moved for summary judgment on behalf of the newspaper.  Judge Robert W. Kirby, a seasoned and phlegmatic superior court judge from Gaston County, heard arguments on our motion in Newland in October, 1988.    Terms of civil superior court didn’t happen very often in Avery County in 1988 (they still don’t), so the courtroom was packed with parties, witnesses and potential jurors.  The jury box was occupied by out-of-town lawyers who had come to argue other cases.  One of them was John Edwards, who was then an associate in a Raleigh law firm and whose own tabloid notoriety lay far in the future.
            As Ms. McKinney’s lawyer and I made our presentations to Judge Kirby,  she grew more and more agitated.  She began to squirm in her chair, and both her facial expressions and her body language conveyed her rising annoyance.  Finally she began interjecting increasingly loud vocal comments, saying “Your Honor, I have to live here!” and (referring to me) “I’m tired of hearing him lie over there!” and “I just can’t stand these lies anymore!”    When she refused the admonitions of both Judge Kirby and her own lawyer to sit down and be quiet, the judge suggested that she go outside, saying “it’s not necessary for her to be here.”  Her father, who was among the startled spectators, came up out of the audience and led her up the aisle to the back of the courtroom.  As the door closed behind her she was still protesting.
            Judge Kirby granted our motion for summary judgment.  Ms. McKinney appealed.  In July, 1990 the North Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed Judge Kirby’s ruling.   The court’s opinion recognized the “wire service” defense, saying that most of the information at issue

 . . . was taken from wire service stories published in such newspapers as The Charlotte Observer, The Winston-Salem Journal, The Asheville Citizen, The Greensboro Daily News, and The News and Observer. One of these articles was an Associated Press dispatch published in the Charlotte Observer on 24 November 1977 which reported the sworn courtroom testimony of Kirk Anderson, the Mormon missionary plaintiff was charged in England with kidnapping. The graphic testimony charges that plaintiff and an accomplice abducted Anderson and chained him to a bed, at which time, plaintiff performed oral sex upon him and, having stimulated him against his will, proceeded to have sexual intercourse with Anderson against his will.
Defendant Cantrell relied on reputable wire services and daily newspapers in writing the first part of her summary quoted above. The articles in the Avery Journal also were substantially in accord with the contents of the stories relied upon. As a matter of law, we do not think that Cantrell’s reliance on the articles could constitute negligence on her part. . . . There was nothing inconsistent or improbable in the articles upon which Cantrell relied which should have prompted her to investigate the reliability of the stories. This is a case in which application of what has been termed the “wire service” defense in other jurisdictions is appropriate. The sources relied upon by defendant Cantrell are known for their accuracy and are regularly relied upon by local newspapers without independent verification.
            The court also ruled that Ms. Cantrell was justified in relying on the sheriff as the source of information about Ms. McKinney’s being listed in INTERPOL and as to the status of the warrant sworn out against her by Ms. Benfield.  “In fact,” the court said, “consulting a law enforcement agency may have been the only avenue for obtaining this information.”
            As far as I was concerned, the Court of Appeals’ opinion closed the book on Joyce McKinney, but the release of “Tabloid” re-opened it.  The movie has not reached any North Carolina theaters yet, and it’s not up to me to tell you whether to go see it when it does.  All I will say is that for me it proved something that I have long suspected: that to Joyce McKinney, embarrassing publicity is infinitely preferable to no publicity at all.