Person asked why such a hateful mother would risk going to jail -- as Lisette Sr. did for five months in 1990 -- to visit her daughter. "To just remind me, you know, to keep on brainwashing me," the girl replied. "She told me, you know, 'If you tell anybody that I came, I'll go to jail, you know. This is our plan: I'm going to blame it all on Michelle. Don't tell anything Andres had done or what I have done, you know. Lie, you know. Say nothing bad ever happened. Make Rick and Michelle look like the bad ones. And then everything -- we'll be in the newspaper everywhere. We'll be famous and stuff.'"
Though the meetings were intended to be impromptu, Lisette, Jr., continually consulted a crib sheet compiled, as she explained to the judge, at the suggestion of her HRS caseworker. "The media has really hurt us," she noted. She then explained how she often learned of articles documenting her family's tribulations. "June [Shaw] would tell Michelle and sometimes, like, you know, I hear Michelle." And she openly implored the judge not to order reunification. "I'm stable in Michelle and Rick's house," she assured him.
A month later, on June 24, Judge Person called the parties together to announce his decision. The courtroom, for once, fell into a perfect hush. The judge soberly picked up a legal pad -- one of a dozen he had filled during the hearing -- and issued his order: The Nogues family would be reunited. In a brief statement, he stressed that he would encourage the parties to agree on a plan. If they couldn't, his tone implied, he would.
Outside court the Nogueses were encircled by TV cameras. Gievers herself stressed to reporters that the judge had not ordered contact between her clients and the Nogueses. That would only happen, she insisted, once a plan was approved. Her sense of defeat, however, was apparent, and she retreated from the Juvenile Justice Center bowed and silent.
The scene stood in sharp contrast to Gievers's defiant closing statement. Back then, on June 3, she had mustered her best rhetoric for a final assault. The evidence was indisputable, she told the judge: The Nogueses were a dysfunctional family. The youngest children had been abused in the Nogues home. They hated their parents, and rightfully, for encouraging media coverage of their troubles. For a full hour she raged.
Then her tone abruptly softened. Gievers turned to Lisette Nogues, who was seated a few feet away from her estranged daughter Michelle Porras. "Your honor," she began, "at this point I would ask that Michelle -- to see if we can have healing of this family begin -- I would ask that Michelle let her mother hold Michelle's youngest son, who is the grandson of Dr. Lisette Nogues."
The strange and unexpected maneuver provoked a chorus of protest.
"We're in closing argument!" shouted Jesus Bujan, the parents' attorney.
"I want to hold my children," Lisette Nogues cried.
The judge, who had overseen the hearing with preternatural patience, seized the moment to offer a few thoughts of his own. In considering the case, Person said, "I couldn't help but reflect on a statement that I heard at a breakfast meeting: 'We're basically all a bunch of wounded people trying to lead other wounded people.' And so much harm is done when we fail to realize that lawyers, volunteer workers, and, yes, even judges are included among those wounded people.
"I've heard the word 'forgiveness' from at least half of you. Maybe each one of you at one point or other said something about that word. And I'm going to end on this note. Before we can ever get to forgiveness, we have to get to confession."
Person removed his glasses. He surveyed the courtroom, hopeful this message might temper the agitated crowd gathered before him. For a moment his eyes settled on Gievers. Then, finding nothing wounded in the steely gaze that returned his, the judge looked elsewhere.
