by Burl Barer
“It is a difficult job,” Sawyer told the jury in his opening remarks. “I think you are going to conclude quite reasonably that what happened there on July twenty-first in the afternoon was, in fact, an act of self-defense by a woman who justifiably believed that she was in danger of losing her life.”
The prosecution’s witness list was extensive. They built their case with sequential in-depth testimony from law enforcement, crime scene specialists and everyone who interacted with Rhonda Glover and Jimmy Joste, leading up to the shooting. Jurors heard of Glover’s extensive training at both Top Gun and at Red’s, and details of her movements on the day of the shooting.
Rhonda Glover’s defense team was, despite presumption of innocence, on the defensive. There were no witnesses they could call to refute the truth of Glover shooting Joste. The only witness who could put forth testimony of self-defense was Rhonda Glover. Forbidden to mention Glover’s mental condition and paranoid delusions, Sawyer could only hope that someone, somehow, would “open the door” by inadvertently mentioning those topics.
“The door was pretty much kicked in,” recalled Jeff Reynolds, “by the time real estate agent Debbie McCall took the stand. The prosecution called her as a witness to refute the idea that Rhonda Glover was a successful businesswoman who purchased the Mission Oaks house with her own funds.”
“I represented Rhonda as a buyer on the purchase of her Mission Oaks property that was being sold in 2000,” testified McCall. “She asked me if she could have some of my commission, and I said, ‘Well, it is illegal for me to give my commission to anyone, unless they are a licensed agent.’ I did agree to give her five hundred dollars. She called me on the day before closing and she said, ‘You know, you agreed to give me all of your commission,’ and I said, ‘No, I didn’t.'”
Glover, according to McCall, became quite irritated. “She told me that she didn’t have enough money to pay me my commission. She said, ‘Jimmy didn’t give me enough money, and I need more.’ Well, I didn’t take any commission on that sale.” It may have been Rhonda’s name on the property, but it was Jimmy’s money that made the purchase possible.
“Did you ever have occasion,” Bryan Case asked McCall, “to spend the night at her house?”
“Yes, I did,” replied the witness. “She called me a couple times and told me that she was scared because she thought there were demons in her attic, so I told her I would come over and spend the night with her.”
The word “demons” was hardly out of her mouth when hell broke loose. “I guess I don’t understand the demons in the attic,” said Judge Lynch to Case.
“Well, I wasn’t expecting—”
“Why don’t you talk to your witnesses ahead of time,” asked Judge Lynch rhetorically.
“I did talk to her, Judge,” said Case.
“And you told her not to talk about the demons in the attic?”
“Last time we spoke,” replied Bryan Case, “I did not tell her specifically not to, Your Honor. I didn’t tell her to not mention the demons. I’m sorry.”
The jury was instructed to disregard the remark about the demons. “We could go down that road, with the demons in the attic,” said Judge Lynch, “but I don’t think any of us really want to go there.”
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Rhonda Glover freely admitted to difficulties with alcohol, and women who abuse men are frequently alcoholics. “Alcohol abuse is a common harbinger of domestic violence,” asserted Donna McCooke, health care professional in the United Kingdom. “Personality disorders are also primary characteristics of women who are violent and abusive. Borderline personality disorder is a diagnosis that is found almost exclusively with women. Women are three hundred times more likely to have this particular condition. Approximately one to two percent of all women have a borderline personality disorder. At least fifty percent of all domestic abuse and violence against men is associated with women who have a borderline personality disorder. The disorder is also associated with severe mood swings, lying and sexual issues, such as lack of sexual response, or excessive sexual behavior. Abuse and violence are behaviors chosen by a woman to cause physical, sexual or emotional damage and worry or fear.”
Women who abuse their husbands or boyfriend are characterized as being promiscuous, selfish and narcissistic. “They tend to be attention whores,” asserted researcher Travis Webb. “And they get addicted to the drama they stir up. It’s like they live in an emotional state of 911. They lie, and use anger or actual physical violence to get what they want and to get noticed. The more crafty ones hide their true nature by being affable and polite in public.”
Women who are abusive toward men usually have unrealistic expectations and make unrealistic demands of men. These women will typically experience repeated episodes of depression, anxiety, frustration and irritability, which they attribute to a lack of support or understanding by men. They blame men rather than admit their own problems, take responsibility for how they live their lives or do something about how they make themselves miserable.
“Almost all abusive women will fake injuries, and they consider themselves excellent actresses,” stated Webb. “They cast themselves in the role of victim, while they are, in reality, emotional terrorists and social tyrants. Sooner or later they falsely accuse their husband or partner of a crime, and often toss in allegations of child abuse. A close look shows that claims of domestic violence accusation has become their current weapon of choice, because it is easy to fabricate. They love tearing down their husband or partner’s reputation, and get some sort of weird delight in raining destruction upon their husband or partner. ”
“A troubled or disturbed woman,” observed health care expert McCooke, “may often insist that it is the man who needs treatment, just as a violent woman will often accuse her victim of being an abuser. They blame a man for how they feel, often medicate with alcohol and/or drugs, and when men can’t make them feel better, they get angry and think that the man is doing this on purpose. Quite often, if the woman has borderline personality disorder, or other forms of mental illness, this will be accompanied by delusions and paranoia. A woman such as this may also be emotionally intense and of strong will.”
Whether or not you can kill someone and still receive your inheritance is one of the classic questions in American law. “It is a famous argument and a real brainteaser,” commented Fred Wolfson. “Once upon a time, there was a man named Elmer Palmer who poisoned his grandfather in order to get the money ‘dear old granddad’ was going to leave him in his will. Palmer was found guilty of murdering his grandfather. The question was whether or not Elmer should still get the inheritance. The question was put to two judges, and the two of them did not agree.
“Judge Earl thought that Elmer, by killing his grandfather, had forfeited his right to collect the inheritance, but Judge Gray thought that the court had no right to make that decision. After all, he reasoned, the grandfather made a will. If the court refuses to honor it, then the court is making the will, not the grandfather.”
If the law does not specifically state that killing a person keeps you from getting your inheritance from them, then you get that inheritance.
In Texas, if you kill someone, you can’t claim your inheritance from them. Simple.
“Jimmy’s will,” said John Thrash, executor of the Joste estate, “was dated September 27, 2001.” Five days after allegedly putting Rhonda Glover in the hospital, Jimmy Joste willed her $5,000 a month for life, and established a trust for their son. “There was no money left at the time of his death,” said Thrash. “There really wasn’t enough money there to pay any bills, let alone make any disbursements. Jimmy set up a trust fund for his son, but didn’t set aside any funds in advance. Rhonda would get, as I mentioned, five thousand dollars a month for life, but not if she is found guilty of his murder. ”
Until 1982, anyone who called premeditated murder self-defense would have been laughed out of court. But in 1982, Lenore Walker won the first legal victory for her women-on
ly theory of learned helplessness, which suggested that a woman whose husband or boyfriend batters her becomes fearful for her life and is helpless to leave him, so if she kills him, it is really self-defense—even if she has premeditated his murder. The woman is said to be a victim of battered woman syndrome. Is it possible a woman could kill, let’s say, for insurance money? Lenore Walker would say no: “Women don’t kill men unless they’ve been pushed to a point of desperation.”
Ironically, feminists have often said, “There’s never an excuse for violence against a woman.” Now they were saying, “But there’s always an excuse for violence against a man … if a woman does it.”
“Glover’s lawyer was sort of heading in that direction,” commented Fred Wolfson, “but there wasn’t sufficient documented evidence of violence against Glover by Joste to make it plausible, and the only evidence of any kind of assault by Jimmy Joste was the Barton Creek Country Club incident back in 2000, and he did take the fall for that.”
Joe James Sawyer did not agree one bit with the state’s portrayal of the incident at the Barton Creek Country Club. “We know as an absolute truth that Jimmy Joste, a man of considerable means, pleaded no contest to a charge of assault and family violence in open court on a given day back in 2000. So what? The state wants you to think that he wasn’t guilty because Rhonda admitted on the stand that she tried to get him off the hook. Yes, she is the one who put up the money, or called one of her friends to bail him out that night, because she felt bad. Well,” said Sawyer, “if you believe that, then you must also believe that the county attorney of Travis County is so morally bankrupt that he would continue to prosecute a man he knows to be innocent. The state says that she spoke to the county attorney, and that she submitted an affidavit. Now, do you really think someone said, ‘Gee, you know this guy is not guilty, but let’s go ahead and prosecute him, anyway?’
“You have to believe that a man of Mr. Joste’s means, his educational background—and the lawyer he could afford—would walk into court and not contest a criminal charge when he knows he is not guilty. You have to believe his lawyer is so venal that he ignores his prime duty as an attorney, and that is—you may not plead a person guilty to a crime if you believe that person is not guilty! ”
Sawyer then offered a compromise scenario, one in which the state of Texas, in good faith, believed that if it took Jimmy Joste to trial on a charge of violent assault, that the jury would find him guilty. “If that was indeed the situation, then it would explain why a decent, ethical lawyer would say to his client, ‘You know, you can get up there on the stand and say it didn’t happen that way, but there is a very real risk, given the other evidence, that the jury could find you guilty. If they do find you guilty, and get real carried away, they could give you a year in jail. So I suggest that instead of fighting this and running that risk, take advantage of the option of pleading no contest.'”
Sawyer made it clear that as far as he and the previous courts were concerned, Jimmy Joste was a proven abusive wife beater. Rhonda Glover took this one disputed incident and used it as a springboard for accusations that were completely unfounded. “The police were at my house at least once a month,” insisted Rhonda Glover. “I was always calling them because of Jimmy’s abuse.”
“There is no evidence,” insisted Bryan Case, “that any police officer went out to her place on Mission Oaks in response to a call that he was abusing her. There is none. It is all in her head. It does not exist. She said that the police were called out to the Mission Oaks house once a month because of family disturbances. Where is the evidence of that? If that were true, there would be police officers lined up to testify about how they went out there and saw her abused. Where are they? Where are the police reports? They don’t exist.”
The police reports that did exist were all ones where officers confronted a delusional woman who claimed there were bodies in the trash, people in her sink and demons in her walls. The times that police encountered Jimmy Joste at the residence, he was the calm, centered, cooperative gentleman who assured police that Rhonda Glover was not a danger to herself or others.
“Rhonda, when she’s not out of her mind, is very personable and pleasant,” stated a longtime acquaintance. “She had friends, of course, but they were party pals. And even those who seriously and honestly cared for her discovered that she could turn on them in a heartbeat, or, for that matter, turn toward them in friendship. She was unpredictable, to be sure. Vivacious, sexy, and Jimmy Joste absolutely loved her no matter what. Even if her other friends fell away, or were scared away.”
“I have friends,” said Rhonda. “I have lots of friends, but do you think my lawyer got any of them to come speak on my behalf? No, he didn’t.”
“Where are the people who will say that she is truthful?” asked Bryan Case. “Where? Can you imagine that? Not one person will come forward and say that she is truthful, not one person will say that she is nonviolent. You know how many people she knew. She knew people in Houston. She knew people in Austin. They couldn’t get anybody, because everyone who knows her knows who she is, knows that she is capable of doing exactly what she did.”
None of Jimmy Joste’s friends have bad things to say about Rhonda—other than she murdered someone they loved. None of them say horrid things about her for two reasons: they don’t want her son hearing any more bad things about his mother, and they all are familiar with her volatile and almost predictable unpredictability.
“I would never say anything bad about Rhonda,” confirmed Rocky Navarro, and even Danny Davis balanced criticism with compassion.
“What it boils down to,” observed Fred Wolfson, “is that everyone knows, or knew, that Rhonda was afflicted with a mental illness, and that Jimmy loved her, anyway. Also, Jimmy himself changed in the last few years of his life due to a combination of drug use and emotional environment. He, too, became delusional, although not with anything near the consistency and depth of Rhonda Glover.”
This speculation raised a question not posed previously, and a theory not formerly uttered. It was possible, in light of Jimmy Joste’s own history of peculiar behavior in the final years of his life, that his entire plan of going off to Canada to live as a happy family was an ardent desire and longing that he envisioned transforming into reality, but had no foundation in reality.
An examination of the situation sets the stage for Joste’s plan: He lost custody of his son following the Barton Creek Incident. Rhonda also lost custody of Ronnie, and took off rather than surrender the boy to her mother, Mrs. Shotwell. It is easy to understand how Jimmy Joste could conceive the plan of all three of them taking off to Canada. Once there, they could not be compelled to return.
Perhaps he believed that he could—through a combination of sincere love, charm, a $350,000 engagement ring, a significant amount of cash and the power of persuasion—convince Rhonda to go with him to Canada. Of course he had no idea that she was completely convinced that he was Satan and his eyes were on American currency, and that he was planning to kill her.
We have two people operating on two different sets of delusions: Jimmy, convincing himself that if he and Rhonda go to Canada and get married, everything will be all right. Rhonda, thoroughly convinced that Jimmy is a murderer with plans to sacrifice their child in a pagan ritual. When their delusions collide in the Austin home, death is the result. Jimmy calls out, asking for his son, excited at the prospect of seeing him. Rhonda takes it as a bone-chilling threat.
Realizing that the two of them are alone, Jimmy proposes that they make love. He craves sex with Rhonda, as she is the woman he loves. When Jimmy approaches, Rhonda feels in danger for her life. It may not be a reasonable fear for a reasonable person, but Rhonda was not reasonable. What you believe greatly influences how you interpret what you experience. For her, her fear was real. She was psychotic and the actions she took were what she thought was right in her psychotic state of mind.
“I think the main message here is that for a long time it was know
n that this was a woman with severe mental-health issues. This tragedy could have been averted. Again I must ask,” said Rocky Navarro, “what the hell motive could Rhonda have for killing Jimmy? She sure didn’t kill him just because she was tired of him, or he ran out of money.”
“The state doesn’t have to prove motive,” responded Bryan Case, “and everybody wants to understand why things happen. What you have to understand in this case is that a correct, right-thinking person cannot fathom the magnitude of this event. Not really, because you can’t put yourself there, you can’t put yourself in that position, in her position, because it doesn’t make sense until you realize that Jimmy Joste is obsessed with her.
“What is hard to understand,” said Case, “is that someone would actually go through this much trouble to kill someone to get them out of their life. Rhonda Glover could not get Jimmy Joste out of her life, and Jimmy was always giving her more money, showering her with things. She couldn’t say no.”
Getting Jimmy Joste out of her life because he was broke or sexually unappealing wasn’t Rhonda’s motivation, but that didn’t matter. The “why she killed him” wasn’t something the prosecution had to prove. They only had to prove that it was murder, that Rhonda Glover shot him dead when doing so was not necessary to keep him from killing her.
There is an old joke that—in light of this tragedy—takes on new meaning. A psychiatrist, offering an evaluation of a patient, reported that the patient is doing well. She had progressed from “everyone is trying to control my life,” to “no one cares about me.”
“I have come to realize that many of my clients suffer from mental disease or serious intellectual impairment,” stated New York defense attorney Scott H. Greenfield.