Assistant public defender Curtis Beckman contends that Dennis Roper was "manifesting one of his violent personalities" that night: "Ann Roper was protecting herself against her psychotic, violent, knife-wielding husband on April 29, 1991." That, Beckman argues, is what led Ann--as drunk as she apparently was that night--to dial 911. Dennis insists Ann called 911 after she stabbed him and then lied to operators about what was going on. And he's just as sure that Warren wasn't out that night. Experts note, however, that MPD sufferers generally don't know when a personality has taken over.
"They're trying to say she stabbed me out of self-defense," he says, "but I did not hit her, I did not strike her. I wasn't asking for any of this."
The Roper case soon created a stir on several legal fronts. A key issue has been whether Ann Roper's attorney has the right to pore over Dennis' medical records to help establish her self-defense argument.
Prosecutors have tried to deny her lawyer access to these records, citing the 1990 amendment to the state's constitution known as the Victims' Bill of Rights. The amendment protects crime victims by allowing them "to refuse an interview, deposition or other discovery request by the defendant. . . ."
Superior Court Judge Robert Gottsfield--then presiding in the Roper case--heard from both sides in a pretrial hearing last November. The most important witness turned out to be Phoenix psychiatrist Thomas Thomas.
Dr. Thomas testified about the fragmentation of the "core" person into separate personalities. He said it may be impossible for a person with multiple personality disorder, such as Dennis Roper, to observe an event and then to accurately relate it on the witness stand.
Gottsfield agreed. "The victim's mental illness could have adversely affected his ability to perceive, recall or accurately relate what occurred on the day in question," the judge ruled, ordering prosecutors to turn over Dennis' medical records to the defense. The defense had asked for those records in order to prove Dennis' instability and to cast doubt upon his credibility as a witness.
Prosecutors balked. They asked the Arizona Court of Appeals to overturn the ruling. But writing for a unanimous court, Judge Philip Toci said Ann's rights as a defendant overrode the Victims' Bill of Rights, and her defense was entitled to Dennis' records. The import of that decision goes beyond this case. In his decision, Toci cautioned that the amendment "should not be a sword in the hands of victims" to keep the accused from mounting a legitimate defense. Citing the "enormous ramifications" of the appellate ruling, prosecutors have taken the matter to the Arizona Supreme Court. The high court is expected to rule next month. The Roper case then will return to Superior Court for trial or plea bargain.
Dennis has continued to have brushes with the law. Last April a Phoenix city court judge put him on two years' probation for his role in a November 1991 fight with the grandson of the woman with whom he now lives. Though Dennis pleaded guilty to a charge of criminal damage, he blames the grandson for a "temper problem" that allegedly led to the clash.
Summarizing his life with ex-wife Ann, Dennis says, "It was a mistake for us to get married. And I wasn't the perfect husband. But she's going to have to live with the shame of what she did to me for the rest of her life."
Ann Roper was released from jail to a center for battered women. Her friend Julie Hinz holds out hope that Ann may find a better life if she isn't sent to prison.
"When I visited her at the jail, I saw someone who was emotionally dead," Hinz says. "But she has something to offer the world, she really does. And when this is over, at least she'll know that Dennis--all the Dennises--will be out of her life forever."
STUDENTS OF CRIME... v9-02-92
