TWELVE ANGRY PEOPLE

Last week I told you about my experience as a juror on a Felony child molestation case. Well, it didn’t get any easier when we were handed the case.

We had twelve people from all walks of life in that room. There was a professor, an oil rig worker and, as you know, a writer and everything in between. I was selected as the foreperson.

There were three charges.

Count I Child Molestation (when he touched her breast)

Count II Child Molestation (when he touched her… elsewhere)

Count III Enticing a minor (when he asked her down stairs)

We were allowed to use the evidence of him pleading guilty to Kelly, Grace’s friend, only if we thought it showed a pattern of behavior.

STUPID, Kelly’s mother, had been angry. It was VERY hard to tell who she was angry at. I think she was mad at the WORLD. Tony had fathered three daughters with her (Kelly was NOT one of them). The defense attorney said that she was mad because Tony had been cheating on her and therefore this was why she had lied and said he had told her he wanted to see her daughter’s breast. Of course, this doesn’t really work because she had given him an alibi for the night in question with Grace. When Tony testified, he said that he had cheated, but so had she. He said they were off again and on again.

Also, with the polygraph, the ONLY important question he had been asked was if he had touched Grace’s vagina. Remember this is the question he had failed with over 99% certainty as far as the examiner was concerned. He had been deemed an expert by the court, with no objection from the defense.

Now, I’ll tell you a bit about how I felt along with some of the arguments.

Personally, I hate those machines. I think they have some merit, but for the most part I think it’s junk science. The examiner went through great pains to tell how the machine worked, however, it was long and arduous and complicated. And I don’t think a man’s life should be decided on the bases on whether a machine said he was lying.

The testimony was more important to me. Even though she was the defenses’ witness, STUPID, was very telling. First off, she all but admitted she would be with the man if he was out of jail—after all, she had three daughters by him. So, I figured she would lie to get him out. In fact, she only admitted that Tony had told her he wanted to see her daughter’s breast after being read her statement. “Yeah, he said it, OK?” she had said.

Personally, I think she was angry because she knew no matter how this turned out, SHE looked bad. I wonder why in the HELL her children had not been taken away from her. I still wonder.

One of the important things to me was that Grace’s story had remained consistent for the whole five years.

Another important thing was that now Grace is 18 and lives in another state. So the defense would have us believe that she had held on to a lie for five years, through many states, and now she traveled back (I assume on her own dime) to lie to the court. Also her testimony was powerful.

Another powerful testimony was her mother’s. The woman was holding back tears as she remembered what her daughter had told her. This had her hurt. It was obvious. And that, to me, meant she believed what her daughter had said, therefore she wasn’t lying or having her daughter lie. Which had been another argument.

But, to me, the most telling was the guilty plea. And it was very similar to the incident with Grace. He took Kelly down stairs. Asked for a hug/sit on lap. And rubbed her shoulders.

When Tony testified, he said he only got Kelly out of bed because he wanted to discuss his relationship with her mother. This to me is ridiculous. Nobody gets a child out of bed (or should) to talk about adult matters. This makes NO sense.

And if it doesn’t make sense, its not true.

OK, so what do you think? Have you changed your mind?

On Trial for His Life

A couple of weeks ago, twelve of us sat down to decide the fate of a man accused of two counts of child molestation and one count of enticing a minor.

We had limited evidence in this case, as there is wont to be in cases like this. The girl, who we’ll call Grace, had been twelve when she spent the night at her best friend’s house (we’ll call Kelly)and said that Kelly mother’s (we’ll call STUPID) boyfriend told her to come down stairs so that he could talk to her. While down there, he asked her to hung him and kiss him, and he tried to rub her shoulders. She said she tried to run away, but he grabbed her arm, pulled her back down stairs, and begged her not to tell anyone, and that he would never do it again.

She said she believed him.

The following weekend, Grace spent the night again (she did so EVERY weekend). She said that about two o’clock in the morning (she guessed) that the boyfriend (we’ll call Tony) came into the room where she slept on the top bunk of a bunk bed with Kelly (no one slept on the bottom). Tony woke her up with a condom in his hand, placed his hand on her breast and…in (literally) other places. (Sorry, guys, just don’t want to talk about this too much.)

Grace said that she started to cry, and begged him to stop. She said then Tony began crying and left the room. She said she then went back to sleep.

Her mother then testified that a week later that she told Grace that it was time to go back to Kelly’s house, but the girl didn’t want to go. This was VERY unusual. She asked the girl why, and finally Grace told her.

Then she told the mother’s best friend.

Then she told the cop who took the report.

Then she told the detective.

Then she told the doctor who examined her three weeks later. There was no evidence.

This all happened in 2001.

Four years later in 2005, Tony pleads guilty to enticing a minor.

The minor is Kelly, Grace’s best friend, who is now twelve years old also. She said he woke her up, told her to come down stairs. She said he told her to sit by him, he pulled her to his lap, and then began rubbing her shoulders. She ran upstairs and told her mother.

Tony takes the stand and says, he had been in jail for eight months, and he said he didn’t understand what he had signed. But he is arrested again, for violating his probation, when he goes to see his probation officer WITH Kelly’s mother, because they are still together. It clearly says in his plea that he is not able to see her or the children. A plea he signed.

STUPID, Kelly’s mom, testified and reluctantly admitted that he had told her that he wanted to see her daughter’s breast that night. But she said that he couldn’t have molested Grace because he had been at a friend’s job’s Christmas party and had come home late. That night, she said—and Tony also testified—that his friend had dropped him off and then fell into a ditch and Tony had spent all night helping him out.

No friend testified. No party was verified.

After getting arrested for validating his parole, the police asked him to take a polygraph in Grace’s case.

He failed. Badly.

Now, five years later, he is going to trial for molesting Grace.

So this is the case. It’s a little complicated; I did my best. What do you think? Argue for or against him.