Posted on 08/15/2004 1:35:23 PM PDT by TERMINATTOR
Dr. Robert Moore Strippy, age 70, is a professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania who holds doctorates of music from the Universities of Paris and Rome, and is a former instructor at the University of Virginia.
He is also a former speechwriter for President Eisenhower.
He is now, despite his very serious health problems, prisoner number 332218 PMV at the State of Virginia's Powhatan Correctional Center in State Farm, Va.
He is beginning a ten-year prison sentence. This is the result of a jury decision so absolutely incredible as to recall either France's Alfred Dreyfus or the first jury sentence that freed O.J. Simpson.
This jury apparently took the word of a 40-year-old double ex-convict (larceny and defrauding an innkeeper) named Donald Swann.
In the Circuit Court of Augusta County, Va., Swann testified that he was solicited for oral sex by Dr. Strippy and then, when Swann refused, he was shot in the stomach.
Friends and associates of Strippy, who has no prior criminal record, can affirm his court testimony that he never had any homosexual relationship whatsoever and is decidedly heterosexual. I remember him as one of the most superb organists I have ever heard, or worked with, as well as a man of exceptional brilliance.
One of the very few media that covered this trial was the Staunton News Leader, which reported that Dr. Strippy's attorney, Lloyd Snook, filed a request for a new trial "because evidence of Swann being drunk during the shooting was never presented at the original trial," where Strippy was represented by public defender Robert Garnett.
"Snook said Swann's blood alcohol following the shooting registered .17 – more than twice Virginia's legal limit. 'The jury didn't get to hear that,' Snook told Judge Thomas Wood: 'We believe that this testimony that should have been allowed.'"
Dr. Strippy testified that on a dark night at the Greenstone Overlook on Virginia's Blue Ridge Parkway, he parked his vehicle without noticing he was blocking the view of Swann's vehicle.
Swann, carrying a wooden club, came to him and demanded that he move – with a suggestion that Dr. Strippy was a homosexual.
When Strippy denied this accusation and declined to obey his order, he testified that Swann began beating him repeatedly with his wooden club.
In desperation, Strippy reached under his vehicle's seat to reach a .38-caliber pistol belonging to his former fiancée, Erin Keller, with whom he had recently driven to Kansas to visit relatives.
When Dr. Strippy displayed this pistol in an effort to stop his being beaten by this twice-convicted criminal, Swann grabbed it and pulled – with the result that it discharged, wounding Swann in the stomach.
Swann then retreated to his car. Both he and Strippy drove away and both notified the police.
The Staunton New Leader reported:
"During the trial, Swann testified that that evening he consumed about five beers from what he described as 7-ounce bottles. He spent a week at the University of Virginia Medical Center where he underwent abdominal surgery and had a bowel resection. … An investigator from the Augusta County Sheriff's office reported that no bruises or markings were found on Strippy following the incident."
But Dr. Strippy was examined and a CAT scan was performed on him shortly after the shooting at the University of Virginia Medical Center.
Strippy friend Angela Hunter Richardson notes:
"Photos were taken when Dr. Strippy reported the incident. The examination photos and scan results clearly show that Dr. Strippy was, as he testified, beaten with a cudgel by the drunken felon who assaulted him. … Those records were never admitted as testimony. Public Defender Garnett waited to subpoena them until three days before the trial. And Judge Wood refused to wait for them before trying Dr. Strippy on felony charges."
Moreover, "The gun was never fingerprinted" – which would have provided evidence – along with the defense exhibit of that wooden cudgel – that this legally inebriated repeat felon grabbed the pistol, causing himself to be shot in the stomach.
Will any of the University of Pennsylvania and University of Virginia alumni move to help this professor instructor emeritus, who may well die in prison where his serious health problems are not being treated sufficiently?
And will the leaders of Virginia, including Gov. Mark Warner and U.S. Sens. George Allen and John Warner – who have been appealed to – do anything to stop the outrageous injustice of the word of a twice-convicted felon being believed, rather than the holder of three doctorates and former speechwriter for President Eisenhower?
How can one be an ex-felon?
By serving ones sentence and being released.
Once you are convicted and served time you are a felon. Thus, that little box on employment applications "Have you ever been convicted of a felony?"
Wow what a story! Why would a DA take the word of a two time felon over this Professor?
A most unfortunate juxtaposition...
Mistake number 1: using a public defender. Sell everything you own before doing that.
This one is so outrageous that I sense something has been omitted.
Molon Labe!
Ah! Thanks!
A thousand reasons crowd the mind. Obviously there is a lot more going on here than meets the eye. A potential fire-cracker of a story for any half way competent reporter.
It is my belief that using a public defender makes a statement to the court that they can run all over you. A public defender is usually at best incompetent, and at worst is actively working with the prosecutor to put you away.
Yeah if there is a story there. Clearly one must guess that this area was a known haunt for people making homosexual advances. But you are right a decent reporter could make a name for themselves on this one.
With justice, as with anything else, you get what you pay for.
This is a perfect example of why, if you shoot someone, make sure you kill them. Then there will only be one story.
This doesn't surprise me, given that most prosecutions result from using convicted criminals' testimonies who cut deals to keep themselves out of prison.
This system, both and federal and local, where the justice system is using the word of convicted criminals against other individuals is out of control.
Those convicted will say or do anything to keep themselves out of prison.
Trust me, I have seen this garbage brand of justice firsthand and it's ridiculous the state our court systems are in because of it.
There are two main problems:
General public (serving in juries), judges and lawyers lost any concept of what what the proof is. To understand it it would require belief in objective truth (as opposed to the "feelings") and ability to reason. The "proof beyond reasonable doubt" today is the conformance with the predicable pattern of the Holywood movie.
Secon major problem is that the public craving for "toughness on crime" compelled politcians and judges to create system in which real criminals or punks are induced (with reward of reduced/eliminated punishment or threats of convition) to make false testimonies.
The witness who is rewarded or punished depending on his testimony should be dismissed and prosecutors should suffer consequences.
Yeah, if you are charged you must be guilty.
Why honest man should not trust the honesty of the court and fairness of the system? Why honest man should pay for "justice"? What if the man is poor nad has no money for the lawyer?
" Why standest thou afar off, O LORD? why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble?
The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor: let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined.
For the wicked boasteth of his heart's desire, and blesseth the covetous, whom the LORD abhorreth.
The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts.
His ways are always grievous; thy judgments are far above out of his sight: as for all his enemies, he puffeth at them.
He hath said in his heart, I shall not be moved: for I shall never be in adversity.
His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud: under his tongue is mischief and vanity.
He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages: in the secret places doth he murder the innocent: his eyes are privily set against the poor.
He lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den: he lieth in wait to catch the poor: he doth catch the poor, when he draweth him into his net.
He croucheth, and humbleth himself, that the poor may fall by his strong ones.
He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten: he hideth his face; he will never see it.
Arise, O LORD; O God, lift up thine hand: forget not the humble.
Wherefore doth the wicked contemn God? he hath said in his heart, Thou wilt not require it.
Thou hast seen it; for thou beholdest mischief and spite, to requite it with thy hand: the poor committeth himself unto thee; thou art the helper of the fatherless.
Break thou the arm of the wicked and the evil man: seek out his wickedness till thou find none.
The LORD is King for ever and ever: the heathen are perished out of his land.
LORD, thou hast heard the desire of the humble: thou wilt prepare their heart, thou wilt cause thine ear to hear:
To judge the fatherless and the oppressed, that the man of the earth may no more oppress."
(Psalm 10)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.