Posted on 05/02/2015 3:45:20 PM PDT by cripplecreek
JACKSON, MI – Concerned he would have to send an innocent man to prison, a Jackson County judge on Friday set aside a jury's guilty verdict in a criminal sexual conduct case.
The rare decision, a first in Circuit Judge John McBain's 13 years on the bench, means Gregory Patterson, 50, is not guilty of three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, felonies that would have sent him to prison for a minimum of 25 years.
A jury convicted Patterson of the offenses at the close of a March trial, but McBain granted a motion made by defense lawyer George Lyons, prompting Patterson's supporters to stand and applaud. "Thank you," Patterson told the judge.
Lyons argued the verdict constituted a miscarriage of justice and McBain had the authority and the "responsibility" to make it right.
"I think the worst thing a judge could ever face is the prospect you sent an innocent man to prison, especially on charges like this," McBain told a reporter Friday, May 1. "That weighed heavily on my mind."
There were "major problems," including witness credibility and lacking physical evidence, with the prosecutors' case, McBain said, and the jurors' verdict surprised him.
"If I had tried this case as a bench trial, I would have absolutely found him not guilty."
Prosecutor Jerry Jarzynka said he "respectfully disagrees" with the judge and his office will appeal the ruling.
The now 15-year-old daughter of Patterson's former girlfriend testified Patterson sexually assaulted her multiple times in 2012 while he was living with her mother on Francis Street in Jackson.
Prosecutors presented DNA evidence of Patterson's semen on a pair of shorts the girl frequently wore.
Lyons, however, said the amount of semen was "microscopic" and investigators found it on the outside of her clothing, a fact that made it possible the fluid was transferred from the sheets on her mother's bed.
The girl testified she often, even daily, watched TV in the bed her mother and Patterson shared.
There was no blood or semen in her underwear or any other physical evidence to support her contention she was "violently" raped, Lyons told the judge. Other DNA strands were found, but were not tested to see if they matched the DNA or vaginal secretions of the girl's mother.
Furthermore, she was inconsistent about the number of assaults and testified she did not like Patterson. She admitted to lying in the past to remove men from her mother's life so her parents could be together, Lyons said.
"Nothing about this case pointed to this man's guilt," Lyons said and called the verdict a "failing of the system."
Assistant Prosecutor Jerrold Schrotenboer, the county's chief appellate attorney, conceded the girl admitted to a history of falsehoods, but he said she never said she did so to rid herself of her mother's boyfriends. "She instead testified that she wanted her mother and father together but did not even know her father," Schrotenboer wrote in brief contained in the court record.
Representatives from the crime laboratory testified the semen would have had to be wet for it to be transferred, he wrote. The jury had the right to reject this claim and a "ludicrous mayonnaise demonstration."
A doctor testified there are often no physical findings of sexual assault and the girl would have healed by the time an examination took place, Schrotenboer wrote.
In court, Schrotenboer quoted McBain's response to a similar motion in an unrelated case. "If judges were to start overruling the verdicts of jurors, why have jurors?" McBain earlier said.
"For the most part," juries do their job well, McBain, a former prosecutor, told a reporter Friday, but "protection is there for a defendant if the judge has a deep feeling of a real injustice that is about to occur."
Lyons was respectful of the immensity of his request.
He said in nearly 20 years of defense work, he had not filed a motion like this one. They are not often granted because judges have to be careful not to invade the jury's province, Lyons said. "It is an extraordinary decision and extraordinary relief."
McBain said he was additionally concerned with the jury, which was entirely white.
Patterson was attendant, polite and lacking a guilty demeanor, McBain said. He raised his own children, he has no serious criminal history, and there had been no allegations previously made against him.
In the American system of jurisprudence, justice is the process, not the result.
Judge nullification vs Jury Nullification
Normally I would be opposed but having watched this case progress I just couldn’t help but feel like this guy shouldn’t have been charged.
At no point in history has any government ever wanted its people to be defenseless for any good reason ~ nully's son
Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping!
To get onto The Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping List you must threaten to report me to the Mods if I don't add you to the list...
Others may chime in but in finding of facts the trial court is considered locked in. Appeals are usually won on procedural, legal angles and other issues. It it rare that an appeal will set aside the fact finding of the trial court as I remember.
Opinions are like buttholes.
Had to get almost to the bottom of the story to figure out what was really going on:
“McBain said he was additionally concerned with the jury, which was entirely white. “
It happened in this very famous case.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottsboro_Boys
The defense moved for a retrial and, believing the defendants innocent, Judge James Edwin Horton agreed to set aside the guilty verdict for Patterson. Horton ruled the rest of defendants could not get a fair trial at that time and indefinitely postponed the rest of the trials, knowing it would cost his job when he ran for re-election.[86]
Judge Horton heard arguments on the motion for new trial in the Limestone County Court House in Athens, Alabama, where he read his decision to the astonished defense and a furious Knight:
These women are shown ... to have falsely accused two Negroes ... This tendency on the part of the women shows that they are predisposed to make false accusations... The Court will not pursue the evidence any further.
From the little I've read of this case (just this thread), it's possible there was no "error of law," and even if there was, the standard for overturning a lower court is "tougher" than the standard used by the lower court.
See Reversing a Conviction - FindLaw for a little bit more.
Tough as it is to get, this remedy is easier to get from a trial court than from an appellate court.
The remedy of jury reversal only goes one way, no judge can reverse a not guilty verdict.
Thank God for that.
Assume the prosecutor, defense attorney and judge are all acting in good faith. At the end of the day, only two people will really know the truth here.
Oldplayer
I just felt like the jury got fixated on the DNA evidence with no knowledge of the science behind it. They locked on to the DNA evidence as clear guilt but nobody questioned how much was detected and how common DNA transfer is among people living in close proximity.
I guarantee that every one of us here has fecal bacteria on our toothbrushes and I’d like to think that at least 90% of us don’t scratch out butts with our toothbrushes.
There was a case in Detroit a year or so back where a guy chased down a burglar and shot him. The jury convicted him and the judge ended up setting the verdict aside based on the fact that the circumstances surrounding the shooting were withheld by the prosecution. Turns out that the guy had been robbed 3 times in a week while he was at work. On day 4 he came home early, caught them and killed the slow one. The judge basically equated it with a Sheppard guarding his flock.
WOW. While a judge has that authority and SHOULD use it when appropriate ... I never saw it in 25 years of prosecuting.
Not true. All trial judges have that authority. Been around from the get go. It is just VERY rare.
“If I had tried this case as a bench trial, I would have absolutely found him not guilty.”
Guess what, Your Honor — it WASN’T a bench trial!
OK. Then I’m wrong here.
I would be too. Do you want an all black jury deciding your fate these days?
I’ll admit that when I first read about the case some months ago, the address alone led me toward an assumption of guilt. Its the deepest darkest hood in my neck of the woods and few people down there are ever truly innocent.
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.