Posted on 12/11/2003 4:39:57 AM PST by Arrowhead1952
Men face up to life in prison for flogging a Bible study student
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, December 11, 2003
A Travis County jury on Wednesday convicted a pastor and his brother in a severe beating that sent a child to intensive care.
Joshua and Caleb Thompson, 23-year-old twins, were found guilty of injury to a child and aggravated assault.
Jurors, who took about 3 1/2 hours to reach their decision, can sentence the brothers to anything from probation to life in prison. The sentencing phase of the trial starts today.
The brothers were silent as they listened to the jury's verdict but appeared deeply shaken. Their lawyers declined to comment.
The mother of the boy who was beaten said she knew that the jury would find the Thompsons guilty because of the evidence presented during the trial. She cried after the verdict was announced.
"Pay attention to what your child is saying, and be with them at all times," said Norma Arellano, the mother of 12-year-old Louie Guerrero.
Louie testified last week that Joshua Thompson beat him with two tree branches while Caleb Thompson held him down at Caleb's house on July 3, 2002. The beating happened because he was misbehaving in Bible class, Louie said.
Joshua Thompson is the pastor for a Spanish-speaking congregation that meets at Capitol City Baptist Church in South Austin.
Louie spent five days in intensive care at the hospital after the beating and was in danger of kidney failure. A doctor who testified Monday said the boy had been hit hundreds of times.
During the trial's closing arguments Wednesday, a prosecu- tor called the Thompsons "wolves in sheep's clothing."
"They were trying to disguise what they did by blaming Louie and by blaming Norma," prosecutor Beth Payan said. "This was a cold, calculated, violent act."
Joshua Thompson testified Tuesday that he didn't know how many times he struck Louie but estimated he used 70 percent of his strength to do it. Thompson cried when he apologized for beating the boy.
Defense witnesses tried to convince the jury that Louie could not be trusted to tell the truth and that his mother had complained about being unable to control him.
But prosecutor Dayna Blazey said a teacher told a detective that Louie was not a problem child. Blazey said later that she agreed with the jury's verdict.
During closing arguments, defense lawyer Gerry Goldstein suggested that Louie's parents had time to beat the boy before they called the ambulance. A medical examiner testified that some of the injuries looked as if they were inflicted the night before.
The Thompsons already took responsibility for their part of the beating, Goldstein said.
"Are they going to have to pay for another sin?" he said.
Goldstein called the Thompsons "all-American" and said they had values that he would be glad to pass on to his own child. Joshua Thompson had never left his family except to go to Mexico to learn Spanish from a brother who was a missionary, his lawyer said.
Defense lawyers said during the trial that the Thompsons received all of their schooling at the church and never held an outside job.
"Have we come to the point where love of church and love of family is somehow reason to believe that someone is less than truthful?" Goldstein said.
Several witnesses also testified that Louie's parents had given Joshua Thompson permission to discipline the boy.
Carlos Garcia, a lawyer for Caleb Thompson, said during closing arguments that his client should not be convicted because he did not know that the boy's injuries would be serious. Garcia held up Caleb Thompson's hands for the jury to see.
"These are the hands that did not pick up a switch and didn't strike any boy; they built a cross on a wall," said Garcia, referring to work that Caleb Thompson did on the church.
Payan asked Judge Brenda Kennedy to increase the Thompsons' bail to $500,000 apiece after the verdict. Defense attorneys said that the bail should not be raised from $25,000 because their clients would not flee before sentencing.
Kennedy didn't increase their bail but instead sent the Thompsons to jail.
"Circumstances have changed drastically," she said.
That is why I put quotation marks on the word "pastors". The Austin Un-American Liberal Longhorn Non-Statesman called them pastors, is if they are real men of God.
You are closer by calling them demented sons of Satan.
I could have been chosen as a juror for that trial. I missed the jury for another trial, and almost got sent to that court. Those two had better be glad I did not get on the jury in their case.
We have a 10-year-old punk getting sentenced to a mere 18 years of juvenile detention for murdering a toddler in cold-blooded viciousness, and everyone's ready to lynch these guys over the questionable evidence revealed in this case.
There's no excuse for them if they beat the boy as extensively as claimed, but innocence notwithstanding, they would've been better off if they were homosexuals who had sodomized the boy before they beat him. And this isn't just hyperbole. A little fairness and consistency in our sentencing would help our criminals and would-be-criminals understand what's expected of them.
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