child sex crime « CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

Criminal Law Blog by Defense Lawyer John Floyd and Mr. Billy Sinclair

October 7, 2009

ROGUE JUROR DID NOT PREVENT ACQUITTAL

Another Not Guilty: Client Falsely Accused of Indecency with Child Acquitted After Trial by Jury

By: Houston Criminal Defense Lawyer John Floyd

Every prospective juror summoned to court for jury duty in a criminal case is questioned by counsel for the State and defendant as to his/her willingness to follow the law as given by the judge at the conclusion of the trial. A prospective juror who cannot, for whatever reason, state unequivocally that he/she will follow the law is excused for cause. Thus, a juror accepted by both the defense and the State for jury service has a solemn duty bound by a sworn oath to follow the law.

Myself, and Co-counsel Christopher Carlson, recently faced the dilemma of a recalcitrant juror who decided several hours into jury deliberations that she no longer wanted to participate in the proceedings. We were trying a particularly difficult indecency with a child case based on the allegation by a thirteen year old girl who charged that our client had inappropriately touched her during a recreational outing. The teenager had been sent to stay at our client’s residence while her mother recuperated from a serious illness. After her father picked her up at the residence, and as they drove home, the teenager reportedly told her father that our client had touched her inappropriately during her weekend stay at his residence. The father conveyed this information to his wife and together they contacted the police.

This case from the very beginning was a classic “he said, she said” case. It did not matter to law enforcement that our client was a law-abiding citizen with impeccable community credentials, who was known to be a decent, caring family man.

Unfortunately, Texas law is quite clear that the testimony of a child alone in a sex case is sufficient to support a criminal conviction. 1/ In fact, the statement the 13-year-old made to law enforcement, standing alone, was sufficient legal evidence to support a criminal conviction against our client. 2/ The State need not proffer medical evidence, forensic evidence, or corroborating testimony to support the victim’s testimony. “She said” evidence is all that is needed to not only bring about a criminal indictment but a conviction as well. (more…)

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July 29, 2009

A GOOD FAMILY DOCTOR OR A SECRET PEDOPHILE?

Filed under: Child Abuse Crimes Lawyer — Tags: child porn, child pornography, child sex crime, pedophile, sexual abuse — johntfloyd @ 12:09 pm

Child Pornography and Exploitation

By: Houston Criminal Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair

Neighbors say the couple that lived in the $1 million home in the 11100 block of South Country Squire Road were “the sweetest on the block” who brought cakes to the new home owners that moved into the exclusive neighborhood. The 69-year-old orthopedic surgeon who lived at the residence was considered the “ideal grandfather figure.” He reportedly bought expensive gifts, including rent-free houses, for the economically deprived parents of several of his youngest child patients. Over a two-decade period he spent as much as $250,000 on these gifts.

But, according to police and Harris County Assistant District Attorney Eric Devlin, the doctor was a secret pedophile who began molesting some of his male child patients as young as four years of age and continued the molestation into the patients’ teen years. Following a two-year investigation by the Houston Metro Internet Task Force that began when a former abused patient, now an adult, came forward and reported the abuse to the police, the doctor was arrested on July 21, 2009 for sexually abusing four former patients when they were young boys.

The arresting authorities told the local media that The doctor was the “smartest, most obsessed” pedophile they had ever encountered. They pointed to two police vans of evidence, including videotapes of the sexual abuse, seized from his office and residence to support this claim. The Houston Chronicle reported that some of the evidence seized included “dozens of binders” of photos of children and news stories about “kidnapping and child brutality.”

“All the time he spent cutting out pictures of little kids, articles about rapes, murders, and brutal deaths and information that would help him ingratiate himself with his victims and any future victims,” Houston juvenile investigator J.R. Roscoe told the Chronicle, “that’s a lot of research. He was very friendly, very kind, a sweet old man. He would be the ideal grandfather, for the role he played.” (more…)

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July 21, 2009

MENTALLY RETARDED TEEN GETS 100 YEARS

Filed under: Sexual Assault Crime Attorney — Tags: appellate intervention, child sex crime, incompetency, mental illness, retarded, sexual assault, Texas justice — johntfloyd @ 3:29 am

Mentally Disabled Youth with IQ Of 47, Allowed to Plead Guilty to Sexual Assault of a Child, Judge Orders Sentences to be Served Consecutively

By: Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair

The jury said it did not like the sentencing options made available to it. The judge said he was not pleased that he had to sentence an 18-year-old Paris, Texas teenager to 100 years in prison. The district attorney said he “sympathized” with teenager’s situation but it had to be remembered that he “committed a violent sexual crime against a little boy.”

What exactly did Aaron Hart do? A neighbor said she discovered the mentally retarded teenager, who has an IQ of 47, fondling her stepson last November. Hart was arrested and charged with five counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child and indecency with a child.

Hart’s attorney allowed the mentally disabled youth to plead guilty at the punishment phase of his trial but elected to have the jury assess punishment at the penalty phase. After hearing all the evidence, jurors were not convinced that prison was the best option for Hart. They sent notes to the judge requesting guidance on possible alternatives to imprisonment. Jurors told the media following the trial that the judge’s responses did not provide them with any “clear answers.” They assumed the judge would impose concurrent sentences on the five convictions.

But that is not what the judge did. He sentenced Hart to 5-year terms on two counts and 30-year terms on three counts. The judge ordered the sentences to be served consecutively for a total of 100 years. Lamar Count Judge Eric Clifford’s offered the lame excuse that he didn’t believe he had any other sentencing options because “in the state of Texas, there isn’t a whole lot you can do with people like him.” (more…)

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July 17, 2009

CHILD ADVOCATES OR HIRED GUNS?

Filed under: Child Abuse Crimes Lawyer — Tags: CAC, child sex crime, False Allegations, sexual assault, sexually abused children, Wrongful Conviction — johntfloyd @ 1:34 am

Criminal Defense Attorneys Must Be Prepared To Aggressively Challenge Child Assessment Center, Child Abuse Experts

By: Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair

The “Mission” statement of the Houston Children Assessment Center “is to provide a professional, compassionate, and coordinated approach to the treatment of sexually abused children and their families and to serve as an advocate for all children in our community.” In its 2008 Annual Report, Yolanda Green, President of the Board of Directors of CAC, added that CAC “is an agency where children whose lives have been torn apart are given hope and the opportunity to begin the road to recovery.”

The CAC, which was founded in 1991, has morphed into more than a child advocacy and protection center. It has become a quasi-official arm of law enforcement and supplies professional witnesses for the Harris County District Attorney’s Office in child sexual assault cases. Virtually every criminal defense attorney in Harris County who has tried a child sexual abuse case faced a CAC “expert” brought into court to testify for the prosecution about these cases. The agency has a history of misrepresenting the facts in these cases to Harris County juries, sometimes at the behest of the District Attorney’s Office.

For example, in April 2004 former Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal was forced to admit that “faulty physical exams” performed by a former nurse at CAC had put in jeopardy some 170 child sexual abuse cases and had possibly resulted in the wrongful conviction of some people.

Children suspected of being the victims of sexual abuse are given physical examinations, counseling and other services at CAC. The District Attorney’s office then uses the center’s “experts”, such as the former nurse who conducted the faulty physical exams in 2004, to testify about the impact on the abused children. Despite the 2004 fiasco, the District Attorney’s office continues to utilize CAC “experts” in child sexual abuse cases, knowing full well the center’s propensity to distort data in this sensitive field. (more…)

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July 6, 2009

SHOULD EVIDENCE OF PRIOR FALSE ABUSE ALLEGATIONS BE ADMISSIBLE IN SEXUAL ASSAULT CASES?

Filed under: Sexual Assault Crime Attorney — Tags: child sex crime, DNA exonerations, False Allegations, rape, sexual assault, Wrongful Conviction — johntfloyd @ 1:06 pm

Inadmissible Evidence under 608(b) of the Texas Rules of Evidence May be Admissible under 613(b), Rule 412 or Confrontation Clause

By: Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair

A Harris County federal jury recently awarded $5 million to George Rodriquez for the 17 years he spent in the Texas prison system after being wrongfully convicted of the rape of a 14-year-old girl. And a Harris County district court judge last December ordered Ricardo Rachell released after he spent six years in the Texas prison system after being wrongfully convicted of sexually molesting an eight-year-old boy.

These two cases are just a series of wrongful convictions in sex offense cases that have been uncovered in Harris County and throughout the State of Texas. It is easier to wrongfully convict a person of a sex offense than any other crime. There are few crimes that carry such a heinous social stigma. Just the mention of a child sex crime often creates a presumption of guilt (Just look to Michael Jackson). It is one of the few crimes that require only the word of the alleged victim to establish the guilt of the person accused. These are generally “she said/he said” kinds of facts scenarios. Just last year, this Firm successfully defended, at two separate trials, a corrections officer who had been charged with child sex crimes based solely on the word of the female inmates. Although our client was acquitted of the false rape accusations, he and his family were put through an ordeal of financial sacrifice, shame and embarrassment, and the loss of his career in law enforcement.

Beyond intentionally submitted false forensic evidence and mistaken identification, why is it so easy to wrongfully convict defendants charged in sex offense cases? The primary reason is that the evidentiary rules of evidence are stacked against the defendant in favor of protecting the alleged victim from further emotional “trauma” associated with sexual assault. For example, in Texas, a defendant does not have a per se right to impeach a sexual assault victim about prior false sexual assault allegations made by the victim.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (“CCA”) made this abundantly clear in 2000 in the case of Rudolfo Lopez. 1/ Lopez was convicted of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old boy (forcing the boy to perform oral sex on him over a period of several months) and sentenced to twelve years in prison. At his trial Lopez had sought to introduce evidence that two years earlier the boy had made a false allegation of physical abuse against his mother; namely, that his mother had thrown him against a washing machine. Lopez sought to use this false allegation the boy had made to the Department of Human Services, but the trial court refused to allow the evidence under Rule 608(b) of the Texas Rules of Evidence. Although a state appeals court would later rule that the evidence should have been admitted, the CCA reversed the appeals court ruling and upheld the trial court decision not to admit the false allegation evidence. 2/ (more…)

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June 30, 2009

THE DNA FALLOUT CONTINUES

Filed under: Sexual Assault Crime Attorney — Tags: child sex crime, DNA, DNA exonerations, Murder, rape, sexual assault, Wrongful Conviction — johntfloyd @ 6:04 pm

District Attorney’s Office of the Third Judicial District v. Osborne; U.S. Supreme Court Blocks Ability for Wrongfully Convicted to Prove Innocence

By: Houston Criminal Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair

George Rodriquez spent 17 years in the Texas prison system for a crime he did not commit. He was 26 years of age in 1987 when he was wrongfully convicted by a Harris County jury for the rape of a 14-year-old girl. The jury based its decision on a critical piece of forensic evidence; a pubic hair found in the victim’s underwear. A serologist with the Houston City Police Department’s Crime Lab determined that the pubic hair did not belong to another suspect in the rape case, Isidro Yanez. The serologist testified at Rodriquez’s trial, saying that while his forensic testing ruled out Yanez, it did not rule out Rodriquez.

Seventeen years later DNA testing established that the pubic hair in fact belonged to Yanez and not to Rodriquez. Rodriquez was released from prison in 2004. The Harris County District Attorney’s office refused to declare Rodriquez “actually innocent” of the crime. That official refusal to acknowledge his innocence precluded him from receiving a pardon and being awarded state compensation for his wrongful confinement. He filed a federal civil rights suit against the City of Houston and a federal court jury on June 25, 2009 awarded him $5 million dollars in damages for the 17-year wrongful imprisonment.

The Rodriquez case has not been the only Texas DNA case is the news lately. Two men convicted in the infamous 1991 Austin “yogurt shop” murder case were recently released on bond from jail. The convictions of the two men, Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen, were reversed several months ago on appeal after DNA tests on the state’s evidence indicated the presence of an unknown suspect. Attorneys for the two men say the presence of DNA evidence of the unknown suspect exonerates their clients. Prosecutors do not agree. They believe the new evidence only indicates that yet another person was involved in the crime; therefore, prosecutors plan to continue their prosecution of Springsteen and Scott for the murders of the four teenage girls killed during the robbery of the Austin yogurt shop.

These two Texas cases illustrate the potentially devastating impact of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in an Alaska case that held state prisoners do not enjoy a constitutional right to post-conviction access to the State’s evidence for DNA testing. 1/ (more…)

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June 23, 2009

A DEFENSE ATTORNEY IN THE HEAT OF BATTLE

Filed under: Child Abuse Crimes Lawyer, Sexual Assault Crime Attorney — Tags: child sex crime, child sexual abuse, juror misconduct, mistrial — johntfloyd @ 12:03 pm

Rule 606(b) of the Texas Rules of Evidence; Conducting Inquiry into Juror Misconduct

By: Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair

Johnny Ray Ocon was put on trial in Ector County, Texas for the crime of aggravated sexual assault of a child. Sex offense cases involving children are the most difficult for a criminal defense attorney to try. Defense attorneys must be very careful and thorough during the voir dire of prospective jurors to identify any hidden biases a juror may harbor in such cases. It is not always easy to sift through an individual juror’s personality in the short period of time, and with a limited number of questions, to identify and isolate any prejudices the juror may have against the defendant.

Ocon’s attorney conducted a diligent and comprehensive voir dire of several dozen prospective jurors before twelve were chosen to hear the case against Ocon. Those twelve jurors took a solemn oath to be fair and impartial. Like most defense attorneys at the conclusion of voir dire and after the jurors were sworn, Ocon’s attorney knew there were probably a couple jurors who would not approach the case with an open mind despite their sworn duty to do so. But the attorney had put forth his best effort to select the kind of fair and impartial jury to which his client was entitled under both the federal and Texas constitutions.

But nothing throughout the jury selection process had prepared Ocon’s attorney for what he would encounter on the second day of the trial. During a brief recess, the attorney entered the men’s restroom in the county courthouse. He overheard someone in the next stall talking on a cell phone. The following are portions of the conversation the defense attorney heard:

Brenda – They’ve got me on this damn jury … I don’t know why the hell they picked me … I would rather be on a double ax murderer then [sic] this damn case … It’s dirty, disgusting … No, unless we convict the bastard today, then I’m kind of stuck here. (more…)

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June 17, 2009

DNA CHICKENS COME HOME TO ROOST

Filed under: Sexual Assault Crime Attorney — Tags: child predator, child sex crime, DNA, rape, Texas justice, Wrongful Conviction — johntfloyd @ 3:11 am

City of Houston Sued; Disgraced Crime Lab on Trial After Wrongfully Convicted Man Exonerated After 17 Years in Prison

By: Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair

George Rodriquez was a 26-year-old young man in 1987 when he was convicted of raping a 14-year-old girl in Harris County. A critical piece of evidence that led to his conviction was a pubic hair found in the girl’s underwear. A serologist with the Houston City Police Department’s crime lab, who we now know had a history of fabricating evidence to suit local prosecutorial and law enforcement needs, determined that the hair did not belong to a suspect named Isidro Yanez but the serologist did not eliminate Rodriquez as the owner of the hair. Seventeen years later DNA, which was not used as evidence in criminal trials in 1987, established that the hair in fact belonged to Yanez and not to Rodriquez.

At age 43 Rodriquez was released from the Texas prison system to be embraced by three daughters who had grown up while he was wrongfully imprisoned. He was able to visit the grave site of his deceased father who had not survived long enough to see his son vindicated. It was indeed a hard 17-year ordeal. There is no comfort for innocent men in prison—not even from their fellow inmates, especially if they have been convicted a sex offense against a child. The “sex offender” stigma places these individuals at the bottom of the prison subculture. The only real support they have are family members who refuse to accept the validity of the “criminal conviction” imposed upon their loved one.

It’s now payback time. George Rodriquez is now appearing before a local federal court where his attorney Barry Scheck, co-director of New York’s Cardozo School of Law’s Innocence Project, is demanding that the City of Houston to pay his client “tens of millions” of dollars in damages for the 1987 wrongful conviction. In his opening statement in U.S. District Court Judge Vanessa Gilmore’s courtroom, Scheck told jurors: “We will prove a false and misleading serology report violated [Rodriquez’s] constitutional right to a fair trial.”

Scheck announced his intention to call former Harris County District Attorney Johnny Holmes and former Houston Police Chief Lee Brown as witnesses. Attorney Robert Cambrice, who is representing the City of Houston, did spare the rod of accountability for Holmes or Rodriquez’s defense attorney. The Houston Chronicle reported (June 17, 2009) that Cambrice laid the blame for Rodriquez’s wrongful conviction “on bad lawyering by the prosecutor and Rodriquez’s late defense attorney that led to the false conviction, not an unquestioned lie by a city employee.” (more…)

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