Capital Sexual Battery – Not Guilty

Count 1 – Sexual Battery on a Child under 12

Count 2 – Sexual Battery on a Child under 12

Count 3 – Lewd or Lascivious Molestation

Our client was being accused of improperly touching a 6 year old, including allegations of oral penetration with the alleged victim. The stakes were high - mandatory life without parole if convicted. The defense team included lead trial counsel Brian Mallonee, co-counsel Jay Kirschner, an expert witness, and an excellent support staff. Getting an expert involved in cases like these can prove to be very useful. Through our expert’s testimony we were able to demonstrate that the original interview with the child was flawed, and may have contaminated the integrity of the child’s accusations. We were also able to effectively point out inconsistencies in the child’s testimony during cross-examination. We accomplished this by having the child’s previous video testimony segmented out on our computer program and ready to fire up at a moments notice. The child was eventually at a loss for words when we asked him to explain his prior inconsistent statements that were played for him in open court. It didn’t hurt that the police investigation was outright non-existent. And as icing on the cake, we had a financial dispute between the child’s mother and our client, and an audiotape of a voice message from the mothers new boyfriend that indicated a willingness to do whatever it took to put our client in prison for the rest of his life. This tape recording was date stamped less than two months from the date the child made up his story about our client touching him. We argued to the jury that this was just too convenient, and that they could not dismiss the sinister possibility that this story was imprinted into the child’s head by the new boyfriend to the point where the child actually believed it to be true.  After a week long trial, the jury came back in 31 minutes and found our client NOT GUILTY on all three counts. Our client walked out of the courthouse and he and the defense team had a few rounds of adult beverages to celebrate his complete exoneration and freedom.