Comments

You know, I love hearing arguments that oppose mine; I appreciate it when people take the time to come here and articulate why they disagree with me, because it fires me up and makes me really think about why I'm doing this.

Eric took the time to come and leave some questions for us, and you can see the first bit of the discussion in the comments of this post: Retribution 3

Eric said...

I'm not assuming her testimony was strong just because he was convicted, but also because I've read enough of it. She took the stand and testified in open court about how he licked her vagina while he jacked himself off at the same time. Sorry, a nine year old girl doesn't just make that up. When you combine that with all the other circumstantial evidence, it paints a pretty clear picture.

 

First of all, how much of her testimony have you read? If you've read the transcripts then you have me at a disadvantage, because I’m going off what I’ve found online. However, you telling me “I read her testimony and it’s strong” is not enough for me to discount news reports of her testifying, three times, that she couldn’t really remember the assault. Repeating the basic gist of a story you’ve been told is easy, but coming up with details on the spot is hard if you didn’t actually experience it.


I think it's normal for us to want to give these kids a pass on that stuff; "Poor dear, she's been through so much." "It's so stressful, of course she's going to have trouble remembering it all." "How could a child so young possibly know about that unless it happened?" This creates a cloud that a careless interviewer, a biased social worker, or a relentless parent can hide behind.


That's why neutral, untainted interviews are so important, because a child will take an adult's sympathy as encouragement to validate their concern. The courts themselves acknowledge that it happens. The child will figure out what the adult wants to hear, and tell them that. They'll repeat it, embellish it, and in some cases they'll actually come to believe it happened. You can see proof of this happening over and over on the stories I post about, or at the Innocence Project's website.


What you call 'circumstantial evidence' doesn't even qualify as such. If someone says “I saw him enter the bedroom, then leave five minutes later”, that would be circumstantial evidence because you could infer that he was in there molesting her. Most of the testimony I've seen would actually qualify as 'hearsay'. “She told me that he told her such-and-such.” Here are paraphrases of a few points:


“Her second interview was consistent with the first, even though I can't prove it.”

“I know little about her, but I have no reason to believe she was lying.”

“She's had trouble in school, and it's because she's been assaulted.”

“She has headaches, and it's because she was assaulted.”

“She has neurological problems, and it's because she was assaulted.”

“She has trouble sleeping, and it's because she was assaulted.”

“It's a fact that he's grooming his daughter to assault her, too.”

These are not circumstantial, they are hearsay and opinions, some of which were proven false during the trial. Imagine someone you love being sent to prison for any amount of time on this kind of evidence. It happened regularly under Chuck Rosenthal, and even before. If we’re going off a standard of‘circumstantial evidence’, I think there’s more evidence that the Harris County D.A.’s office of the time was conducting kangaroo trials than that Carlos Coy molested a child. When the District Attorney's office bends over backwards, breaking ethical standards and occasionally even the laws to put men behind bars, we can infer that they don't give two shits about justice, they just decide who's going to prison and do whatever it takes to get them there.

It's significant because it shows his methods of operation are similar to a pedophile. Obviously he had an interest in little girls, ie impregnating a 13 year old, multiple underaged girls testifying against him, etc. Now he wants to create a dance studio for little girls? Why? Maybe so he can have an avenue of little girls streaming his way, giving him easier access.

 It wasn’t a ‘method of operation’. He didn’t have a dance studio. What other efforts had he made to bring himself into contact with 8-10 year old girls? Did he bring them in with his rap music? With the way he dressed, or with some gigantic Barbie Doll collection we haven't heard about? Did he offer to babysit other people’s kids? What 'operations' were conducted to bring him this endless string of 9 year old victims, none of whom have ever appeared, that you're using to infer proof of his guilt?

You can say that a physically mature 13 year old is exactly the same as a pre-pubescent 9 year old all you want, but that doesn't make it true. It's two very different stages of development, and all the information I can find suggests that true pedophiles like to specialize. So where are the other 9 year olds? They couldn't drum up a single one for the trial?

The underage girls that you mention testified during the punishment phase of his trial. There was no proof of their claims required, only an indictment, and those were handed out like day-old bread under Chuck Rosenthal. After the guilty verdict, these cases disappeared; none of them were ever prosecuted. From what I can tell from the Harris County District Clerk's website, one tried for a civil settlement but had to drop it after a paternity test came back negative. They had all these indictments, and they never even bothered prosecuting the one case that they could conclusively prove. 

Isn't it interesting how we've never even heard Carlos's version of events that night? If he's innocent, then what was he doing when the assault occurred? What happened in the car when he was taking her home? Why doesn't he have an alibi? Why couldn't his wife vouch for him? Those are questions he has never answered, and I doubt he will ever be able to answer them without exposing his guilt, which is why he never took the stand unlike his victim.

As far as Carlos’s own version of events that night, what happened in the car, what his wife said: I can give you my opinion on this stuff, but it’s just that; an opinion. It would have nothing to do with whether or not he received a fair trial, which is what I focus on here. Why has his side of the story not been adequately publicized? I don't know; to some extent I imagine his appeals lawyers wanted him to keep quiet until he had been through the system. Anything after that, I can't say; but neither can I take the silence as proof of guilt when I see such glaring problems in his trial.


Interestingly enough, you say “I doubt he will ever be able to answer them without exposing his guilt, which is why he never took the stand unlike his victim.” Did you know that the justice system forbids prosecutors from using a refusal to testify on your own behalf as evidence against you, precisely because there are so many reasons why a person, especially an innocent person, could hurt their case in court?

You can incriminate yourself in the eyes of a jury with your attitude, how you stand, how you talk, not just with the words you say. In a trial composed of 'he said-she-said' arguments, you're basically asking a jury “Who's more believable, this nine-year-old girl or this gangster rapper?” Allowing him on the stand, with his saggy pants and (by his own admission)bad attitude probably seemed like a risk to his defense lawyer. Just because you're innocent doesn't make you sympathetic; however, as you yourself have shown, it's human nature to think “Well, if he was innocent, he would have said something.”

Eric, it looks like you've given this a lot of thought, and I respect that. I don't expect you to share my belief in Coy's innocence. However, I hope that I can make you see that what happened to him at the hands of the State was wrong; it's happened to many men before Coy, and could happen to you or someone you love tomorrow.

So many people say "Well, I have a daughter..." and because of that, they are willing to hand their sons over to TDCJ for nothing more than "enough" circumstantial evidence, "enough" hearsay, "enough" lies and hidden evidence. That's bullshit, man. It's the behavior of a defeated people, and I just can't accept that we have any reason to be so submissive.