Recantations

Michael Arena served 12 of the 20 years he was sentenced to, before the Texas Supreme Court allowed him to leave on June 1 of this year. He was convicted in 1999 of molesting his young cousin.

Several people have asked whether Carlos Coy would walk free if the child in his case recanted her testimony; that is, if she said she was lying, or coerced.

Take a look at the case of Mr. Arena. Two years after the trial, when she was 11, his young cousin recanted her testimony. She said that she had been pushed into accusing him by her mother, who was in the middle of an ugly divorce from Michael’s uncle. She has maintained this for ten years.

However, this was not enough to free him; it had nothing to do with why he is home with his family today.

The Supreme Court said it could not credit Stephanie Arena's version of events because a Bell County judge determined that her recantation lacked credibility, finding that it was apparently the result of pressure by Michael Arena's family. The Supreme Court typically defers to lower courts on such judgments.

That’s it; that’s all it takes to invalidate a young woman’s attempt to fix a problem caused by people who had no problem using a young child to do their dirty work. Apparently the Supreme Court believes that it is easier to intimidate an adult, over a period of ten years, than it is to intimidate a 9-year-old for a few months until the state can take it’s pound of flesh.

Instead of taking the word of what appears to be a responsible young woman (who herself says that her mother is “kind of unbalanced”) and declaring Michael Arena innocent, the Texas Supreme Court took another way out. They admitted that one of their own experts lied on the stand about the reliability of a ‘pedophile test’ that he gave Michael, and overturned his sentencing. Not the verdict; no, he’s still guilty in their eyes, but since the state lied to get him his twenty years, they plan to re-do that part.

The supposed victim is ready to testify on Michael’s behalf at the new sentencing hearing; she’s doing what she can to make this right, which is brave and honorable; however, he will still be a convicted child molester. He will still have to register as such. Restrictions will be placed on where he can live, work, and travel. His face will be up on the Sex Offender Registry with all the others who have committed crimes ranging from sex with young children to pissing in an alley.

That is why I don’t focus much on a recantation from Jane Doe. It would help, of course, but it’s not an automatic ticket home for Carlos Coy. The state will do what they can to deny it, to say that it came from pressure by Coy’s family or fans; that's why I have no interest in contacting her, and I would not suggest anyone else try to. Allen Cowling talks about dealing with recantations which seem to be a tenuous lifeline, at best. It's better, in my opinion, to focus on the behavior of the State during the trial, where everything was documented and "legal".

http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2012/06/juvie-sex-assault-conviction-overturned.html

http://www.allencowling.com/false11.htm 

http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2010-11-05/criminally-innocent/

Weekend Reading 36

Lazy Menace steps up once more in our fight to spread information about this case. This is a great way to spread the blog and it's purpose in short form. Please, post it up on any social media sites you use; it will allow people to see what we're doing here at a glance, and direct them to the blog.

The next piece of SPM's letter will be up next Thursday, and I want to make sure that his words about the case get the publicity they need.

You can copy and paste the one above, or download the full-size image HERE. You can find it on Tumblr, and on Facebook. If you post SPM's music on Youtube, consider flashing this for a few seconds at the beginning or end of your video. Please, help us reach out by spreading this image.

SPM Responds (Part 8.b)

Continued from part 8.a

Alright. We already know that the child (Jane Doe) said she believed this assault could be a dream. That’s where I’ll start.

            My opinion is that she knew no assault took place, and it was her own guilty conscience that wouldn’t allow her to flat out say “I know this happened. I remember it clearly.” In trial, (Court Transcripts Volume 11 of 31 pg. 109), the child told the D.A., “…I was – I was sleepy and didn’t know if it could be a dream or something like that.”

            After Jane Doe said that, the D.A.’s gentle demeanor changed like day turns to night. She stared at the child, clearly disappointed, and asked “Was it a dream?” The child gave the answer that she knew Oncken wanted to hear, “No”, yet she still refused to say she remembered the assault clearly. On the same page (pg. 109) the D.A. asked, “Do you remember it clearly?” Jane Doe responded, “Not really.”

            Afterwards, Chip questions the child. Here, he basically confirms what she told the D.A.:

Criminal Trial

(Court Transcripts Volume 11 of 31 pg. 131)

Chip: I want to ask you a few questions about the last time you spent the night with Carley. Do you know what time I’m talking about?

Jane Doe: Yes.

Chip: You’ve talked a little bit about it with Ms. Oncken. You were not sure what happened that night, were you?

Jane Doe: Not really.

Chip: Because you thought you might be dreaming

Jane Doe: Yes.

Obviously this little girl had a conscience and was making things difficult for the D.A.’s. I remember telling Chip, “She’s trying to tell the truth.” I honestly felt that she was trying to dig me out of the mess that she initially put me in. She was an intelligent child, and she had to have known that by saying these things, she was hurting their chances of a conviction.

But every time something was said in trial that the D.A.’s didn’t like, they used their powers to fix the problem. They did this, mostly, by using their professionals, who would get on the stand and say exactly what the D.A.’s wanted them to say. In this case they called upon a well respected child psychologist named Jennifer Welch. This woman is using all the money her parents spent on her college education to be a court house puppet.

Criminal Trial

(Court Transcripts Volume 13 of 31 pg. 187)

D.A. What kinds of things might a child do as a defense mechanism when the abuse is occurring?

Psychologist: Well, when the abuse is occurring the child is usually, as you can imagine, very frightened. And a lot of times they feel paralyzed, feel unable to affect a situation.

            They usually can’t believe this is happening and so a lot of times they might try to talk themselves into thinking that it’s not happening. That it’s a dream…

As most of you know, after this trial ended, the child’s family took me to civil court to sue for money. During her civil disposition, under sworn oath, Jane Doe told my civil lawyer Brock, that the assault took place “for one second.” During this criminal trial, she testified that it took place for “about a minute.” (You’ll see exactly what Jane Doe said about this alleged assault in upcoming letters.)

            I brought up the civil disposition because now that we know she’s claiming this was a “one second” ordeal, the D.A.’s question, and the psychologist’s explanation, sound even dumber than when they first put on this whole show. But, at the time, how could they have known that the child would, later, change her story? And, just for the record, I didn’t do this thing for “one second” or one thousandth of a second.

            Jennifer Welch also used the words “very frightened” in describing how this child must have felt. The child told the D.A. that she was “…sleepy and didn’t know if it could be a dream…” I’m not sure how someone can be “very frightened” and sleepy at the same time, but the jury was like twelve baby birds, swallowing anything that got dropped down their throat. They wanted so bad to believe this gangster Mexican was guilty; this thug with a shaved head and sagging his pants in court and acting like the whole situation was a waste of his time. I represented everything they feared and now there was a chance to “send a message” as the D.A. put it. The problem was they sent the right message using the wrong person. I will say this to Chip’s credit, he did keep asking me to pick my pants up.

            Chip didn’t dismiss the possibility that Jane Doe may have really dreamed this. He knew that she had been diagnosed with mental disorders, “possible hallucinations” was what one doctor said, so I could understand his direction. The question was, how could a nine-year-old child dream, or make-up, or even hallucinate the act of oral sex if she didn’t know it existed? She would have had to be exposed to the act, either by seeing it, or, God forbid, experiencing it.

            Chip’s goal was to find sources of which this child could have been exposed to the act. He decided to ask Jane Doe about scary movies, knowing that those types usually contained graphic sex scenes.

Criminal Trial

(Court Transcripts Volume 11 of 31 pgs. 129-130)

Chip: Let me ask you a couple questions about movies. You – have seen scary movies before?

Jane Doe: Yes.

Chip: What type of scary movies?

Jane Doe: Like “Scream”

Chip: Did you see “Scream 2?”

Jane Doe: Yes.

Chip: What else?

Jane Doe: “I Know What You Did Last Summer.”

Chip: Did you ever have a nightmare or a bad dream after seeing one of these scary movies?

Jane Doe: Yes.

Chip, also, wanted to know if she saw the movie “Scary Movie.” That movie had a scene of a male performing oral sex on a female. So that he wouldn’t have to put the child back on the stand for just one question, he asked the judge to order the D.A.’s to ask the child if she had ever seen “Scary Movie.” The D.A.’s asked her and Jane Doe told them that she had seen the movie.

With that information, Chip makes this move:

Criminal Trial

(Court Transcripts Volume 14 of 31 pgs. 84-85)

Chip: Judge, I have one other piece of evidence that we intend to offer. I’d like the Court’s input and possibly an agreement with the State on this piece of evidence.

            All of the movies that (Jane Doe) mentioned, Scary Movie, Scream One, Scream Two, I Know What You Did Last Summer, I’ve had reviewed. I do believe that the graphic sexual content within some of these movies has to be brought to the jury’s attention. I don’t intend to publish all four of these two hour movies. And I’m even satisfied if the State would enter a stipulation that there is graphic sexual material contained within these movies and that that is the State’s and the Defense’s agreement because I’m not crazy about, you know, the deliberations of the jury watching eight hours worth of movies to find all the parts that have been identified.

            In the efficient way we’ve tried this case I would like to keep doing that. That’s what I intend to offer into evidence and I don’t know if the State wants to talk about it, consult about it.

D.A. Andrews: So, you want to put the movies, the video into evidence?

Chip: All four that she mentioned.

D.A. Andrews: And we have established that the child watched every part of these movies in their entirety? I don’t think there was any testimony to that.

There were two D.A.’s in my trial, a middle aged, dark-haired woman named Andrews, and the head D.A., an old lady named Oncken.

            Just in case any of these movies had damaging sexual scenes, we see Andrews already setting things up to have the child say she only saw certain parts.

Continued in part 8.c

Letter to Pat Lykos 20

Pat Lykos lost the primary election, and will not be running in November unless she decides to run as an independent.

If she chooses not to, these will be her last few months in office. She doesn’t have to worry about reelection; she doesn’t have to worry about how she will be judged for her decisions. If Mike Anderson becomes the next DA, I will start writing him but for now, let’s not let up on letters to DA Lykos. She may finally be free to act on this case.

District Attorney Patricia Lykos
1201 Franklin St
Houston, Tx
77002

Ma’am,

I’m writing today about the case of Carlos Coy, #908426

I was sorry to see that you did not win the Republican nomination last week. I don’t know much about your opponent except that he was a prosecutor, and endorsed by Chuck Rosenthal.

You have worked long and hard to remove the stain Rosenthal left on the Harris County District Attorney’s office. I believe you can continue this work, and benefit many of the wrongfully convicted that continue on inside the walls of Texas prisons. Please, don’t stop fighting for justice.

Coy’s case is a stunning example of the way the DA’s office operated before you decided to clean it up. I hope you will take some time to look at his case, examine the transcripts and the evidence against him and consider recommending him for a new trial. No matter what you believe about his guilt or innocence, the antics that were tolerated in order to secure his conviction would make any reasonable person cringe. Many of us are working to expose that misbehavior, and I hope you will consider joining us in our efforts.

Me, My address, blah blah blah.

So what happens now? I will continue writing to DA Lykos until she leaves office, and then whoever her successor turns out to be.

The plan for June is as follows: One piece of SPM’s answer every week. He delves into the transcripts to bring up some new facts, and I would really like to see these get publicized. A lot. So every Thursday, please help out by tweeting about SPM’s post, share it on Facebook, put it on your blog, email it to a friend, mention it in a forum, whatever.

If you don’t want to link back to the blog, just copy the whole thing and post it somewhere. Let’s get this shit out there. When someone searches Carlos Coy’s name let’s make sure they can find his words.

http://lifeattheharriscountycriminaljusticecenter.com/tag/chuck-rosenthal

Questions for SPM

Do you have a question about SPM's case? Send it to the address below!

Weekend Reading 35

Essay J posted an update on the 'Can't stop the hustle' mixtape; check that out here: http://youtu.be/THbAqpmZiXk

If you were paying attention to the primary elections, you know that Pat Lykos was not chosen to be the Republican candidate this November; I'll talk about what that means on Monday, but in the meantime: http://blog.bennettandbennett.com/2012/05/harris-county-primaries.html

http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/20120530-editorial-repudiation-of-john-bradley.ece

SPM Responds (Part 8.a)

Yo Fam,

            There were two questions that won this month’s poll:

1.)    What would it take to get your appeal into the Supreme Court?

2.)    What kind of new evidence would be most helpful?

Answer to first question: Well, my appeals lawyer was supposed to bring up mistakes that were made in my trial that violated my rights. These mistakes would have had to be significant enough, (in the eyes of the appeals court), to make a difference in whether the jury believed I was innocent or guilty. In other words, if my lawyer found a mistake but the appeals court said, “Well, this mistake would not have made a difference; the jury would have still found Carlos Coy guilty,” then they dismiss that error. My appeals lawyer told me that he was just going to use the biggest errors he found because the court of appeals don’t like reading something that looks like a book. But that’s the problem, they did so much bullshit, day after day, that it surmounted into a mountain of wrong doing. In the end, that mountain was enough to block the truth out of sight.

      Another thing was how the judge made it more than clear that he wanted the jury to find me guilty. A jury will follow a judge’s lead, assuming that he knows more about the case than they do. That’s why it’s so important that judges keep their oaths to conduct fair trials. Even when my lawyer, Chip, would make an objection, the judge would overrule it with such disdain that Chip felt it was better to object as least as possible. Imagine objections hurting someone’s case when they’re meant to uphold the law. The fact about the judge’s overrulings being so unfavorable that they discouraged Chip from objecting, came out during a hearing that my appeals lawyers did. I’ll get that hearing mailed to me so you can see what I mean.

      The judge and D.A.’s in my case made crooked and underhanded look like the norm, and I’ll expose a little of that in this letter. But, obviously, nothing was significant enough, out of the eight, or so, mistakes that my appeals lawyer brought up, to win my appeal. It’s like I was killed by thousands of ant bites.

      But you guys remember the letter my appeals lawyer wrote. He said something about the Supreme Court not reviewing my appeal because of the lower courts decision not to write an opinion. I’m not sure what that means, but now it’s all about finding new evidence. Why? Because my appeals lawyers weren’t able to get what they needed the first time around. Once we can get new evidence, then we can start the appeals process over. It will work it’s way through three or four lower courts before it gets to the Supreme Court.

      Answer to second question: Probably several things. If any of the witnesses come forward and say “I wasn’t truthful about this or that,” then that would help. Still, the appeals court has to ask the question: If this person had told the truth, would it have made a difference in the outcome of the trial?

      In my case, that method really isn’t fair because one mistake may not have made a difference, and it seems that the appeals court only weighs one error at a time. A jury can be persuaded by several unruly tactics, that all come together to paint a convincing picture.

      In my eyes, the judge did more to persuade the jury’s decision than even the D.A.’s. But you’ll see that they were a team in the Get-SPM-Convicted game.

      For example, Incandesio wrote (on the same letter that had the two questions) that a New Jersey Court had rules that if the defendant could provide ‘some proof’ that a child witness’s testimony had been screwed with by the adults in charge, then they were entitled to a taint hearing to review the interviews.

      Incandesio spoke about a “Michaels Case” where the kids in that case “were not intentionally lying; a story was cultivated in their minds, fleshed-out by ‘helpful’ adults, and by the time they got to court they truly believed they had experienced it.”

      An example of that very thing happened in my trial. But it was all done outside the presence of the jury, so the jury never saw how easily this child’s testimony could be controlled. That’s likely why the judge didn’t allow any TV cameras in the courtroom. He knew he’d be doing and allowing all he could to help the D.A.’s convict me, and that don’t look good on camera.

      Before I get to this example, this plot, I want to explain something as quickly as I can: I had a child with an underaged girl, as most of you know. I met this girl back in 1993. I was twenty-two. She lied about her age, she spent a few nights at my house like it wasn’t shit, and no one in her household seemed to lift an eyebrow. Then she got pregnant.

      First of all, I’m attracted to a grown woman’s body and a grown woman’s mind, just like any other sane man. I don’t fuck with people’s kids. If I had known this girl was underage, I would not have had sex with her. Plus, I would have had to be fucking nuts to be planting my seed in a girl who I knew was a minor. But not knowing is no excuse in the state of Texas and I always knew this would catch up to me one day.

      So, we had a beautiful little boy and I’ll never regret the gift of my son. I brought up this ordeal because nine years after getting this girl pregnant, my wife’s so-called friend called my family’s home. This woman said that I touched her daughter and was threatening to call the police. She said something to the tune of, “I’m calling the cops, and I’m also going to tell them about the boy that Carlos had with that underaged girl.”

      My family called me. I was at a club at the time. I said, “If she calls again, tell that snake to call the police. If her daughter said I touched her, then something is going on in that child’s life that needs to be checked out. And don’t worry, just tell her what I said. Nobody’s going to blackmail me over my son.”

      It was done, and the cops were called, and she told them about the underaged girl. I faced two charges: My baby’s mom, and the little girl’s accusation. In the following months, the D.A.’s found more girls to say they were under eighteen when they had sex with me. You’ll see how those cases came about and what methods were used to accomplish those charges. They were fraud and paper thin and all they really had was my baby’s mom. There was no denying that my boy was mine. But the D.A.’s decided to gamble and try the little girl’s case first. Anyway, if they lost, they could always fall back on the real case. But when the D.A.’s try a case, it costs the state a lot of money, so they do all they can to win. Me being this anti-system gangster, ex-dope dealer gone rapper, drug user and, most concerning to them, blowing up nation-wide, only made their chance at destroying me more appealing.

So, with all that said, I’ll begin explaining the incident that Incandesio’s letter, about the Michaels case, encouraged.

Continued in Part 8.b