No, not me. But, a few years ago, there was a police officer that was convicted of the manslaughter of his own son, about age 2 or 3, as I recall. The kid had disappeared. They NEVER found a body. They convicted him of manslaughter, but they couldn’t even prove that the kid was dead. IIRC, there were even witnesses that saw the child being abducted. Actually, the witness was the guys own daughter. But on the witness stand, she changed her story. Between the abduction/manslaughter, the couple divorced and the daughter went to live with the mother.
It seems like he was convicted solely on the “changed testimony” of his own daughter, who, by the way, did not change her story until AFTER she went to live with her mother. They maintained that he hauled the “body” off in the trunk of his patrol car, but couldn’t prove that either.
He served his time and has since been paroled. But my question is simply, how can a person be convicted of a major crime when the authorities can’t even prove that a crime has been commited?
Sometimes, the law makes no sense. And incidently, they have, to this day, never found a body.
Well, you’ll probably have to distinguish between what really happened and what the press reported. I think that, in that case, any sane judge would have ahd to acquit, if the sole evidence was the changed testimony of the man’s daughter. However, if he was convicted and the judge wasn’t insane/crooked, then likely the problem lies with the reporter, not the court.
That is the beauty of the jury system. You really do not need any avidence whatsoever. You just need to convince 12 people that the guy did it. Very often I would say people are rather emotional and less than rational and a good actor can put on a good show and convince them of anything. It can also work the other way around and a guilty man go free.
A jury is a body composed of 12 people who decide what side has the best lawyer.
The distinction is made between the corpse and the corpus delicti (Latin, “body of the crime,” i.e., the body of evidence that a crime has been committed.) In a homicide case, the corpus delicti is the proof that a person is dead and that he died by criminal means. If the corpse can be found, it is usually a fairly simple matter to determine if a murder or manslaughter has been committed. But only a few jurisdictions require that the physical corpse be found in order to establish the corpus delicti. It is, however, usually very difficult to establish the corpus delicti without the corpse.
here is a case from North Carolina in which a man was found guilty of first degree murder, although the body of his victim was never found.
I agree that the most likely explanation is that the reporter was incompetent and/or had an axe to grind. For example, if the body was taken away in the trunk of the guy’s car, there was probably blood in the trunk.
OTOH, children are often unreliable and fickle witnesses. A huge problem is that younger children will often simply tell the lawyer what s/he wants to hear in order to make him/her happy. And what the lawyer wants to hear is usually extremely obvious even to a very young child. Then of course there’s blatant manipulation by adults, which I’m sure any divorce judge knows about all too well.
In regards to the latter problem, there was a horrible case of false abuse accusations in Detroit a few years ago. This couple was accused of hideous acts of abuse and neglect, such as feeding their children fried cockroaches for dinner! They were arrested and the children were put with relatives and all that stuff. They were immediately demonized by the press. After the police investigated, however, they found out that the kid’s aunt and uncle had made up the accusations! They hated the parents for some reason, and they convinced the children to make up the abuse stories to get the parents in trouble. They even coached the children to make sure that their stories were consistent. It almost worked, but when the truth was revealed, the mortified prosecutors dropped all charges and plenty of local child-rights advocates ate very large plates of crow.
There could be other evidence which proved convincing. Other witnesses spotting the two of them together after the purported disappearance. An inadmissable confession carefully alluded to by the prosecutor or witness testimony. Perhaps physical evidence, like blood in his car or on his clothes.
I remember a guy in southern Virginia got convicted with no body and no witnesses at all. Blood was found at the scene where this fellow and his girlfriend were staying one night. Dogs tracked a scent trail from the scene of the crime to the guy’s home. Her blood was found on his clothing. Yet somehow, he had managed to dispose of the body without the dogs being able to discover it. That apparently didn’t matter to the jury.
Not exactly. If a judge believes the the jury did not follow the rules of evidence or the instructions he gave them, he can set aside any conviction they reach. It is up to the discretion of the judge, however, so it is possible for a jury to reach a seemingly unjust decision that the judge does not set aside.
That’s what I was trying to say. If the only evidence of ANYTHING was the daughter’s testimony, a jury might stll convict. However, I would hope the judge would be rational to, in that case, declare the man innocent.
Since he was convicted, I’m assuming the reporter was an ass or you’re not remembering much of the case, because I don’t think anyone would try to build a case on the testimony of one witness, especially a child.
The problem with the case that I cited was that there was absolutley no physical evidence. Before his arrest he brought his squad car in to the shop where I work because of an engine problem. The investigators came in and because it wouldn’t run, went over it right there in the shop. No physical evidence was found. No blood, no nothing. I am of the opinion that no matter how carefull a person is, they can’t get rid of all the physical evidence. They will always leave something.
On the flip side of the case, what would they do if the child suddenly showed up, completely unharmed? How would they give the man his life back? He served 6 or 8 (I think) years in prison and now is on parole. If the child (now a teenager) comes back, what are the authorities going to do? Tell the “felon”, “Oh we sure screwed up, sorry about that.” Somehow, that doesn’t sound quite like enough, but if the guy is lucky, that is probably all he would get. Sure, he could sue, but a billion dollars wouldn’t give him back his life.
Even if there was no blood found in the car, that doesn’t mean there wasn’t a body in the car. There could have been a body wrapped in a blanket,etc which contained all the blood ,hair and other evidence.
Someone else said the reporter may have been incompetent or had an axe to grind. It may not have been either . A newspaper article is not meant to be a complete trial transcript, and if it was, no one would read it (even the transcripts in the OJ trial were partial).However, without either being there or reading a transcript it is impossible to know exactly what was presented to the jury.He may have made a confession, or more likely an admission ( not exactly the same thing-for example he may have acknowledged being with the child at the time of the disappearance}Although blood was not found in his car, it may have been found on his clothes. He may have claimed the child was abducted from him,but reacted strangely ( didn’t report it until days after he claimed it happened or never did report it).He may have taken out a large insurance policy on the child. He may have previously beaten the child.These are just a few things I came up with off the top of my head. I’m sure there are many more possibilities. There had to be more than the uncorroborated testimony of a child to convict, but it needn’t be a body.
I just want to take this in a different direction.
The guy could be innocent. Innocent people are sometimes convicted. A couple of years ago in Louisiana we had a guy get out of jail when he was proven innocent after serving 20 years.
Nobody, but nobody, has ever been found innocent in this country. They have been found not guilty. Innocence is presumed. That’s why we have the appeals process. That’s why we place the burden on proof squarely on the prosecution. That’s why we have the 14th Amendment. Sua Sponte can fill in the gaps.
Sailor said it best. The truth doesn’t really matter. You just gotta convince a jury. As long as no procedural rules were violated by the jury, the judge isn’t likely to throw away a jury decision.
Mrs. Tonk is a trial lawyer with nearly 200 cases brought to a jury decision.
This was very hard for me to live with for a long time, because I am a scientist.
Unlike scientists, (in a pure sense) courtroom lawyers are allowed to trumpet some truths, dismiss some, and try to avoid addressing others. All to try and win their case.
Do you mean she tesified that she saw him abduct the child, and then, while still on the stand, changed her story?
We need more info to work with. You are asking about a case that happened 8 years ago, and providing only your own recollection about it. Can you find some old news reports? I bet they speak of a little more evidence than you are remembering.