Donnell Thomas - Child Sex Abuse - Perjury
Thomas, Donnell; child sex abuse, child abuse; NRE: perjury/false accusation, no crime
Suggestibility issues
[892:461]; 2nd Dept. 12/22/09; reversed, due to improper bolstering
"[W]e are satisifed that the verdict of guilt was not against the weight of the evidence..."
"However, a new trial is required due to the...improper admission into evidence...of a statement given to the police...A witness's trial testimony ordinarily may not be bolstered with pretrial statements.
"Under the circumstances of this case, such improper bolstering cannot be deemed harmless..."
"On July 31, 2006 Kelonda Thomas left her home in Huntongton Station...to pay a bill, leaving her three daughters from a previous marriage with her husband, 22-year-old Donnell Thomas.
"She returned abruptly because she forgot some paperwork, and found Thomas sitting on a bed with her seven-year-old daughter. Kelonda shouted at them because she thought -- based on their positions -- that they were engaged in a sex act. Thomas denied the accusation and said he was playing a video game. However, Kelonda took the girl and her two sisters from the home and went to a neighbor who ran a daycare center.
"Kelonda then called police, and after the girl told police that Thomas had forced her to perform oral sex on him, Thomas was arrested..."
"Thomas went on trial in Suffok County...Kelonda Thomas testified and said she believed Thomas and her daughter had been engaged in oral sex, but stopped when she came home unexpectedly. The defense noted that her 911 call to police was more ambiguous. On the call, Kelonda said, 'She was sitting on the bed, and um. . .he was making her have oral sex. But she said they didn't, it didn't start because I walked in. He was umm. . .convincing her to do it and he was in her face, I walked in on it.'
"The girl testified and said Thomas had forced her to perform oral sex on him. The prosecution also presented the girl's similar statement to police."
"On May 2, 2007, the jury convicted Thomas...[He] was sentenced to 17 years in prison."
"[After the reversal,] Thomas went on trial a secod time in 2011. Kelonda's testimony from the first trial was read to the jury because she was unavailable for medical reasons. The girl also testified as she did in the first trial.
"At the second trial, the prosecution presented some of Thomas's grand jury testimony in evidence. In light of that, the judge allowed the defense to introduce Thomas's statement to the grand jury that he had told the investigating detective that he was innocent and would take a polygraph and DNA tests to prove it -- evidence that had been excluded from the first trial.
"On March 11, 2011, after five days of deliberation, the jury acquitted Thomas and he was released."
[All emphases added unless otherwise noted.]
