Reason Magazine
- reason.com
- reason.tv
- reason.org
- Donate
- Site Search:
Reason on Facebook
Reason on Twitter
Reason on YouTube
Reason RSSGet Reason E-mail Updates!
Manage your Reason e-mail list subscriptionsadvertisements
This Week in Innocence
There are so many things wrong with this story, it's hard to know where to begin.
Woods was arrested in 2006 on child molestation charges, his case put off nine times ultimately never making it to trial. Eventually, attorney Jennifer Hinkebein Culotta got the case last year, visited Woods in the Clark County jail and she had a lot of questions about the allegations.
"They alleged somebody had placed a 4-foot long weed-eater wire into the penis of a child," said Culotta, of Culotta and Cullota LLP in Jeffersonville, Indiana...
Woods spent two years in jail before he met with a single defense attorney.
"I just thought medically that cannot be physically possible that a weed-eater wire that's not sterilized would stay in a body eight years without any possible medical repercussions," Culotta said of reviewing the case.
After she petitioned for the child's medical reports last year, Culotta discovered an important piece of evidence that occurred one year before Woods was arrested. "In the medical reports, one year prior there had been a CT scan of the pelvis and it's apparent that there was no weed-eater wire there," Culotta said of the findings.
The news was enough to get Woods out of jail just in time for last Christmas. Still the case isn't over yet.
"In this situation we had police officers, prosecuting officers, we had the court system we had defense attorneys, if all those people are not actively investigating the case and working the case properly then you end up like we have with Donald Woods," Culotta said. "An innocent person sitting in jail for two plus years."
Woods is suing.
robc|9.12.09 @ 11:47AM|#
Despite being local to me I had heard nothing about this case
until this link.
Im assuming they pulled 4 ft of weedeater wire out of a 13 year
old? Any backstory?
If so, there is still a possible criminal out there, unless the kid
did it himself.
|9.12.09 @ 12:06PM|#
The vengeful ex screams child abuse and the suspect is presumed
guilty. Why waste time with an investigation and quaint legal
nicities like the right to counsel?
Donald Woods is lucky he wasn't a day care center employee, then
he'd be facing a multitude of charges.
There are so many things wrong with this story, it's hard to know where to begin.
A veritable tsunami of legal system incompetence to be sure.
Tricky Prickears|9.12.09 @ 12:38PM|#
Sounds like a violation of his Sixth Amendment rights, for starters.
Shannon Love|9.12.09 @ 12:38PM|#
It unlikely but possible to have something inserted in the
urethra for many years without developing an infection. The urethra
is topologically outside the body (like the intestines) so the
immune system walls it off. I doubt it could be done without
causing persistent discomfort and obvious problems urinating.
This case exposes an even grimmer possibility than an adult
spending two years in jail. Assuming the child did have a foreign
object inserted, then that means that person who did is still free.
Since the mother blamed Woods either she did it or she is
protecting the person who did. That means the child has been left
in the custody of a monster these past two years while the criminal
justice system screwed around.
People forget that the presumption of innocence and the rights of
the accused not only protect the individual from the power of the
state but that they also make the justice system more accurate and
more likely to imprison the guilty. When an innocent person is
convicted, a guilty person goes free. The slipshod work in this
case not only hurt Woods but could have well allowed a very
dangerous individual to remain free in the community.
GILMORE|9.12.09 @ 1:15PM|#
1.
owwww. Owwwwwwwwww. OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.
2.
Shannon Love, you know far, far too much about what can and can't
be shoved in someone's urethra.
Art-P.O.G.|9.12.09 @ 1:28PM|#
Nice scoop, FrBunny. But I think you'd benefit from taking the
LoneWacko approach to pointing out when you've scooped a reason
editor:
i.e. "Nice post from Radley. Too bad I already reported on it
yesterday.
Meanwhile, here's reason's favorite
editor shilling for MassiveIllegalImmigration."
|9.12.09 @ 1:34PM|#
Either that kid has an inhumanly huge pecker or everyone involved just switched off when they heard "four feet" and "inserted into penis". Or the prosecutor is fucking shitbag who heard "get points for child molestation prosecution". I'm going with the latter. Warty, of course, would be consumed with the former.
Art-P.O.G.|9.12.09 @ 1:39PM|#
I'm still waiting for someone to debunk the weed-eater wire story by beginning with: "as a man who's had a lot of objects inserted into his urethra..."
the innominate one|9.12.09 @ 1:46PM|#
Episiarch, perhaps Warty "switched on", rather than "switched
off" if you know what I mean.
like you all aren't into sounding
I know better
|9.12.09 @ 1:52PM|#
Even if Balko ran with my link (I'm betting he didn't), I'm happy to be a cog in the indefatigable gadfly justice machine.
|9.12.09 @ 2:28PM|#
The prosecution alleged that a weed whacker wire had been
inserted into his urethra. However, when the attorney got the
child's medical records, a CT scan showed that no wire existed.
Thus, it is doubtful that the wire was ever inserted into the
child.
This case is horrible from several perspectives. The first is that
it took him so long to get an attorney. That should go without
saying. But notice that even once he got an attorney, he was not
able to get bailed out of jail. This attorney sounds like she knew
what she was doing and got the case dismissed against him. If she
knew enough to do that, I would infer she knew about bail. So,
either the judge denied her bail motion (which I would take as the
more likely scenario) or she never made one, most likely because
trying to get bail in cases like this is extremely difficult.
It is hard to comprehend just how large an impact incarceration has
upon a case. Cases like this show why release on bail should be the
norm rather than the exception.
|9.12.09 @ 2:36PM|#
Bunny, you are a hell of a lush, aren't you. And innominate, no one wants to hear about your perverted fetishes. Wait, yes I do. Scratch that.
Xeones|9.12.09 @ 3:22PM|#
Hit'n'Run: Come for the travesties of justice, stay for the sexual perversions you've never heard of before.
$|9.12.09 @ 4:25PM|#
FEET?
There's no one involved who didn't always know it was all
bullshit.
No one.
BakedPenguin|9.12.09 @ 4:32PM|#
I know this is a serious case, and I definitely feel for the
poor guy railroaded here.
But the title of the post made me think of the
Innocence Report from the Homer Bad Man episode.
BakedPenguin|9.12.09 @ 4:37PM|#
...no one wants to hear about your perverted fetishes. Wait, yes I do. Scratch that.
At the college I work at, I noticed an article titled "The Use of
Nueroleptics in the Treatment of Paraphilias." I noted the authors'
names, because now I think I know who you and SugarFree really
are.
Mike|9.12.09 @ 4:54PM|#
Uh, I'm afraid there was a 42-inch wire in the kid's bladder.
That part wasn't made up.
http://www.news-tribune.net/local/local_story_247191336.html
Nipplemancer|9.12.09 @ 5:48PM|#
Orange County Sheriff Deputy hands taser to Disney
Cop who then shoots another Disney Cop.
"The actions of an Orange County deputy sheriff are under
administrative review today after reports he handed his stun gun to
an employee at Walt Disney World's Epcot, who shocked a fellow
worker, a department spokesman said."
Shannon Love|9.12.09 @ 6:04PM|#
Gilmore,
Shannon Love, you know far, far too much about what can and
can't be shoved in someone's urethra.
I was originally educated to be a biologist and I still keep my
hand in the game so speak. In addition, I concentrated on
neurophysiology and cognition so I know rather a lot about things
crazy people do.
For example, there is a sexual fetish in which people insert
objects in their urethra. Schizophrenics sometimes insert wires and
similar objects trying to find and remove foreign objects their
delusions tell them are there.
Since the child did in fact have four feet of weed eater line
coiled in his bladder, I suppose the possibility exist that he did
himself owing to mental illness. It might be a variant of "cutter"
syndrome in which deeply depressed people cut or otherwise inflict
pain on themselves just to experience some other sensation than the
depression. More likely I think, the mother did it to punish him.
Inserting something inside a child's body fits a feminine
psychopathology more than that of a sexually abusive male.
|9.12.09 @ 7:00PM|#
At the college I work at, I noticed an article titled "The
Use of Nueroleptics in the Treatment of Paraphilias." I noted the
authors' names, because now I think I know who you and SugarFree
really are.
Those are also fake names. I would have thought you'd have realized
that Hugh Jass and I.P. Knightley didn't pass the smell test.
Zoology Saturday|9.12.09 @ 8:16PM|#
Attacking cassowaries charge and kick, sometimes jumping on top
of the victim. Unlike emus, which reputedly kick backwards,
cassowaries can kick in a forward and downward direction. They may
also peck, barge or head-butt. The commonest injuries they cause in
humans are puncture wounds, lacerations and bone fractures. Serious
injuries resulting from cassowary attacks are most likely to occur
if the person is crouching or is lying or has fallen on the ground.
When confronted with a charging cassowary it is clearly unwise to
crouch or turn one's back on the bird. Claims that jogging incites
cassowaries to attack (supposedly because the sound of running feet
imitates a foot-stamping rival cassowary) do not withstand scrutiny
as walking people have been attacked more frequently than
joggers.
Cassowaries will also kick or peck at doors and windows, sometime
breaking panes of glass or screen panels. In these cases they are
presumably attacking a reflection which they perceive as another
cassowary. They will also kick or chase cars, again because they
appear to associate the human occupants with food. Cassowaries
dislike dogs and will attack them without provocation, presumably
because feral dogs and dingos often prey on cassowaries. Between
June 1996 and February 1997, six cassowaries were killed by dogs in
the Cairns area and, of 35 cassowary attacks recorded by Kofron on
dogs, 29 were in self-defence. Cassowaries also dislike cats.
Attacks on horses and cows have also been recorded and C. casuarius
is anecdotally credited with having killed small horses (C. Walker
pers. comm.). These attacks were presumably territorial in
motive.
The More You Know|9.12.09 @ 8:57PM|#
Cassowaries can handle up to twenty eight feet of coiled trimmer
string in their bladders!
And Knowledge is Power!
Drugs are bad, m\'kay?|9.12.09 @ 11:20PM|#
Weed-killer.
And at "four feet" that shows they also stunt your growth.
|9.13.09 @ 12:47PM|#
Since this is a Balko thread,
this is marginally on-topic...
BOISE, Idaho - When police officer Darryll Dowell is on patrol in the southwestern Idaho city of Nampa, he'll pull up at a stoplight and usually start casing the vehicle. Nowadays, his eyes will also focus on the driver's arms, as he tries to search for a plump, bouncy vein.
"I was looking at people's arms and hands, thinking, 'I could draw from that,'" Dowell said.
It's all part of training he and a select cadre of officers in Idaho and Texas have received in recent months to draw blood from those suspected of drunken or drugged driving. The federal program's aim is to determine if blood draws by cops can be an effective tool against drunk drivers and aid in their prosecution.
If the results seem promising after a year or two, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will encourage police nationwide to undergo similar training.
|9.14.09 @ 8:35PM|#
A veritable tsunami of legal system incompetence to be
sure.
Incompetence? Heck no, this was sexism pure and simple. Do you
really think a mother would get so little benefit of the doubt?
Site comments/questions:
Media Inquiries and Reprint Permissions:
(310) 367-6109
Editorial & Production Offices:
3415 S. Sepulveda Blvd.
Suite 400
Los Angeles, CA 90034
(310) 391-2245