FindLaw | Legal News & Information

This week's episode tells the story of Chris Skinner, a sixteen year-old high school student found in a garbage bag with his throat slashed. At the time of his death, Skinner had been out selling candy bars for school. The police consider a number of Skinner's fellow students as potential suspects, ultimately focusing on one student: John Telford. The episode examines the world of contemporary high school students, complete with school cliques, violent video games, and access through the Internet to illegal weapons. It also introduces the subject of holding a parent criminally responsible for his child's violent acts.

I'll first note that the police could properly speak to all the witnesses and suspects without a parent present because all were at least sixteen years old. (In New York, persons under sixteen years of age must be questioned in the presence of a parent unless both waive that right.) When one suspect tells the police that he wants his brother present, the police do not have to comply. They only have to stop their questioning if the witness/suspect requests a lawyer. That being said, Detective Green's threat to one of the boys that he will be the victim of sexual assaults in jail was way over the top.

At many points in this episode, whether the police and the prosecutors have sufficient evidence to move forward is a critical question. The first example is a warrant the police obtain to search John Telford's room in the apartment he shares with his parents and brother. At this point, the police know only that (1) Telford and Skinner knew each other from school, (2) Skinner's body was found down the street from Telford's apartment, (3) ash from a menthol cigarette found on the garbage bag in which Skinner's body was found matched that left by Telford's neighbor at the top of a stairwell outside Telford's apartment, and (4) Skinner was having trouble with the Freaks, the group to which Telford belonged. In my opinion, the police did not at this point have probable cause to obtain a search warrant for Telford's room.

The search is conducted, though, and the police find a "comma," a scythe-like weapon that matches the wound on Skinner's neck. The prosecutors then decide to charge Telford with murder in the second degree. This decision was ridiculous. Skinner's blood was not found on the weapon nor, indeed, anywhere in Telford's building, and no one saw Skinner and Telford together on the day of the murder. The prosecutors could have convened a grand jury and begun to build a case against Telford, if possible, but they certainly did not have evidence beyond a reasonable doubt of Telford's guilt.

The investigation continues. The police learn that another student tipped off Telford to the fact that Skinner was in the neighborhood selling candy. Telford reportedly told him, "I hope that faggot comes to my building" This student knew that Telford "liked messing with" Skinner. The police also discover that Telford's father had been warned of his son's violent tendencies. A teacher who read violent stories Telford had written for class called Telford's father, only to have the father hang up on her.

The police seize Telford's computer, presumably pursuant to a warrant. Unlike the search of Telford's room, this seizure was certainly proper given the growing evidence that Telford spent hours on the Internet, liked to "mess with" Skinner, and was aware of his presence in the neighborhood on the day of the murder. The police find violent games on the hard drive of Telford's computer, as well as e-mails to other students. One of these e-mails leads the police to Leo, a student who had previously been Telford's victim of harassment. Leo's father had called Telford's father twice, but Telford's father had threatened and rebuffed him. Leo reluctantly admits to the police and his father that Telford had tried, at knife point, to pull him into a storage room in the basement of Telford's apartment in order to use him for "sword practice." The police properly obtain a search warrant for the room and find a manikin with a sword protruding from it. Telford's father proclaims, "What's the big deal? He was practicing."

Assistant District Attorney McCoy seeks a ruling from the court that he will be permitted at trial to use the following as evidence against Telford: the comma, the practice dummy "sliced up the same way as Skinner," Telford's Internet activity, and Telford's prior bullying of others. The court correctly permits the prosecution to introduce the comma into evidence. After all, the prosecution is entitled to argue that it is the murder weapon. The court excludes the remaining items as evidence of prior bad acts. (Evidence of prior bad acts may be admissible into evidence if the acts establish some element of the crime, such as motive, intent, common scheme or plan, or identity of the defendant. Even if relevant for such purposes, the bad acts may be excluded from evidence if their probative value is outweighed by their prejudicial effect on the defendant.) In my opinion, the court improperly excluded the practice dummy. Provided that the wound on it was similar to that on the deceased, the dummy was evidence not of a prior bad act, but rather of preparation for the crime--just as a target with bullet holes might be evidence of preparation for an assassination. As to the remaining items, courts frequently favor the defendant in weighing the probative against the prejudicial value of a particular bad act.

Frustrated by their inability to construct a case against Telford, who was perhaps precipitously indicted, the prosecutors decide to charge Telford's father with Skinner's murder in the second degree. The theory is that he exercised a depraved indifference to Skinner's life and recklessly engaged in conduct that created a grave risk of death to Skinner and in fact caused his death. Their plan is try father and son together so that the prior bad acts of Telford will come into evidence as proof of the father's indifference to his son's violent predilections. Thus, the prosecutors hope to circumvent the judge's ruling on Telford's bad acts and at least obtain a conviction of Telford. However, this strategy has numerous weaknesses.

First, even with the "bad acts" evidence, the prosecution still may not be able to prove the son's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. As of this point, they have in his possession a fairly unique weapon that matches the wound, but no blood on the weapon. They have no evidence of the victim's blood in Telford's apartment building. They still have no eyewitness who saw Telford and Skinner together on the day of the murder. There is more than enough room here for a defense attorney to convince a jury that the prosecution has not carried its burden.

Because the case against Telford is so weak, the indictment of Telford's father for causing the murderous act is likewise flawed. Moreover, holding the father responsible for Skinner's death is as unprecedented as it is overly aggressive. The evidence available to the prosecution against the father consists of the phone calls made to him by the teacher and by Leo's father and the fact that he gave his son a credit card to buy the comma on the Internet. This certainly does not establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in the criminal context of murder. Reminiscent of McCoy's prosecution of the gun manufacturer for depraved indifference murder in the series premiere, this prosecution of Telford's father is dubious. As with the gun manufacturer, the case against Telford's father is perhaps more appropriate to the civil arena.

Furthermore, the joint criminal trial of Telford and his father is an unlikely scenario. Remember that the prosecution's goal is to try them together in order to flood the record with evidence of Telford's prior bad acts. Such a strategy could easily be foiled by a defense motion for separate trials. This motion would likely be made and granted, because Telford would be unduly prejudiced by the evidence admissible to show his father's reckless disregard of Telford's violent tendencies. Additionally, the representation of Telford and his father by the same lawyer is completely unrealistic. They would almost certainly be represented by separate counsel because their interests could and do conflict.

In a dramatic twist, during her husband's trial testimony, Telford's mother blurts out that he is in fact responsible for their son's violent behavior. The defense attorney requests a mistrial, which the court properly denies. The prosecution did nothing to provoke the remark, and the prosecution would certainly cure any "improper" prejudice by calling Telford's mother as a rebuttal witness to give evidence against her husband.

In a final improbable scene, the prosecutors negotiate a plea with the defendants' lawyer in the presence of his clients and Telford's mother. Such pleas are routinely negotiated by lawyers outside the presence of defendants, not to mention their families. Moreover, the defense counsel's utter silence while Mrs. Telford prods her son into a full confession during this meeting is completely unrealistic. No defense counsel worth his salt would sit by and allow his client to waive his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent without strenuous advice to the contrary.

Past Reviews

Message Boards

Disclaimer