Rob Sanders: Sexophrenic Tool?


When common sense fails, claim some variant of exceptionalism. That's what Kenton Commonwealth’s Attorney Rob Sanders in Ohio has done. You see, he wanted to convict Nicole Howell, a teacher in her mid-twenties, of first degree sexual assault. He wanted her in prison. He wanted her registered for life as a sex offender. He wanted to destroy her because he believed she had consensual sex with a sixteen-year-old student at Dayton High School.

It took a jury little more than an hour to acquit Ms. Howell. And now the former teacher has sued Sanders. Sanders' defense?

"Sex crimes are not like bank robberies. They typically do not take place on security cameras in front of a room full of witnesses. Ifg prosecutors ignored cases like this, few, if any sex crimes would ever get prosecuted."

Maybe that's what the jury was trying to tell the the Ohio prosecutor: Too many cases like this are being prosecuted, and for no good end.

I don't know whether the jury nullified the law in the Howell case. The defense was not not consent but denial. Apparently, prosecutors ignored exculpatory evidence, including a polygraph exam than Ms. Howell had passed. The state ignored the fact that it was Howell who reported rumors of the contact to school officials. The state ignored the fact that the so-called victim at first denied the rumors. Ther state ignored the fact that the alleged victim could not identify prominent features of Ms. Howell's, features any but a blind lover would recognized.

The prosecution ignored all that it did not want to see and focused on what it wanted: Ms. Howell's hide. And it did so because sex crimes are "oh-so different." This swill is unworthy of a serious professional.

Ms. Howell has filed suit against the state's attorney, claiming damages for her ruined career and reputation. She is unlikely to enjoy relief. Prosecutorial immunity is virtually impenetrable. And Rob Sanders, the prosecutor, is far from chastened by this defeat; he is defiant, and is taunting Ms. Howell's lawyer, baiting him as a showboat in the press.

Prosecutors make great show at closing argument of holding accused person's accountable for their alleged crimes. But when a prosecutor errs, he hides behind immunity. And then, as does Mr. Sanders, he tells the world he'd do the same thing all over again. These cases are special, you see. There is often but a single witness, and why would that witness lie? We need to protect the world against sexual predators.

Ms. Howell was no predator. The predator in this instance was the state. It stalked this woman and sought her destruction. And when it failed and someone tries to hold it accountable, it claims immunity from accountability.

Penetrating prosecutorial immunity is hard. I try it once every couple of years. But the law is harsh. A prsoecutor performing as an advocate can do almost anything so long as what he does is consonant with his function as an advocate. I wonder why ministers of justice get carte blanche to destroy lives, however?

There simply needs to be some corroboration requirement in single witnesses cases. Under Mosaic law, prosecution for murder was only possible on the testimony of two witnesses. This rule bled into the common law, and was eventually swallowed whole. One witness is enough for most crimes these days.

One witness was almost too much for Ms. Howell. How many other defendants have sat in courtrooms, sometimes many years after the events complained of, and been unable to mount a defense to ancient allegations because, quite frankly, the allegations weren't true, and so much time had passed that there was no reasonable possibility of recalling an alibi?

We'll never know. What we do know is that prosecutors regard these cases as special. We permit them to do so because hysterical governs our response to allegations of sexual misconduct. We're sexophrenic, all right. Sex sells by mesmerizing a consumer; and when it doesn't sell, it terrifies. We become strangers to ourselves and to the truth and few seem to care.

Comments: (2)

  • 'Malicious prosecution' is indeed a crime in both ...
    'Malicious prosecution' is indeed a crime in both Connecticut and Massachusetts. In Mass., there is an additional category, 'misuse of legal process'. Unfortunately, as Mr. Pattis points out, the State will neither investigate nor entertain such accusations, regardless of merit. The State simply denies them out of hand. The State believes its prosecutors can do no wrong, and cannot be held accountable for anything other than accepting bribes or unacceptable sexual misconduct.
    If you should file a federal complaint, as I did, the district judge sits on it for an unbearable length of time and eventually dismisses the complaint on the basis of 'prosecutorial immunity'. It's a total joke.
    In my CT, cases, the prosecutors Elizabeth Bodine and Maura Kehoe Coyne, manufactured the charges against me without investigating them. I myself was never interviewed by the police or the State. The State 'manufactured' the case against me by piling-on 13 (thirteen) criminal charges and 69 years prison. Nine of them were 'felony', carrying 65 years prison. I was denied a grand jury, to which I was Constitutionally entitled. The State, through prosecuting attorney Coyne, brought the cases to trial outside the statute of limitations (one year). The State suborned the perjured testimonies--knowingly and willingly--of two police officers and five civilians.
    My public defenders--who will go unnamed--were unprepared to go to trial, and indicated as much to the judge. The judge said, Too Bad, 'proceed'. I was at that point denied the 'effective use of counsel' in the face of three life sentences over two dog accidents in the City of New Haven.
    A funny thing happened on the forum, a child who was coached by the State testified in contradiction to the testimony of his own father, Danny Valentin. Both testified in Spanish and their testimonies had to be translated for the Court by an interpreter. Mr. Valentin inexplicably told the truth. Either the State failed to coach him in Spanish, or else he was just too dumb to testify falsely under oath in an American court of law.
    Prosecutor Coyne told the court that the children were 'injured'. But she introduced no hospital admissions records, no doctors' records, and psychologists' records to back up her claims. Nothing. The police officer Andres Diaz checked on his police report, The Children were Not Injured, and testied to same in open court. That did not stop Judge Conway from sending two counts of Risk of Injury to the jury for consideration, thus putting me at risk of 20 years over those two charges alone.
    Officer Diaz, the reporting officer, also testified that he was the 'arresting officer'. He was not the arresting officer. I never saw Diaz that day. Offcr. J. Naccarato was the arresting officer. (I know who the arresting officer was, and I remember his badge number.) The arresting officer is the one who is supposed to write the report and testify in court. When the Court asked me, "Who arrested you?", I answered truthfully. Neither the Court, the State, nor the Defense requested the presence of Naccarato to test the credibility of the Defendant who was facing 69 year. None of the players were interested in the truth. They were the Blind leading the Blind, and so it went all the way to the appellate level, where I lost, predictably. The Appellate court rubber-stamps the trial court 99.9% of the time without even looking at the issues. It's a charade and a business where the defendant can almost never prevail. The State always wins.
    Posted on November 26, 2009 at 5:42 am by William Doriss
  • None of the above considerations stopped the jury ...
    None of the above considerations stopped the jury from coming to two guilty verdicts in these cases (which had been combined illegally and unlawfully by Judge Bernadette Conway, in violation of State v. Gordon C. Randolph, SC). This came about because Judge Conway co-conspired with the State to achieve the guilty verdicts. She coached the State in the exact wording of the charges, behind closed doors, at the beginning of trial. She mis-instructed and misled the jury in Jury Instructions. She instructed the jury that they need not, and should not, consider 'intent' in two of the charges, even though the words 'with intent' were embedded in the statute of which I was being charged. This was a malicious act of sabotage on the part of Judge Conway, New Haven Superior Court, 2002.
    The jury never saw a printed version of the entire statute which included the words 'with intent'. They were deliberately removed by the judge and lady prosecutor. I never saw the statute itself in its entirety until I received the Record over one year later.
    If a jury finds testimonies for the State 'not credible', how can they possibly come to any guilty verdict under those charges?
    The State of CT 'engineered' two guilty misdemeanor verdicts against me, against which I could not possibly be found 'not guilty', so that I would not get off 'Scott-free' and make them look stupid.
    Not to worry, they looked stupid anyway. I really won my cases, but actually lost. Only in CT is the criminal 'justice' system so Byzantine and incomprehensible as to defy common sense,... and the U.S. Constitution, I might add.
    Finally, I was sentenced illegally and unlawfully by Judge Conway on Nov. 25, 2002, against Apprendi v. New Jersey, USSC, 2000. My dog Zeus was executed illegally and unlawfully by the City the very next day, even though the Defense indicated very clearly to the Court that we intended appeal the guilty verdicts. What if I had one the appeal? How would the City and State then return my dog to me?
    The criminal 'justice' system is rigged. They knew ahead of time that there was not a dog's chance in hell that I would win the appeal. And so it happened, as planned. It's farce.
    Posted on November 26, 2009 at 5:46 am by William Doriss

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