Sleeping Jury - Sleeping Justice!
DA Campbell continues squandering taxpayer dollars
Jury during the Michael Swift trial
By Joseph Snook
Investigative ReporterJosephine County, OR (April, 2009) - In the case of the State vs. Michael Swift - case number 07247215, abuse of a minor child.
History:
Christine Swift, soon to be former wife of Michael Swift, after a 17 year relationship of anything but an ideal marriage, regained the custody of her daughter in mid-2007 and in doing so brought sexual abuse charges against Michael Swift. Some of the key players in her attempt to convict Michael Swift are Assistant District Attorney, Ryan Mulkins, DHS worker Bobby Morrocco, State Investigator Sergeant Proulx, Therapist Angela Scoggins, Dr. Curtis Oddo and the Children’s Advocacy Center in Medford Oregon.
There is nothing more rotten, despised or sickening than an adult that abuses a child in any way whatsoever. I will be the first to say that I’d want much more severe punishments for people who abuse children than most, but that’s beside the point. The question is, “Did the accused do it?”
A state employee must, first and foremost uphold the law, it’s that simple, after all, that is what they are paid to do. If a mother came to me and said that her daughter had been molested by her husband and the daughter said that it had also happened, would that mean the father did it? Are people really innocent until proven guilty? It was clear and evident that some of the people involved in this case, public employees who we pay, seemed to have bleeding hearts that clouded their ability to find out the truth before placing their blinders on and charging forward.
Michael and Christine Swift both admitted under oath to a rocky past and that they had both at one point abused drugs and alcohol during their relationship. A few years back, Michael Swift had an altercation with Christine which led to her arrest and Michael ended up in the hospital with twelve staples and stitches in his head. It was shortly after that when Michael petitioned the court for full custody of his daughter. He was required to complete a drug rehab program with ARC in Medford, Oregon and upon graduating, the state awarded him full custody of his daughter. After being awarded full custody, Michael explained that being a single parent was much more difficult than he had ever imagined and at times he wanted to work things out with Christine because he still had feelings for her and because he believed she needed to be a part of their daughter’s life. After time progressed, and on his own doing, Michael petitioned the court to drop a restraining order so that Christine could see her daughter again. Michael stated that everything went well for a while and then one day, his daughter told him that mommy had a plan to get her back from daddy, which was approximately three weeks before the accusations came according to Michael.
Soon after, OSP investigator, Sergeant Proulx showed up at Michaels home and asked to interview him about some information regarding Michael’s daughter. Michael agreed, thinking that it pertained to his daughter missing some school since Deputy Proulx didn’t initially explain what the reason was. This taped interview was played in court, which I listened to closely. Michael was outraged and sounded ready to fight when Deputy Proulx told him he was being interviewed for sexually molesting his daughter, which wasn’t disclosed prior to taping the interview. Michael was told that he had allegedly touched his daughter with his hand on the outside of her pants where her private parts are for one second, ten times over a one year period. For a six year old girl to state something that detailed seemed quite odd, especially considering that the prosecution said she wasn’t interviewed by a professional counselor for almost 1 year after the allegations were made.
This same young girl, according to testimony also referred to her father as “her mom’s boyfriend.” Proulx continued to drill Michael with questions and Michael continued to deny the allegations. Michael Swift wasn’t the easiest going guy during the interview, which stemmed from the allegations at hand and that he was told by Proulx that his daughter wasn’t making the allegations up.
The day that the mother had “questionably” found out about the touching outside of the private parts of her daughter, she called the Woman’s Crisis Center and the police were contacted shortly after. Dr. Curtis Oddo was then called upon to interview and conduct a physical examination of the young girl. Dr. Oddo has been involved with over twelve hundred sex abuse/child abuse cases and in court for around one hundred and fifty cases during his career. He stated that about seventy five percent of his practice is in dealing with sexually abused children. Upon completion of his examination, Dr. Oddo was able to conclude that there was no evidence of physical abuse of the young girl, which he stated under oath, but followed by stating, “it doesn’t mean that it did or didn’t happen.” All that was concluded is that there were no signs of any physical abuse whatsoever.
Just after I heard Dr. Oddo make this statement under oath, I looked to the jury to see what their facial reactions were and with total disbelief, I saw three jurors who appeared to be sleeping. So, I watched closer and asked the person next to me to look as well. We witnessed not only three, but four members of the jury sleeping, which continued in part for the remainder of that day and a good part of day two. I was in such disbelief that I took a picture of them sleeping. The bailiff then approached me and asked if I had been taking pictures when I pointed out to him that the jury was asleep. After witnessing the jury sleeping, he laughed right beside me as we both shook our heads. This was no laughing matter though. A man was facing four measure 11 felony charges for molesting his daughter and how was he to receive a fair and impartial trial while four of the jurors were witnessed sleeping on more than one occasion.
Prosecutor Mulkins next called Christine Swift to the witness stand where he had her present damaging testimony against Michael. Upon cross examination there was testimony that was not allowed into court by Judge Pat Wolke, which could have proven Christine Swift’s character. She had reportedly been known to lie about sexual molestation in the past with previous boyfriends, evidence of credibility which should have been presented to the jury. There was also evidence of Christine supposedly stealing a handgun which was brought up by the defense and quickly shot down by assistant DA Ryan Mulkins and sustained by Wolke.
Wolke continued his biased tactics towards the accused by allowing two women, paid with portions of our tax dollars while representing our county government, who work for the Women’s Crisis Center to sit with the alleged victim and her mother Christine Swift in open court, for the jury to see. What kind of biased and prejudiced picture did this paint for the jury? Would you feel innocent until proven guilty if you were the father?
To top it all off, the prosecutions testimony from expert witnesses clearly stated they interviewed the child and mother, but never interviewed the father, the caretaker involved with some of the accusations, or the grandparents of the young girl. The only interview of the father was by Proulx, who was clearly biased, which was evident when he told the father that his daughter wouldn’t lie. Even I know that you can’t conduct a proper investigation without questioning all parties involved, but these ladies were quick to help the child, who very easily could have been put up to these accusations by her mother. I thought to myself, there are ladies out there who are badly beaten each and every day. There are children out there who are molested with solid evidence on a daily basis, but Bobby Morocco of DHS and the two ladies from the WCC (Women’s Crisis Center) left a real sour taste in my mouth as to what their jobs consist of. It is my understanding that DHS can easily ruin lives as they have the power to take and give children to whoever they deem “fit”, without any real investigation whatsoever. It has been reported that the Women’s Crisis Center is only there to support an alleged victim, but what should be realized is that by their mere presence, sitting next to a young child in court, especially with the mother sitting by their side, it can prejudice a jury against a potentially innocent defendant.
We need to hold our public employees just as much accountable as we do the people who break the law, for without a fair and impartial trial, what do we have? There are a few things that are clear in the case of the State of Oregon vs. Michael Swift. This case was nothing more than a waste of money on behalf of the prosecution. The people who work for DHS and WCC need to totally revamp their methods of operation because what I witnessed was far from “fair and impartial.”
Judge Wolke needs to write an apology to Michael Swift and his attorney for allowing the jury to see Michael’s daughter with her mother and the WCC during trial. But most importantly, we the people need to realize that our system of government has failed us in Josephine County. Our employees have wasted who knows how much money on a case that was clearly ridiculous. How much was paid to deputy Proulx, for his so-called investigation, to DHS officer Bobby Morrocco, to the ladies at the WCC and to Judge Wolke and Assistant DA Ryan Mulkins to hear and prosecute this case. District Attorney Stephen Campbell clearly wasted tens of thousands of hard earned tax-payer dollars pursing this false prosecution without any thorough investigation.
Please note that the young girl involved here is almost nine years old now and has two parents that have allowed her to be exposed to things that no parent should place upon a child. If her mother truly cared about her daughter, then why is it that she has been seen by Therapist Angela Scoggins fifteen times, but not until after August of 2008, almost two years after the supposed incident occurred, and just before trial was set to take place? Why didn’t the young girl receive professional help until long after the alleged abuse was claimed? She sure received supposed “treatment” when the prosecution team was preparing to convince a jury of Michael’s guilt, didn’t she? Why didn’t the father allegedly molest the daughter while he was bathing her, clothing her or putting her to bed? What is even more sickening is that if the father was such a bad guy, why was he offered a plea bargain by the prosecution for a one month stint in jail and a convicted sex offender registry? Michael was confronting four measure 11 felony charges calling for fifteen years in prison for each offense. Why did he not take such a sweetheart deal? According to Michael, because he could not confront the day when he would have to say to his grown up daughter that he had pled guilty to abusing her as a child.
One hand, One second, One year, 10 times on the outside of the young girl’s clothes, One’s word against another’s word, Zero physical evidence, Four sleeping jurors, One biased Judge, One hell of a bill to Josephine County tax payers, and the kicker…. a Hung Jury.
Editor’s Note: Will DA Stephen Campbell decide to re-prosecute this case - which is a waste of time, justice, and taxpayer funds - as he has so many other cases without merit? Find out at www.usobserver.com.
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