Notes
Under Construction
List
List
Notes
Under Construction
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List
Suspect before the crime
Coincidences
A Ticket on That Day
The School Story
Stearn lies
Accusation Story Never Verified
List
The Matter of Time and the Alibi Ticket
Description of Suspect
The Evidence
Why?
Why did the trial go on with no evidence?
Why Public Defender go away with doing nothing?
The Evidence
Was it all about the Judge?
Why did the trial go on with no evidence?
Why Public Defender go away with doing nothing?
The Evidence
Major Discrepancies
Jeremy Jason Mann received a traffic ticket at the time the incident occurred. He was pulled over a few minutes before 3:30 that afternoon, the officer wrote the ticket out at 3:35. The girl that reported the incident states that she was just four houses from her own after her walk home from school which would put the time of her abduction at 3:30, 3:25 at the earliest.
In two taped interview that afternoon, she describes a brown truck with several obvious differences than Jason's truck has, and she describes her assailant description as such that does not match Jason. During the first interview, the police have decided that Jason is their man, and questioning becomes single minded- but if that doesn't take the cake, before they start the 2nd interview, they take Esther and her mom out for a ride - and take over to see Jason's truck. They drive past the house three times, from both directions so she can get a really good look at it. On the first pass by, Jason's younger brother just happens to be out in the yard, and they claim the little girl identifies him as the man.
The "incident" reported by the little girl would have had to taken place in 11-16 minutes. The driving time from abduction site to assault site is 5-6 minutes, her account of her experience in the near-flooding river is at least 5 minutes probably more, and the 1/2 mile plus run down the dirt (muddy) path was 5-6 minutes. Oops, were out of time…. Moving on…..
By the time the police are preparing the search and arrest warrant - someone must have noted that the time account didn't work for Jason either, because Stearns records in his report that she is taken from behind her school (8 blocks away from the stated site) to wiggle in a little extra time for the girls account, and Jason's. Even tho this still doesn't make it possible - that scenario just works for every appellate judge that reviews this case in the decade to come. (see here)
The Search and Arrest Warrants both fail to state what the girl actually said, they both contain lies and not one of the very big details that don't match makes it into the warrants. Only the first tape is taken to the magistrate to view because they haven't finished the 2nd one - yet the officer doing the interview had no training in interviewing a child. She never sets out any guidelines between whats true and what's made up, nor does she show any indication at all that's she concerned with getting the truth from Esther. So many basic questions that you need to know were simply never asked.
Eleven of the officers on duty that night, including the chief of police and the assistant county attorney (the same one who prosecutes the case) all arrive at the house around 11pm. The one's that go downstairs first arrest Tim, the younger brother, then after realizing their mistake, they wake and arrest Jason. Armed with a list of items they need to match her statement they begin looking for a blue coat, dumping out box after box of stored old clothes. They finally locate a blue that's a size Med that hasn't fit Jason since junior high school and put it the pile of clothes. No blue backpack is ever found
Meanwhile upstairs, psycho mama is putting it on thick, playing into the officers hands and selling jason's soul.
He's taken back to the station, Stearns has him sign his Miranda rights, then tells him he has to talk to him. He proceeds to lead this intellectually disabled boy on a one-side conversation for 3 hours. It is very clear that jason is certain that his mom has made good on her threat to call the cops on him again. Stearns is quite aware of Jason's handicap but continues, even using the threat of his mom's own words and the fact that his dad will be called. Early on he becomes aware that jason is trying to guess what he wants him to say, and Stearns immediately starts giving Jason clues on what he wants him to admit. But Jason still doesn't guess right, and by almost two in the morning Stearns is clearly loosing his temper. Too be any less subtle would mean he have to do too much editing of the video tape - so after 1 hour and 22 minutes of recording the two hour VHS tape clicks off and only Linkenmeyer hears it. She doesn't tell Stearns, she testifies, but she watches every moment of the interrogation and claims he does not misbehave whatsoever. Around 40 minutes later another officer finds her and asks her if she's taping, when she claims that they didn't have anymore tapes, he goes and locates her one. So the 2nd tape starts up (neither is time stamped) - and lo and behold, Stearns is in the process of tell Jason "….we'll date it and sign in and get out of here". He later testifies, under oath, on 4 separate occasions that during this unrecorded time - jason admits to everything. Oddly enough, Linkenmeyer testifies that the time he first confesses is in her notes - 2:42am - almost 12 minutes into the 2nd recording. Who's cheating who, and who's being true? These two don 't even bother to get their stories straight - they obviously have tremendous faith in their policing skills - or that no will bother to notice. What they do know - and here's the icing on the cake - the Mason City Police Department had no policy on the safekeeping of video taped evidence. It did not go into an evidence file like everything else, instead it was up the officer who does the interrogation to maintain custody of the tape(s) until time of transcribing. And it was recommended that their home was the safest place to safekeep them…and to edit them or whatever's necessary. (See here)
They have the girl come in the next day, or 2-3 days later (depending on who's testify to this) to look at mugshots after Jason's arrest. By this time jason's sophmore school picture from the yearbook has made it on to the channel 3 news and the Globe Gazette newspaper. For this unfilmed identification, they have inserted his arrest picture that is a double exposure taken by the sheriffs dept and does not match the other pictures in the line up taken by the police dept. And, as she testifies to at trial, the chief and Susan showed her who the "suspect" was and pointed him out to her, that's how she knows she picked the right person. (They just helped her to remember is all) (See here)
The following week his public defender moves for a bench trial. All this is done without ever noting that a competency test should be done- even tho it's been quite obvious at every step that Jason is in special needs at school.. They use Jason himself to prove competency - by having him sign wherever instructed. Now who was incompetent?
All during this time the local news is having their own trial in which the police department, chief of police and even the county attorney take starring roles. As outrage citizens express their horror at what they've heard has been done to a 7 year old little girl, the department is praised for their quick action, lack of investigation and speedy arrest. They even include an article about how Jason's been under surveylance for several months before the incident. If this were the case, then for petesake why didn't they stop him when they observed him snatch the girl and shove her like a ragdoll into his nasty brown truck? The only brown truck in the tri-state area.
One by one, in the months before the trial, all the lab results comes back negative.No evidence is found at all. No seminal fluid detected in the "semin" removed from the girl (the stuff that glowed under the black light), DCI found no hair fibers or prints found in the truck that matched the girl, and none of the tire tracks found at the scene (the ONLY ones there) match any of the tires removed from Jason's truck. The hospital exam reveal no injuries or even scratches on the girl and she had no signs at all of having been violated.
The two witness that were to be called by the state had to be disregarded, because they would place the brown truck they saw on 5th st that looked exactly like Jasons there before 3pm. Since Jason was at work every day during those times, those statements wouldn't align with the goal of finding him guilty.
And yes, it gets crazier, we're just barely getting started. At the trial the 7 year old girl not only admits to knowing that Jason is the man because she's seen him on tv, and that he was pointed out to her by the chief and Susan. But no one seems to notice her story fall all over the place - they are all just so impressed with the way she points out her attacker while she sits up there - this little strap of a girl with a really, really story (like the snowball rolling downhill). But she suddenly knows the exact description of the clothes he wore that day - and some fun things she never did before. Right from his brown belt with the buckle, the shoes he wore and the correct colors of his t- shirt. She said that before she had told the officer that night, and everyone else, that it was hot pink and blue, because that's what she remembered back then. And she now knows that he had on "Lee" jeans. She explains she didn't remember before because she was scared, but now she does because she saw - and that helped her remember. What she "saw" was all the evidence pictures taken of the basement bedroom with the clothes he'd been wearing that day, one picture is a close up where the Lee patch stands out, big and bold.. At her deposition in August, 2 months before the trial, Sue Flanders - the other half of Jason's "defense" team handed Esther all the pictures for her to sit and look at. Isn't that amazing? Because that is what helped her remember. I don't know if it's the amazing way she remember things, or the fact that her mother even refers to her daughter memory in the same fashion. At the relief hearing she states that driving them past the truck that first afternoon is what helped Esther remember all the little details that she couldn't before. What a superb grasp we have on the English language this shows and the context into which we casually slip in the word "remember". You can't hold a child at fault for the way in which she learns - but I hold the entire court system and everyone who sat and listened to this line of garbage entirely to blame for what happened to my brother. His entire life was lost on that day and this little girl went to school the next morning to tell of her adventures in being "sexually assaulted" by a man who drove a "tannish" truck like in those pesky little notices that hung around the school that all the little girls were petrified of. But I suppose if you tell a story enough, and the belief in that story is reinforced by everyone around you, someone, especially a child could quickly come to have unshakable faith in that belief. (Sound familiar?)
Now let's pry back some revealing layers of this load of crap that put the nails in Jason's future. His case was tried at the bench (no jury), and the judge who finds him guilty and passes sentence fails to disclose the fact that he is a victim of sexual abuse that has never been resolved. If it was found that a juror did this it would cause the entire trial to be thrown out. But you see a judge is found to hold themselves to much higher standards than us lowly imbiiles down here. They are trained to not let personal bias get in the way of their decision making. Judge Mackey goes on record of saying that he agreed that he should have recused himself - but that he didn't recall his past ever crossing his mind during the trial. Now, you don't have to be a phsycologist to tear that one apart. The simple fact of the matter is, he should have not taken the case at all, then there would have never been the need to defend himself or have his personal life aired (and unfortunately this bit of info becomes the central focus to everything that happens after, becoming about this judge, rather than about the small detail of Jason's innocense. Mackey recuses himself after the deposition in which he talks about his past - just before the post conviction relief - but that relief is denied by another Judge who was seeing to Mackey's welfare and concerns during the relief hearing. The first in a long line of judges who were paying "close attention" to this case to ensure it didn't get out of hand. They did not want to have a "can of worms" like this get opened up. At the time of this hearing, a new lawyer has stepped in and things get even more stirred up as the public defender defends himself against ineffective council by eluding to the insinuation that Jason had confessed his guilt to him - and that's why he had made no attempt at a defense. (see here for more juicy details)
But I'm getting off track, back to this initial trial, you know the one that really matters because that's where someone with the supreme authority to tell you and the entire world that you are guilty - and that decision stands until the last breath you take. Now, the public defender explains after the trial that the judge excused the discrepancies in the girl's story of the overwhelming evidene presented - namely the red tweety bird backpack found at the scene. How is this evidence of anything? There's no lab work on it, she actually told the cops and her father that she must have left it in the truck - then later after being told it had been found by the river bank, she suddenly recalls seeing it laying next to her during the assault. In any case, the pictures of it are in a thicket and the chief had to pluck it out of there with a long stick. How she didn't get any scratches on her bare back as she lay just an arms length away is another feat that goes beyond explanation. The other pictures of this alleged crime scene (which was still wet and muddy from the previous days rain) depicted the sets of tire tracks and and several really good shoeprints that the officers chose not to make casts of.
So the Judge convicts him - stating that due to the red tweety bird backpack being found on the path the girl admits to walking on, and because she pointed him out in court (after she explains why her memory is better now than it was on the day it happened) and that because Jason confessed AND signed the statement that officer Stearns wrote out for him (a cop who is shown to have reprimands on file for losing his temper). (Rip those apart here)
So in the end, it doesn't matter that Jason's alibi was the instrument of his guilt, or that the coerced confession obtained from a mentally challenged 19 year old didn't even match the crime (ie. He couldn't have picked her up by her school, she was already 4 blocks from home) It is quite clear that when the second tape is picked up that everything has been rehearsed - Jason's demeanor has changed completely and he is reading off notes that Stearns left just off camera. During which Stearns redefined the meaning of the "story" and the "truth"
There is never any regard for some simple obvious factors that anyone that knew him could testify to - Jason moved slowly - he wasn't capable of the quick movements described. He also wasn't capable of spontaneously doing something outside of his normal routine. And Jason would never use the word ejaculate.
No one was called to testify at all. The defense rested 30 seconds after the prosecution with no closing statement or argument. They could have called his brother who was there at time of the ticket who could testify that Jason was being reprimanded by the officer at the exact time the girl said she was abducted. They could have called Jason's employers at Lime Creek who stated that Jason didn't even leave there until after 3:05. They could have called all the witnesses that the state drops one by one as all the lab tests come back negative - or they realize the statements won't cooberate their version of the "truth".
Don't worry - it doesn't end there. Let me tell you about the next decade, and sadly it has nothng to do with Jason. It's almost as if the points of concern regarding the blatent disregard for the truth that took place in his trial are treated as such.. Like mere tokens, the point that seems to be the only concern is that of whether a judge is obligated to recuse himself in this kind of case. Dean Stowers himself shows no regard for his clients freedom as he doggedly pursues his agenda to have the judges record open for the world to see, as he claims the public has a right to know. I can see both sides of the issue, I honestly do. What I can't see is whether or not my little brother paid the price for this battle of principle, because no matter how many times I read the decisions it always the same. The judges rule against everything brought up about what went wrong - and the inattention to deal they leave in the way they justify one thing after another and the fact that an innocent boy is still in prison is uncomprehensible. But the legal world don't see it that way, as long as they can prove the proceedings were not flawed - it doesn't matter about innocence. And I've been told that over and over again. There is even a ruling that judge made too uphold the decision to execute an innocent man - see here
Under Construction
Notes
Under Construction
