HOUSTON – A juror in a recent child sex abuse trial said if the presiding judge allowed video into evidence, they believe the entire jury would not have acquitted the defendant.
KPRC 2 is not identifying the man because he was found not guilty.
Court documents show the man was arrested back in 2020 and charged with continuous sexual abuse of a child. Records show the then 30-year-old was accused of sexually abusing his former girlfriend’s then 7-year-old daughter for three years.
Steven Belt is an assistant district attorney in the Harris County DA’s Crimes Against Children Division.
He said the child’s mother was made aware of the abuse after the couple broke up and the man’s partner found it on his phone.
“The defendant’s girlfriend at the time had suspicions that he might be cheating on her, so she went through his phone,” Belt said. “She knew the passcode. Late at night, she found the video that he had taken, roughly around March 2020, of the child performing oral sex on him.”
The child’s mom said the night she received the message, she called the police.
KPRC 2 is not identifying the mother to shield the child’s identity.
“It was disgusting. I was hurt. I was crying. I was in pain,” the mother said. “I was hurt because that was the person I trusted for six years.”
Court records revealed that the child told her mother the man, her stepfather, started abusing her in 2017.
“The Complainant stated that she and the Defendant broke up in August of 2018 and she did not let him see the kids for 6 months so the abuse stopped,” the documents said. “[The mother] stated that she let the Defendant start seeing the Complainant and her brother again on January 2019, which she has written down in her calendar, and the [child] told [her mom] that the Defendant started abusing her a lot more from January 2019 till March 2020.”
“The child never [outcries] or came out on her own,” Belt said.
Records said on Jan. 28, 2022, the man’s attorney filed a motion to dismiss “by virtue of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments of the Constitution.” In the motion to suppress paperwork, the attorney stated the videotape “was obtained by a criminal act of trespass.”
Records showed Judge Melissa Morris didn’t hear the motion until Sept. 18, 2023, after jurors were sworn in. She granted the defense attorney’s motion and did not allow prosecutors to share it with the jurors.
“It was everything in this trial,” Belt said. “I mean, we wouldn’t be here right now with what I believe if the correct outcome would have been made under that suppression hearing.”
The jury deliberated for 10 hours and found the man not guilty.
A juror on the trial said the verdict would have been different if they were able to see the video or hear it described to them.
“I think we all just felt sick,” the juror said. “Obviously, you think we did what we had to do based on the evidence. And then to find out 180 degrees you got it completely wrong.”
The juror did not want to be identified. She said the other jurors were visibly upset after learning the contents of the video.
“I did what I had to do but I wish I had known everything, and I think everyone was pretty subdued and pretty shocked,” she said. “I remember on the way to the elevator once we started making our way to the parking lot people just looked upset.”
“To me, it was really upsetting because how can you let someone walk away free with evidence,” the child’s mother said.
KPRC 2′s legal analyst Brian Wice said while he understands the outrage, he believes the judge made the right call.
“To most folks, what happened today is the ultimate legal technicality that results in a clearly guilty defendant walking out of a courthouse but at the end of the day, that’s the price as a society we pay for ensuring all of our constitutional rights are protected,” Wice said.
Wice referenced the double jeopardy clause in the Fifth Amendment, which prevents anyone from being prosecuted twice for the same crime.
He said it centers around the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution.
“The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution says that evidence that is unlawfully seized cannot be introduced at trial,” Wice said. “It’s a constitutional provision that keeps all of us, the guilty as well as the innocent, free from unreasonable search and seizure. There’s also a state statutory procedure in our code of criminal procedure.”
Wice said since the judge ruled on the decision when a jury was seated, the district attorney’s office can’t appeal the ruling.
“The motion to exclude evidence that was unlawfully seized can’t be appealed by the state in the event the judge rules for the defense because the jury had already been seated and jeopardy is action,” he said.
As for the child’s mother, she said she feels defeated.
“It’s been hurtful. It’s been hell. I’ve been crying,” she said. “One thing that has been helping me out is praying. And letting God continue helping and blessing me.”
