Rape trial of 2 men ends in mistrial

The Superior Court has declared a mistrial in the case of Joseph Aquino Saimon and Richmond Keybond, two of four men who allegedly gang-raped a woman.

According to Superior Court Associate Judge Theresa Kim-Tenorio, the only way to ensure justice under the circumstances for the defendants is to order a mistrial. This comes soon after the victim in the case gave testimony about one of the suspect’s prior violent conduct against her—contrary to the judge’s instruction.

Kim-Tenorio said the court cannot allow the continuation of the trial for the sake of justice and fairness and with the possibility of an incurable prejudice. In addition, the court does not believe that any instruction to the jury regarding the statement will undo any inferences that have already been made.

Prior to calling the victim up to testify, the court informed the government, represented by Office of the Attorney General’s Coleen St. Clair, that evidence alluding to any prior violent conduct by Saimon against the alleged victim would not be allowed. The government informed the alleged victim of this but she still did so.

“Now that the jury has been exposed to the alleged victim’s testimony, defendants, especially…Saimon are ill prepared to rebut, or effectively cure whatever inference has already been made,” she said.

Saimon, through his assistant public defender JP Norgues, argued that because of the victim’s testimony, there is a high possibility that the jury will consider all alleged actions by Saimon on the day of the alleged incident with an understanding that, if he was violent in the past, he must have been violent during the alleged incident.

“While the court immediately instructed the jury to ignore the statement in contention, the damage is already done,” Nogues said.

As for Keybond, his lawyer, Cong Nie, argued that the testimony of the alleged victim would also color the jury’s view of him.

“Defendants should not be forced to bear the burden of matters not concerning the charges against their person. [The] defendants prepared for trial with the understanding that the trial would concern two defendants. To suddenly lose a defendant would leave the remaining defendant, in this case defendant Keybond, unprepared to mount a proper defense,” he said.

On Dec. 9, St. Clair informed the court of its intent to offer evidence regarding Saimon’s alleged prior acts of domestic violence against the victim. The court later determined that the prosecutor has to give reasonable notice of the general nature of any such evidence, before trial, or during trial, if the court, for good cause, excused a lack of pretrial notice. In this matter, the court determined that good cause did not exist to excuse the lack of pretrial notice.

The court determined that the government had enough time before trial to notify the defense of its intent, and that while the government argued that bringing up its intent to offer up such evidence at trial was permissible, it did not present the court with reasons why it did not provide the defendants with notice much earlier.

On Dec. 11, the victim took the stand to testify. At some point during her testimony, she was informed by St. Clair, outside the eyes and ears of the jury, the she is prohibited from testifying about domestic violence.

However, while she was in the process of describing the alleged incident, she stated that “she was scared of what [Saimon] would do because he would become physical with her at times.”

Nogues objected to the testimony, and after a sidebar, asked the court to declare a mistrial.