Shane Crum – Victim of Injustice

In my case, the prosecution withheld a lot of information they were supposed to give us with our “discovery.” The discovery is when the prosecution is supposed to give the defense everything they intend to use against the defendant. They are also supposed to provide any and all exculpatory evidence. The little trick they used was to give the documents back to the agencies that generated them during the investigation. The reason for this is to say that the prosecution did not have them in their possession, and therefore could not turn them over to the defense. An example of this was two statements we discovered around 2003 from Christopher and Mark Mowery. Apparently, my daughter said that these two individuals witness me abusing her. When the police interviewed them, they both said the events she described never occurred. The court ruled that had my original attorney done his due diligence, we would have discovered them prior to trial. Therefore, it was a harmless error. An innocent man in prison is a harmless error.

We would later realize that the prosecution withheld more than these statements. A case worker from Child Protective Services (CPS) testified at my trial. We were never given this case workers report. There has been some discussion about this report, which I will get into in a moment. We also never received any of the statements any of the prosecutions witnesses gave to the police. Statements made by Christine and Johnny Confalone, nor Linda McNutt. Additionally, we never received any of the statements my daughter made to the police, CPS, nor to any of the prosecutions witnesses.

All of this may sound like it is no big deal. The discussions we have been having are whether or not the CPS report will actually contain anything of value. Even if it does include exculpatory information, the court is likely to rule that it is harmless error because had my attorney practiced his due diligence we would have known about the report before trial. It appears to be another no win situation.

Here is the truth. Such information shows that the prosecution had a pattern of withholding evidence in my case. Especially when it was in my favor. Moreover, it is impossible to prepare a defense when we do not have all of the facts. We cannot know what questions we should ask. My point of view is to say that all of this is important. The issue at hand is what will the court say about all of this?

We will continue to fight for the CPS report. We will file a motion for a new trial at some point. I would also like to have an Amicus Brief filed with my request for a new trial. I believe the term Amicus means friend of the court. A brief containing all of the experts involved in issues related to child victims could file a brief describing their expertise in the field, and how what they are seeing in my case goes against everything they have observed. Multiple people, from many fields, can join in on such a brief, and express their concerns.

If you think you might be able to help, contact us. If you are a qualified professional or journalist, we can give you access to our case files. Lawyers, journalists, psychologists, child welfare workers, law enforcement agents: if you have any experience in a case like mine, and think you can help, please let us know.