Patrick Thompson Acquitted

Good work Bob and Ruth!!

Robert, in answer to your question, what is next? For me: sleep. Of course, there's always more work for justice, in and out of the legal system. I look forward to being a part of it. -Ruth Wyman

Let's be clear here regarding this discussion of guilt or innocent.  Thompson was found NOT GUILTY, he was not found innocent.  Is there a difference?  In Thompson's case, I agree that states case was not strong, and thus, not found to be beyond a reasonable doubt.  However, does that mean that the event did not occur? Not exactly.  Let's take a another case, say, possession of drugs.  In this case the fact are clear that the police found the drugs on the person, but if the search was improper or beyond the scope of a warrant, then the evidence is suppressed.  Leaving, of course ,a situation that a jury cannot find BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT, to convict.  Leaving a not guilty verdict.  Now, were the drugs actually on the person, yes.  The defendant possessed the drugs.  Could Thompson have committed this act and been found not guilty because of sloppy police work or poor prosecution prep. or good defense work? Yes to all, but that does not mean that he did not committe the sexual abuse. No.  I believe that the case did not prove Thompson committed the act, but it did not prove that he didn't either.  And that is the wonderful difference in our justice system and other country's.  Thompson would have been stoned already in most country's four years ago.  Thank God for being born in the USA. 

 (720 ILCS 5/14‑2) (from Ch. 38, par. 14‑2)
    Sec. 14‑2. Elements of the offense; affirmative defense.
    (a) A person commits eavesdropping when he:

(1) Knowingly and intentionally uses an eavesdropping device for the purpose of hearing or recording all or any part of any conversation or intercepts, retains, or transcribes electronic communication unless he does so

    (A) with the consent of all of the parties to such conversation or electronic communication or

    (B) in accordance with Article 108A or Article 108B of the "Code of Criminal Procedure of 1963", approved August 14, 1963, as amended; or

(2) Manufactures, assembles, distributes, or possesses any electronic, mechanical, eavesdropping, or other device knowing that or having reason to know that the design of the device renders it primarily useful for the purpose of the surreptitious hearing or recording of oral conversations or the interception, retention, or transcription of electronic communications and the intended or actual use of the device is contrary to the provisions of this Article; or

(3) Uses or divulges, except as authorized by this Article or by Article 108A or 108B of the "Code of Criminal Procedure of 1963", approved August 14, 1963, as amended, any information which he knows or reasonably should know was obtained through the use of an eavesdropping device.

    (b) It is an affirmative defense to a charge brought under this Article relating to the interception of a privileged communication that the person charged:

    1. was a law enforcement officer acting pursuant to an order of interception, entered pursuant to Section 108A‑1 or 108B‑5 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1963; and    

    2. at the time the communication was intercepted, the officer was unaware that the communication was privileged; and

    3. stopped the interception within a reasonable time after discovering that the communication was privileged; and

    4. did not disclose the contents of the communication.

Interestingly enough, the case numbers for the two cases are 04CF1571 for the home invasion and abuse case and 04CF1609 for the eavesdropping complaint. So, those who claim that the abuse case is in retaliation for the videotaping don't appear to have much of a leg to stand on, since the abuse case was charged first, about a week before the eavesdropping complaint. As to why the eavesdropping complaint was dismissed, perhaps Mr. Ratcliffe can tell us.

the video taping was far more likely to complicate the case of the person being arrested or held by police than to reveal wrong doing by the police. In this particular instance, it worked out, but it's not too far a reach to imagine times when a defendant would not want to be taped. just curious, why did rietz ask for a special prosecutor for the one case, but felt it was all right to drop the charges on the other without sending it to the special prosecutor.

I have a great idea, everyone call and write your state representative and senators and tell them to do away with the eavsdropping statute as-is.  Illinois is one of the few states that has "two party consent."  I would imagine that some of the more shady politicians were the driving force behind it.  Just a thought...

"...and it does look like the offense date for the eavesdropping (08/07/04) is earlier than the one for the sex abuse (8/24/04)."

The idea that there is no retaliation for videotaping police being disproved by the timing of the indictments is not necessarily a disproof of a conspiracy. The criminal home invasion charge against Thompson came one day after the indictment of Martel Miller. In the police reports filed against Miller, Officer Justus Clinton writes at length the fact that both Miller and Thompson were well known by name regarding their videotaping activities as early as July.  In the documentary, you see about 7 minutes of Urbana Police Officer Chris Darr demanding Thompson's I.D. and won't leave Thompson alone until he gets it. Thompson was known by police, and Dobson and Sgt. Griffet were very much interested in seeing the filming stopped.

As for the woman's consistency over the years to disprove a conspiracy, well, that assumes she was actually consistent and she has no history of this sort of false accusations before. In fact, her story changed repeatedly, and not just small details you might expect from trauma clouding memory. Her versions have huge discrepencies that an honest memory would not confuse later. You don't tell an officer an hour after the incident that you screamed as loud as you could and that's why the intruder left, and then come back and tell the jury two years later, "I'm not much of a yeller and I spoke as loud as I am speaking now." In the police report, Officer Hediger wrote four times about how loud she was to have alleged to have been screaming during her alleged attack. Was it Hediger making this up? The "victim" also reported to Hediger that Thomspon had been making sexual advances toward her twice before. That's what she testified to in the first trial. In the second trial, she told a jury she had never spoken to Thompson ever. In the report, she said she tried to flee. In the first trial, she said she tried to flee but was grabbed from behind. In the second and third trial, she never mentions trying to flee from her attacker. In the first trial, the accuser testified she returned to her ironing during the attack while her intruder had briefly let her go! Her story was all over the place, and there were witnesses both at her place of employment and her residence who were very dubious of her story. Why those who were either victimized by her stories and those who witnessed her history for untruthfulness never came forward have much to do with Champaign County being an intimidating place to testify against the state, and trial strategy. The population of Colorado Ave. in Urbana is one that has criminal histories and many people just don't want any more to do with the criminal justice system if they can avoid it.

As someone noted earlier, a jury trial is a show with narratives left outside the play, lest the theatre be disturbed to accomplish what the parties want to have happened. Marie Thompson was left out of the first trial, with Thompson representing himself. He said later he just didn't imagine they would really take it to trial. When they did, his strategy was simply, you don't have the evidence. In the second trial, Mrs. Thompson reacted to Harvey Welch's lack of a defense by personally writing the trial judge pleading with him to allow her to testify over the objection of the defense attorney. Her absence from the early proceedings should not be misconstrued to mean she was relunctant to testify on behalf of her husband. In fact, as Mr. Ratcliffe would attest, it was Thompson's wife who led the investigation into the accuser's past false allegations of others at her work site while Thompson sat in jail for four months on the original $250,000 bond.

Also, the News-Gazette reported as the trial progressed that the charge was a home invasion and a slight fondling. That's not what was written in the original police report. That version is much stronger in regards to the level of violence and why the no physical evidence simply made no sense to half of the first jury. In fact, the News-Gazette first reported the crime as an attempted rape.  Vujovich kept coaching the "victim" to lesson the amount of struggle contained in the police report and account for why there were no ear-witnesses when there should have been. The original charge was a 5 count indictment- with 2 Class X felonies. Had Thompson been convicted in the first trial, he could have been sentenced to 120 years. The state kept lessoning the crime to fit the lack of evidence.

The original police report taken an hour after the incident was much different and should have resulted in an investigation per the Urbana Police Department Directive. Patrol officers reporting a "crime of significance", which is clearly spelled out to include criminal sexual abuse,  is supposed to result in the shift commander, in this case Sgt. Joel Sanders, to notify the Criminal Investigations Section, a group of specially trained officers who are on stand-by to conduct preliminary and follow-up investigations. Patrol officers are to secure the crime scene from contamination, collect clothing in cases of sex crimes, and locate potential witnesses. The victims in sex crimes are to be offered  an examination from a SANE, i.e. Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner. None of this was done. Interestingly, Sgt. Joel Sanders who signed off on Officer Hediger's report, appears in Thompson's documentary made that summer. Sanders, it should be said, doesn't appear disturbed by the filming in the documentary.

Without confessions from Officer Hediger, Prosecutor Vujovich, and the accuser, we may never know what happened in this case against Thompson. Because of his documentary, his lawsuit over the malicious prosecution, the accuser's erratic history- there's plenty of reasons to suspect the worst of our government in this case, though we would prefer not to. Thankfully, the taxpayer's won't be wasting money on housing Thomspon in prison along with the expense of three jury trials. Hopefully, the police departments will learn to do honest investigations so as to protect the innocent and truely apprehend real perpetrators of sex crimes with real evidence.