Misdemeanor Child Abuse Trial

After two days of trial on a child abuse case where the father punched his 13 year-old son over seven times and stabbed him at least three times with a lawn chair on his body, the jury returned a “not guilty” verdict on the afternoon of Wednesday, September 18, 2013. After talking with three members of the jury after the trial, I learned that they felt the discipline of a minor defense applied and they believed the father’s testimony saying that he used open handed backslaps and not closed fisted punches. My overall win-loss record in Domestic Violence Misdemeanor jury trials is now 2-3.