Child sex case can be retried despite mistrial
By Zeke MacCormack - San Antonio Express-News
Web Posted: 09/01/2010 12:00 CDT
KERRVILLE — The prosecutorial misconduct that caused a recent mistrial doesn't bar the state from retrying a Del Rio man facing child sex charges, a judge ruled here Monday.
Defense lawyer Stephen Foster had argued the second trial of John “Bill” Coleman would reward prosecutor Brad McCullouch's courtroom transgressions and unfairly subject Coleman to “double jeopardy.”
“We liked the way our case was going,” he said of the trial in Kimble County that was aborted Aug. 18.
District Attorney Amos Barton defended his assistant in pleadings filed Thursday in support of a retrial for Coleman on charges of indecency with a child and aggravated sexual assault of a child.
Barton said a new trial was barred only if McCullouch had intentionally goaded Foster into asking for a mistrial, which he said wasn't the case.
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