EVERETT (WA)
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
EVERETT, Wash. -- A judge has dropped a sexual abuse charge against a pastor's 14-year-old son, ruling that the chief prosecution witness, a 5-year-old girl, was not competent to testify.
Judge Thomas J. Wynne halted the trial Thursday in Juvenile Court after more than three days of testimony by more than a dozen witnesses before a packed courtroom.
Pastor Paul A. Stoot Sr. of Greater Trinity Missionary Baptist Church began a campaign to change state law after his son, 13 at the time, was questioned by a police detective for more than two hours in January without the teenager's parents or a defense lawyer present.
The boy was charged with first-degree molestation by improperly touching the girl, age 3 at the time, while she was staying with his family in the summer of 2002.
Police said the teenager confessed, but last month Judge Ronald C. Castleberry barred the use of his statement as evidence, ruling that it was coerced and that the boy did not understand his rights.
Posted by kshaw at December 24, 2004 08:40 AM