The quality of the jury pool and lynch-mobbing a presumed-innocent person of color as a legitimate way to grieve in Oneonta, New York

Update: Terence Triutt has been released from prison as innocent, charges dropped.

In my previous article about the criminal case People v Terrence Truitt, started in Oneonta, NY, Otsego County, I mentioned the history of racial profiling in that predominantly white area in criminal cases, and posted one attack on me by a potential juror from the area who called me an asshole simply for mentioning that the defendant charged with arson (in a fire where a former firefighter John Heller died after he saved his 4 young nephews and his fiancée) is presumed innocent.

That is part of standard jury instructions usually given to potential jurors by the court, and that is a fundamental constitutional right.

But no.  Not in Oneonta, New York.  Not in Otsego County.

In Otsego County white men and women come to comment on posts made in local newspapers by all-white police and all-white prosecution in order to "grieve" and "mourn" the victim, and their mode of mourning and grieving is - lynch-mobbing a person of color picked by the police for a crime, and, yes, presumed innocent at the time.

Anybody who mentions presumption of innocence is:

• meddling;
• harassing people;
• deliberately hurting people - that is what I read in comment I was doing by mentioning Terrence Truitt's presumption of innocence

Go away, a@@hole.

You only have to pay taxes to support our local government, including racist police and prosecution, but you have no right to criticize them.

Many, many commentators tried to shoo me away from the thread where people were "grieving" by listing the ways they want the presumed-innocent colored man to die because he was already ruled guilty-by-news release.

Here are some of the comments - any criminal defense attorney worth his salt would have a galore reviewing these comments from potential jurors and likes and loves posted to those comments.

So, here is the perception of white people about the colored (and presumed-innocent) defendant Terrence Truitt charged with a crime of arson in a case where a former firefighter died - charged by local law enforcement that, by virtue of obvious conflict of interest (investigating circumstances of the death of "one of their own") should not have been allowed any place close to the investigation.

Here is my comment.

Here is the reaction to that comment of the potential jurors.

So, all these nice white people 

• want a person of color charged with a crime to die - because they are sure he is guilty, because the police said so in a press conference designed to inflame the jury pool; and
• are viciously attacking anybody who so much as mentioned the very basic concept of presumption of innocence, from their own Constitution.

Here are people who considered it necessary, in response to my "inappropriate" mentioning Terrence Truitt's presumption of innocence, to attack me (and my husband) personally:

And, many people tried to tell me to stop commenting about presumption of innocence and go away from the thread, and even "back to Russia", for various reasons:

One person - a FB friend of a FB friend, approached stalking me on Facebook as a result of my comment about presumption of innocence, quite seriously, to the point of asking to join my group "Independence of Human Rights Defenders" - but then lashing out at me in comments on the Daily Star thread, after I mentioned Otsego County's history of racial profiling:

So, this person presumes the truth in anything the police say to the media before trial - which is the reason why the police conducted the press-conferences, to firmly embed the presumption of guilt in the minds of potential jurors.

Remember, this person, Marshall Kruse, believes that to burn a man of color accused of a crime and presumed innocent is too easy a death for him:

Because I interfere with how people grieve and mourn (and lynch-mob a presumed-innocent man of color):

Only two other commentators out of many, many commentators on that thread mentioned presumption of innocence not in a derogatory fashion:

The comments demonstrate the chances of the accused to get a fair trial in this case in this area - or, possibly, anywhere else, since all this publicity is readily available from any place on this planet.

This area appears to be hopelessly racist - specifically because they consider it a legitimate way to grieve the loss of a loved one to invent ways how to kill in the most horrible manner and inflicting the most torture upon a presumed-innocent man of color before seeing any evidence against him in the court of law, and before any jury verdict.

I will address the contents, and impropriety of those contents, of the police video press-conference and the right of the accused to an open fair trial, in the next articles.

Stay tuned.

South Carolina's "Picasso-painting" way around the 5th, 6th and 14th Amendments. The wrongful conviction of #SidneyMoore

South Carolina is a death penalty state.

5th Amendment gives the accused in a criminal investigation the right to remain silent.

And, the U.S. Supreme Court required a warning about the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney in custodial interrogations by law enforcement.

Let's look, against the background of this indisputable law, at the criminal conviction - and recent denial of parole - of Sidney Moore, in South Carolina.

A young woman, Heather Elvis, has disappeared in South Carolina.  The police claim that the last location of her cell phone shows at the abandoned Peachtree Boat Landing in Socastee, South Carolina, on December 18, 2013 where her car was also discovered.

She could have left the state for her own reasons, she could drown without anybody's bad will, as an accident, she could have succumbed to sharks or alligators, there are a lot of both in South Carolina.

Why her car was where it was found - nobody knows.

But, with a public outcry and pressure, the police had to deliver a culprit, or culprits in Heather Elvis' disappearance.

No body has ever been found.

There is no evidence that Heather Elvis was killed, or that she is dead.

But, the police believes she is dead - and tried hard to prove it to appease public pressure.

They arrested a married couple, Sidney and Tammy Moore, parents of 3 young children, and charged them with kidnapping and murder of Heather Elvis.

That was in February of 2014.

In 2016, prosecutors dropped the murder charges.

Prosecutors tried to proceed for kidnapping charges against both spouses before the same judge - it is easy to convict this way, one case feeding the other in the same trial.

The case went up to the state Supreme Court, which directed separate trials under two separate judges.

Why were Sidney Moore and his wife Tammy Moore suspects in the police investigation?

Because supposedly Heather Moore was a lover of the husband, Sidney Moore, who was married with 3 children to Tammy Moore.

The wife supposedly found out and viciously exposed the affair in texts online.

The case went to a jury trial against Sidney Moore only on kidnapping charges, and the jury were unable to come up with a unanimous verdict, there was a mistrial announced.

Yet, curiously, Sidney Moore was, indeed, convicted - and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

You know for what?  For "obstruction of justice".

What evidence persuaded the jury to convict?

Now, criminal law in South Carolina, is statutory, and the jury had to find proof beyond the reasonable doubt in what prosecutors provided for them as to the following elements:

Since Sidney Moore is widely reported to have been convicted for "stalling" the police investigation into disappearance of Heather Elvis, he is charged under Section 16-9-340, Subsection (2) - "destroy, impede, or attempt to obstruct or impede the administration of justice in any court".

Remember, beyond the reasonable doubt, on all elements of the crime.

Now, since Sidney Moore was one of the two prime suspects (the married lover of the disappeared person) in a criminal investigation into a murder, a death penalty crime in South Carolina, he not only had a 5th Amendment right to remain silent, but that right was a life or death right, literally, to be treated seriously by the police.

Yet, Sidney Moore, while being interrogated, in custody, by a several law enforcement officers, one after another, he was never given a Miranda warning.

And, when his defense attorney raised that issue at trial, you know what was the response by the "Picasso-painting" prosecutor?  The police did not have to give him the Miranda warning because at that stage "it was not even a crime", it was a missing person investigation:

"Not even a crime".

Let's go back to what Sidney Moore was convicted - and sentenced to 10 years in prison for,
"obstruction of justice":







It is an "interference into a JUDICIAL process", specifically, an "intimidation of court officials, jurors and witnesses.  It is unlawful for a person, by threat or force to destroy, impede, or attempt to obstruct or impede the administration of justice in any court".

What court?

What administration of justice - if the prosecutor herself, while "painting a Picasso" picture for the jurors, admitted that Miranda warning was not given to a capital-murder suspect because at that time "it was not a crime"?

If it was not a crime, Moorer could not be even CHARGED with obstruction of justice - because that charge presupposes interference with a JUDICIAL process, very specifically, in the text of the statute, to be proven beyond the reasonable doubt.

If the charge was a "common law obstruction of justice" (which supposedly exists in South Carolina, too, State v. Love, 275 S.C. 55, 61, 271 S.E.2d 110, 113 (1980) (former magistrate's procurement of invalid driver's license for an individual and promise to fix traffic records and “fix the prosecution” against the individual for $5,500 was sufficient evidence to establish common-law obstruction of justice), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 901, 101 S.Ct. 272, 66 L.Ed.2d 131 (1980), then the entire criminal justice system in South Carolina is unconstitutional because what constitutes a crime must be codified under the separation of powers and fair notice doctrines.

But even then, the common law "obstruction of justice" case must be related to prosecution of a crime in court - not to a missing person investigation which, at the stage when Moorer's statements were made to the police, "was not a crime", as prosecutor herself admitted in order to derail the lack of Miranda warning challenge.

So, there is no body and no proof Heather Elvis died.

The murder charges were dropped by prosecutors themselves.

Kidnapping charges resulted in a mistrial against Sidney Moore and were not retried.

Kidnapping charges against Tammy Moore, brought in 2014, were not even put up for trial in 4 years, which is in itself a constitutional violation, anybody has a right to a speedy trial.

But, the public and the family of Heather Moore demanded "justice", meaning, a conviction.

And a conviction was produced - by ringing a charge that could not be brought because, by the prosecutor's own admission, at the time when Sidney Moorer supposedly "stalled the police investigation", it was "not a crime", but a missing person investigation.

So, the obstruction of justice charge - applicable exclusively to interference with a judicial process - did not apply.

But, prosecutors still obtained a conviction, and a 10-year sentence, and appeased the family and the public - by

• painting a "Picasso picture", as a family member of Heather Elvis admitted;
• having hearsay testimony about cell towers and cell phones of Sidney Moore and Heather Elvis, in violation of the 6th Amendment Confrontation Clause; and
• by presenting an immunized testimony of a person charged with another crime and supplying some "evidence" to the prosecutors in exchange for a plea bargain - a person who, despite stalling what was already a crime investigation, was never charged with purposefully "preventing, obstructing, impeding, or hindering the administration of justice":

Of course, the press claimed that Sidney Moorer's own attorney admitted that Moorer lied to the police.

How did he lie?

Here:

So, the "dishonesty and deceit" that a man is convicted for and sent to 10 years to prison for is:

being confronted with a potential capital murder investigation, and not being advised of his right to remain silent, as the police had a duty to do, he withheld information from the police ("lied"), or remained silent - which was his 5th Amendment right in the first place.

A guy is convicted for not giving to the police information in a capital murder investigation that could potentially put him on a death row.

And recently, he was denied parole for the same reason.

He was denied parole for not telling the police what happened with Heather Elvis, while there are still pending kidnapping charges against him.

Parole was denied for not talking to the police about what happened to Heather Elvis, even though kidnapping charges against him are still pending and were scheduled for trial this past October, 2018, so he had an iron-clad 5th Amendment right to remain silent on the issue.

On October 1, 2018, the top state court denied the prosecution their request to try Sidney and Tammy Moore together, to facilitate a kidnapping conviction.

In retaliation, Moore was denied parole - for not waiving his 5th Amendment right in a kidnapping case that can lead to a capital murder case.

Now, the public generally has a very difficult time with the concept of the presumption of innocence and the right to remain silent protected by the 5th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

I see that all the time when yet another criminal charge is posted in an news media article on the Internet and on Facebook.

Overwhelmingly, comments presume guilt and demand immediate punishment, often by torture and death.

This man is accused of kidnapping of Heather Elvis and is presumed innocent of that crime.

He was tried for that crime in 2016 and the jury could not come to a unanimous verdict.

The prosecution has chosen, since 2016, for 2 years, not to retry him.

He has a right to remain silent as to anything in relation to that criminal charge.

Yet, he is denied parole, conveniently, because he did waive his 5th Amendment.

He was PUNISHED by prolonged incarceration to begin with for not talking to the police - which was his right under the 5th Amendment.

And, he was punished yet again, by the board of parole, for not waiving the 5th Amendment when criminal kidnapping proceedings were pending against him.

There is no evidence what happened to Heather Elvis and whether she is now dead or alive.

And, Sidney Moore may or may not have that information.

But, as eager as the public, police and prosecution is to blame Sidney Moore for not disclosing that information, he is protected by law in not doing it.

And, convicting him for doing what the law allows him to do is unconstitutional.

You may hate Sidney Moore, but, your personal feelings notwithstanding, there is no evidence he kidnapped or murdered Heather Elvis, and he has a right not to incriminate himself given to him by the U.S. Constitution, and no matter what "Picassos" are painted by the prosecution, the prosecution cannot change that constitutional right - in fact, prosecutors are sworn to protect it and be fair rather than trying to score convictions.

Sidney Moore was protected by the 5th Amendment and could not be charged for not talking to the police or for not giving the police information in a potential kidnapping and death penalty murder case against him.

Sidney Moore could not be charged, much less convicted, for obstruction of justice at the time when, by prosecutor's own admission, "it was not a crime", and certainly not an interference with a judicial process.

And, Sidney Moore most certainly could not be denied parole for not waiving his 5th Amendment right to remain silent and not to incriminate himself during a pending kidnapping criminal proceedings.

The rule of law means - the government following the set steps to take the person's property, liberty or life.

These steps were grossly violated here.

The 5th Amendment right to remain silent and not to incriminate himself.
The 6th Amendment Confrontation Clause.
The 14th Amendment Due Process Clause to be charged and prosecuted for a crime following due process, and not to have his liberty taken without a due process of law.

Sidney Moore's conviction is a wrongful conviction.

The State of South Carolina, by "painting a Picasso" to the jury, invented an end run around the 5th, 6th and 14th Amendments and a way to use wrongful convictions on fabricated wrongful charges to make people waive their 5th Amendment right to remain silent in a pending charge.

A young girl is missing.

And, her family is wondering where she is and is grieving.

But, that is not a good reason for wrongful convictions without due process.

Courts of law were established to replace the notoriously unfair private blood vendettas - and yet, a blood vendetta it is with Sidney Moore's conviction, and nothing more.

If you think you support such a wrongful conviction because you "believe", because Sidney Moore did not talk to police or was "evasive", he "knows something", and must be convicted for "something" for not disclosing that "something", think again.

You can be charged this way and convicted this way, too.

When the government cuts corners around the U.S. Constitution (which sets an absolute minimum, not maximum of procedural protections for everybody against government's prosecutions), it sets precedents not just against Sidney Moore, but against all of us, too.

Against you.

Sidney Moore's conviction should be overturned.

Fair trial in #ChenangoCountyNewYork in the death of #JacelynDOConnor? With a jury pool this illiterate in the law and this contaminated and inflamed by publicity - dream on.

On July 30, 2017, in the town of Norwich, Chenango County, New York, it was reported that an 11-year-old girl Jacelyn D. O'Connor, was first reported as having a cardiac arrest, then charges of rape and murder were filed at a town court level (before the indictment) against first one man, James R. Brower, then a second defendant, Brower's alleged gay partner Tobias Tobias Rundstrom-Wooding, was also charged for the same crime.

The police and the prosecution, those people who should have been neutral and who should have prosecuted the law while preserving the defendants' right to a fair trial, instead bent over backwards to contaminate the jury pool by inflaming details they fed to the media.

The judge, who, under the circumstances, was supposed to impose a gag order to protect the jury pool from contamination and preserve the defendant's right to a fair trial, imposed no gag order.

The judge at arraignment in Norwich Town Court was, for some inexplicable reason, Chenango County Court judge Frank B. Revoir, Jr., the infamous judge who in 2014, yelled during the court proceedings that making a constitutional argument is the equivalent of lying.  He knows a lot of constitutional law, obviously, to preside over a criminal proceeding of this magnitude.

Since no gag order was imposed, the police and prosecution inflamed the public through leaking juicy bits of information to the press.

Of course, that is police and prosecutorial misconduct, but in New York courts, police and prosecution never get accountable for such misconduct and contamination of the jury pool.

And the public did get inflamed.

It did not matter that every statement in the accusation, from the fact that the girl did not die of natural causes (cardiac arrest), but was smothered "during rape", as the police and prosecution assert - all of that must be proven beyond the reasonable doubt to the jury picked from the cross-section of population of County of Chenango, State of New York.

After an indictment by a grand jury.

At this time, there was no indictment.

But, both defendants are already guilty by Facebook - which is exactly what the prosecution is seeking in this case.

Here is what people think of these two men who are presumed innocent under the law of the State of New York - based on information about the case fed to the press by the police and prosecution.

I put my two cents into comments, asking the volunteer torturers and killers a simple question - yet, a question that caused quite a bit of agitation among the readers of press reports about these criminal proceedings.  Readers who are potential jurors in this case.

Here is this revolutionary question.

And here is the lengthy discussion where people explain to me why they consider that stating the law of the state of New York and constitutional of the United States is sick, moronic, shameful, you name it.

And why, because I posed that question, I should not be blessed with children, and should not be called a mother, a sister, or a woman.

Here come my ardent critics - let's remember, for what they are criticizing me, for asking, why are we discussing these men as if they were already found guilty by the jury, what about their presumption of innocence, which is the law in the State of New York?

Let's see the march of potential jurors in this case.


Critic # 1.  Brooke Cogshall admonished me for asserting the concept of presumption of innocence, because an innocent child died.  I understand that.  Yet, presumption of innocence applies notwithstanding the identity of the alleged victim of a crime.

Critic # 2, Karen Simpson Johns teaches me that the girl was killed because of what was said in an article Karen Simpson Johns is not sure she read.

Imagine Karen Simpson Johns on the jury deciding your fate.

Critic # 3 Anna Hopkins resorted to blocks and asks me how many 11-year-olds die of natural causes each year.  I am not aware of any such statistics, and my knowledge of such statistics is nor relevant. Children do die of natural causes, and the girl was initially reported to have been in cardiac arrest. That the death is not of natural causes, remains to be proven by the prosecution - which Anna Hopkins appears to have a problem with, considering a news report as all the proof she needs to call people names for simply stating the law of her own state and of the United States, presumption of innocence in criminal proceedings.

Again, God help anybody who has Anna Hopkins on the jury.  She jumps to assumption, flies into passion against people who dare to know more than she does, and makes decisions based on her flighty grudges.

Critic # 4, Nikki Lynne, immediately calls me a moron for stating the law of presumption of innocence, and advises me that "they", whoever "they" are, "obviously have enough evidence to charge them".

"They", "them", the variety of Nikki Lynne's vocabulary in, I presume, her native language, stuns.  Yet, what I invoked is a simple concept of presumption of innocence that covers criminal defendants despite charges and because of charges, until and unless they are proven guilty by the jury of their peers, and the two criminal defendants in question were not indicted yet, so they cannot be tried yet, but Nikki Lynne already calls people "morons" simply because they state the law of her own state.

Beware of Nikki Lynne on the jury pool.

Critic # 5, Trisha Ann, goes personal and, because I cited the law of her own state, prays to a Deity to deny me children and shames me.

 Then, Critic #5 refuses to waste any more time on me, save for a long tirade, accusing me of threatening her with publicity with this "silly little blog".  Judging by the length of the tirade, Trisha Ann and the verbal explosion aimed at me, was upset with the prospect of publicity.

Imagine Trisha Ann on the jury if you or your loved one is charged with a crime.  She will convict you simply because sitting on the jury takes longer than ranting on Facebook, and because she does not care about the laws of her own state that she is presumed to know.

Next comes Critic # 6, Denning Marie Tina,  who calls me, once again (let's keep the cause of this agitation in perspective), for pointing out that in New York State presumption of innocence until and unless a jury of the defendant's peers pronounced the defendant guilty beyond the reasonable doubt.  Pointing out the law of her own state was called by Denning Marie Tina "preaching", so Denning Marie Tina obviously is not happy about that law, but obviously does nothing to change that law.

The next critic, Critic #7, Courtney Lynne Washburn, takes personal accusations for stating the law of her own State of New York even further and asserts that, because I reminded of that law, I am "not a mother, aunt, sister" or "a woman".  

Imagine Denning Marie Tina and/or Courtney Lynne Washburn on the jury.  They will pay lip service to the judge telling them about presumption of innocence and will convict simply because they think presumption of innocence is the wrong concept.

And, last but not least, Critic #8, Raelynn Ashby who took considerable time to educate me in the criminal law of the State of New York, considering my notions of the law foolish and unenlightened.

Is this discussion funny, dear reader?

A little girl is dead.

Two men is on trial for her death, and, if justice is to be served, and if the society is to be assured of integrity of court proceedings, at the very least, the law at least of presumption of innocence should not be subverted.

Yet, this commentator considered our discussion with Raelynn Ashby who was trying to accuse me of believing what the law presumes about this men (while I never said I believed they are innocent, only that the law presumes them to be innocent) - very funny.

Entertainment with popcorn.

To which my critic # 5 Trisha Ann laughingly agreed.

If you are charged with a crime, and when people are ready to torture and kill you based on accusation alone, and when people are viciously attacking those who, like me, had the audacity to cite the rule of law to the lynching crowd, you tell me - is it funny that the crowd does not give what is shown below




about the rule of law?

I am sure that people who were exonerated from death row, do not consider the concept of presumption of innocence funny, nor did those who were not exonerated and spent years in prison, or died because somebody on that jury considered that concept unnecessary and those who invoke that concept morons who should be ashamed of themselves.

The two critics, Critic # 8 and Critic # 5, just came back laughingly (remember the deceased girl?) exchanging such comments:

Defense attorneys in the area, beware of Critic # 8 Raelynn Ashby as a jury candidate.  She thinks that:

• an indictment is evidence, and
• an arrest would not have happened without good evidence; and
• that invocation of presumption of innocence is wrong.

And - just in - beware of Critic # 9, Jessica Morris-Klossner, who outdid all of the previous critics by claiming that I am "obviously a pedophile protecting fellow pedophiles hiding behind a fake profile" - once again, all for reminding people of what the judge usually reminds potential jurors, of the concept of presumption of innocence.

Imagine Jessica Morris-Klossner as your juror.

I will continue to cover this story, and developments in that story, with as full a list as possible of people who are making comments on the media incompatible with their role as potential jurors in this case, with their respective backgrounds.

Stay tuned.