Eastern Shore high school football player's rape case bound over to grand jury
By Hal Scheurich, FOX10 News Reporter
END WNStoryRelatedBox
BAY MINETTE, AL (WALA) -
It was a preliminary hearing where 13 witnesses were called and that took nearly five hours. In the end, District Judge, Clark Stankoski found enough probable cause to send this case to a grand jury. Now it will be up to it to decide whether or not this case goes to trial.
Cameron Harrison, 18, faces a first-degree rape charge after prosecutors said he had sex with a 16-year-old girl at a house party. That’s because they said she had been drinking and was physically unable to consent or communicate her willingness.
Harrison showed up early with his family for the 8:30 hearing Tuesday, November 24, 2015, and was soon joined by many supporters. More than 60 people filled the small courtroom as the hearing got underway.
In a move that is rare in a preliminary hearing, the defense called a dozen witnesses. Defense attorney, John Beck said it was important to lay his cards on the table early.
“We want this to come out. We want the facts to come out. We want anybody that knows anything to feel comfortable coming out and saying exactly what happened that night,” Beck said. “The overwhelming evidence that came out in this hearing backs up what we’ve been saying all along.”
Assistant District Attorney, ChaLea Tisdale cross-examined each witness and found several inconsistencies in the testimony. She said the witnesses are all friends of Harrison and want to help protect him.
“This victim is a teenager that is in a school that is highly dominated by a football team and I certainly have no issues with their football program, but this is one of their football players and she, as has happened and all of you have seen it in the media…she has taken pressure and didn’t want to deal with that,” Tisdale said. “She just didn’t want to be subject to that. She just wanted to live a normal life and her parents saw that she had been wronged and they sought justice for that.”
The prosecution’s only witness was Corporal Jason Vannoy with the Daphne Police Department. Vannoy testified that witness statements he took shortly after the alleged offense told of a victim that was drunk and incapacitated to a point where she was either passed out or unable to consent.
While several defense witnesses said the alleged victim was conscious, Tisdale said that doesn’t matter as far as the law is concerned.
“The statute says either mentally incapacitated or physically helpless and the definition of physically helpless is unconscious or unable to consent for any other reason, so whether she was completely passed out or not, she was certainly physically helpless,” Tisdale said.
The defense filed motions late last week and over the weekend to have discovery evidence handed over by the prosecution. One piece of evidence was a video that showed the alleged victim being carried upstairs at the party by several people. The defense converted the video to a different format which revealed an extra second of video. They claimed that still frames printed from the new portion of video shows the alleged victim smiling, with her eyes open.
“I think there are a lot of things that are problematic in their case," Beck said. "I think there are a lot of conflicts in their case and everything that we have laid out that we expected the evidence to show today has come forth.”
This case could be presented to the next Grand Jury which will convene the last week of January and the first week of February.
Read more: