Damson - NOT GUILTY

It took less than one hour Thursday afternoon for a jury to find Joseph E. "Jed" Damson not guilty of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl with a cognitive disability.

"I always believed in my client's innocence, but when you have a case like this, you always worry," Damson's attorney, Jeremy Yellin, said after his client's acquittal.

Yellin smiled and hugged Damson immediately after the deputy clerk of court read the not guilty plea, while many members of Damson's family let out a sigh of relief.

A juror who preferred to remain anonymous said the lack of evidence from the state swayed the decision. He asked why, while experts on children and sex crime convicts had been brought in, no expert testified on the specific disability the girl has?

And regarding the conference that the girl attended before she made the allegations, the juror asked why didn't the state bring the booklet outlining what was talked about there?

The girl had attended a conference for people with her syndrome at the beginning of the month the allegations came up. The conference was brought up frequently during the trial by both sides, with the defense saying that's where she learned about things she would allege Damson did to her.

In his closing argument Thursday morning, Montana Assistance Attorney General Joel Thompson said Yellin's claim that the girl learned about "humping" and "arousal" at that conference was the "biggest red herring in this case."

"This is his yarn and he spun it," Thompson said.

All the witnesses agreed the conference taught about friendship. But in his clever and dramatic fashion, Thompson said, Yellin had turned friendship classes into sex ed classes with talk of arousal and humping. Through his cleverness, Thompson said, Yellin tried to discredit the girl because she mixed up the dates when certain events in the allegations took place - "It's his job to find errors and discredit everything."

Thompson asked the jurors about a potential juror who was asked Monday what the sermon at her church was about the day before. Does it mean, that because she didn't remember what it was about, that she didn't go to church? Thompson asked.

Yellin, Thompson said, repeats things he wants the jury to believe, whether they're true or not, because by doing so, he's hoping people will believe it. This business about confabulation and conflation, terms used to describe memory distortion by combining stories or completely concocting stories and believing them to be true, doesn't line up, Thompson said.

If the girl, who both her mother and her caseworker testified had never pretended, never played princess, never had the capacity to imagine something she didn't experience, made up the whole thing, Thompson said, why didn't she say the incidents happened on the roof or in an imaginary room? Why did she say they happened in places she and Damson spent time in? The truth is, Thompson continued, the girl had been consistent on the core facts from the beginning.

Thompson asked the jury, if the girl said yes to everything because she was such a people pleaser, even when she doesn't understand, how was she able to correct her interviewer twice during the two forensic interviews the jury was shown videos of Tuesday? And if pleasing people was all the girl cared about, it wouldn't make sense for her to keep up a lie that was so burdensome for her family, Thompson said.

Thompson said what happened was the girl told Damson that she told her mother about the molestation, he got upset and said they can't be friends anymore and the girl walked away, devastated. Later, Damson went to  the mother, to spin and mitigate what had happened, Thompson said.

"This is the insidious part," he said. "Everything Yellin told you about her handicaps is why she's so vulnerable to this. ... 'even if I'm caught - who would believe her?'"

Thompson said the decision should be about the evidence, not the spin on the evidence.

In his closing statements, Yellin asked the jury what his dramatic ways, which Thompson warned them about, had to do with the issues at stake. Referencing Deputy Hill County Attorney Ryan Mickelson's opening statement on Monday when he said "it takes a village" to care for the girl, Yellin said he was reminded of a mob in a village, with pitchforks - "They're at the gates for this man who is innocent."

Yellin said the prosecution told them to believe his client did the "worst imaginable crime" without presenting any evidence.

"The level of proof is proof beyond a reasonable doubt," Yellin said, adding that if the level of proof changed based on the case, nobody would be safe.

The girl went to a conference at the beginning of the July 2014, learned about friendships and heard about humping and arousal, he said.

"That's what (the girl) told me. That's what her mother heard," Yellin said, referring to an interview he conducted with the girl before the trial, while her mother was in the room.

Yellin said the mother said that he was too broad with his questions and that's why the girl answered in such ways. Upon redirect, he went to the transcript, pointed out very direct questions that the girl had been asked, and the mother agreed they were not broad, he reminded the jury. Then, Yellin continued, the mother said the reason for some of the girl's answers were because the interview had dragged on too long, almost two hours. Upon more scrutiny, Yellin pointed out, it turned out that exactly 47 minutes had passed when the girl had been asked what she learned at the conference, no longer than the time she had spent on the stand Tuesday.

If something so horrible as sexual assault happened, where are the counselors who are treating her for the trauma? Yellin asked.

And as far as confabulation, memory distortion, Yellin pointed to "the government's own witness," Wendi Dutton, a forensic interviewer who testified Wednesday.

Dutton testified that confabulation can be problematic with someone with a mental disability. Dutton also testified that, despite her developmentally delayed condition, the girl is still capable of sexual urges, Yellin said, tying that in with the mother's testimony when she said her daughter never had crushes on boys or talked about boys.

Yellin said this was the "village circling the wagons" because the alleged victim is sweet and loving. This was about everyone in the girl's life being protective to the point of overlooking evidence. Love can blind people, he said.

"Disregard the emotion as best as you can," Yellin told the jury. "Please pay attention to what was presented and the law, not this 'it takes a village stuff.' Focus on the evidence, or in this case, the lack of evidence. A man's life is in the balance."