The Incorrect Contempt Ruling By Judge Lott in the Edrick Faust Trial
Last Tuesday, a jury found Edrick Faust guilty of 12 charges in connection with the murder and aggravated sodomy of University of Georgia law student Tara Baker. At the very start of the trial, during opening statements, defense counsel Ahmad Crews was held in contempt of court and fined $1,000 by trial judge Superior Court Judge Lisa Lott for violating O.C.G.A. § 24-4-412, Georgia’s rape shield rule.
Subject to specific exceptions, rape shield rules such as § 24-4-412 prohibit the defense from presenting evidence of a victim’s other sexual behavior or sexual predisposition to prove that the victim consented to the crime charged. For example, if a defendant, Dan, is charged with raping a victim, Victoria, he could not present evidence that she consented to sexual acts with other partners to prove that she consented to the sexual act with Dan. In effect, rape shield rules are a subspecies of character evidence rules, which prohibit parties from presenting evidence to prove things such as “once an arsonist, always an arsonist” or “once a burglar, always a burglar.” Simply put, just because someone consents to certain acts with certain individuals does not mean that she would consent to similar acts with other individuals.
This takes us to Crews’s opening statement in the Edrick Faust trial. For reference, Chris Melton was Tara Baker’s boyfriend while Elizabeth Bigham and Jeremy Howell were agents with the Georgia Bureau of Investigations (GBI).
I’ll direct your attention to 1:42:00 in this video of Crews’s opening statement. Here’s my rough transcription of what he says (I’m not sure of his wording in the bracketed section):
“I think is significant for everybody to know. So, in 2001, Mr. Melton is told, as I told you before, that Miss Baker was sexually assaulted, [they may not say the sexual assault piece], but he knew. They told him in 2001, and that’s when he came back with I saw her six days before she passed away. When he was meeting with Elizabeth Bigham and Jeremy Howell, they told him, ‘Hey, we found another person’s DNA in her body.’ And Mr. Melton’s response was telling. Mr. Melton himself said, ‘Sounds like she was with someone else.’”
At this point, the prosecutor objects, and Judge Lott ultimately hold Crews in contempt of court and fines him $1,000.
Simply put, this makes no sense under the rape shield rule. You see, Crews was not referencing some other sexual act by Baker to prove how she acted at the time of the crime charged. Instead, Crews was (1) relaying to the jury what GBI agents told Baker’s boyfriend about the crime charged; and (2) explaining how the boyfriend responded to that information.
In no way, shape, or form, was Crews referencing some other sexual act involving Baker. Instead, he was relaying to the jurors what transpired when Baker’s boyfriend was told about the crime charged. Crews’s statements neither violated the language nor the purpose of the rape shield rule.
But, despite this, Judge Lott somehow took the nearly unprecedented step of holding an attorney in contempt of court during opening statements, derailing the defense before the trial had even really started.