Rape case sparked the bill April 1, 2004 Britt Dys Assistant Editor Regular News Rape case sparked the bill Assistant Editor It was the outcome of The State of Florida v. Christopher Hiatt, a controversial rape case, that sparked Rep. Carole Green’s passion to change the criminal trial process.Green is the sponsor of HB 1149 that would give the prosecutor the first and final voice in a criminal trial regardless of how many witnesses the defense calls.According to interviews and newspaper accounts, at the December 2003 trial in a Lee County courtroom, Tonda Soisson recounted how the defendant had broken into her home and brutally raped her a little after 1 a.m. on September 13, 2002. Meanwhile, her children were sleeping in the next room. When it was Hiatt’s turn to take the stand, he told the jury that it was a consensual sexual relationship — explaining the irrefutable DNA evidence that linked him to the alleged crime. The state then called a rebuttal witness, a Lee County sheriff’s officer, who verified that during the time he claimed to have “dated” Soisson, Hiatt was in jail.The prosecutor made her closing argument, and because the defendant was the only person to testify on his own behalf, the defense maintained the advantage of having the last word.It took the jury 1 ½ hours to deliberate, and return a verdict of not guilty on charges of sexual battery and burglary.Even before Hiatt was acquitted, Soisson went public about the attack, became a rape victims’ rights advocate, and worked with legislators to try to s trengthen laws involving stalkers and repeat sexual offenders. That effort continues this year, with a bill dubbed “The Tonda Soisson Protective Injunction Act,” which failed to pass last year.In an interview after Green had successfully presented her bill to the House Public Safety and Crime Prevention Committee, she discussed further the trial verdict that moved her into action.“I was so upset by what I watched happen there that I called Brad Thomas in the governor’s office, who helped me on a bill I did last year on repeat sexual offenders. I said Brad, ‘What can we do?’“What’s wrong here is we have a victim who was victimized by what’s happened in the court proceedings,” Green continued. “Brad was able to tell me, ‘I will look into it,’ and he brought the issue to me and said, ‘This [change in closing argument procedure] is the type of thing that will help.’”The truth-seeking process should be unhindered by what Green called “gamesmanship.” She said she believes that Hiatt lied during his testimony, and she wants to prevent an incident like this from happening again by pushing her bill that would allow prosecutors to rebut.Assistant State Attorney Kimberly Cathers, who prosecuted Hiatt, said: “I tried very hard to forget this trial, but I never will. It was hideous.”Cathers recalled the defense only called Hiatt as a witness.“As a consequence, he retained the open and close.”Open and closing argument is important, Cathers pointed out, because of “the psychological laws of primacy and recency. Those things that a jury hears first, and those things that a jury hears last, are what sticks with them most,” she said.If the legislature should pass Green’s bill, Cathers said,“It would be the best thing that happened in Florida jurisprudence in years.”When asked what the defense would lose if the rule were changed, she responded: “They (the defense) won’t get the closing argument; they won’t get rebuttal; and they’ll always be sandwiched by the prosecution.”But, she noted, it would be equitable because,“they will never have the burden of proof, so I think that it’s fair.”Even though defense attorneys don’t want the rule to be changed, Cathers suggests the defense attorneys already suffer drawbacks with the way the rule is now.“They’re penalized in terms of having to eliminate witnesses that might help them because they know they will lose their strategic advantage,” Cathers said.Nevertheless, the defense is unwilling to surrender what they consider the fundamental rights of defendants protected in the well-established rule.Robert R. Jacobs II, public defender of the 20th Judicial Circuit, urged, “You shouldn’t tinker with an 150-year-old vested procedural right. Not on the basis of one unique case, where the jurors in post-trial interviews said that it was the believability of the accused over the alleged victim that made their decision.”But in Green’s opinion, Lady Justice’s scales are in need of realignment.“This [bill] doesn’t change anything other than tipping the scale back to where you have a situation of where the prosecutor, who has the burden of proof, gets an opportunity for rebuttal,” she said. read more