Same Crime, but Vastly Different Treatment of Two Jurors in the Mesa County Courts

Chief Deputy D.A. Dan Rubenstein, lead county DA pursuing Blagg juror (Photo Credit: CO Bar Assoc.)

Chief Deputy D.A. Dan Rubenstein, lead county DA pursuing Blagg juror (Photo Credit: CO Bar Assoc.)

If you need verification of the extent to which former juror Marilyn Charlesworth is being hung out to dry as a result of her service eleven years ago on the Blagg jury, look no further than how the District Attorney’s office handled another recent case of juror misconduct that also led to a new trial for the defendant.

To recap, Charlesworth currently has the distinction of being the most abused juror in modern U.S. history. Over the past eleven years, convicted murderer Michael Blagg’s defense team has forced her to defend herself against a number of allegations, including that while serving as a juror she withheld information from the Court about the extent of a vision problem, about a specific medication she was allegedly prescribed and, most recently, about whether she experienced an incident of domestic violence over two decades ago. The Mesa County DA has now filed contempt charges against her, is currently threatening her with 30 days in jail and fees in excess of $45,000, nominally to pay for Blagg’s first trial. That figure includes witness travel fees, hotel expenses, expert witness fees, subpoena service, the cost of transcripts for further hearings and additional costs not yet specified. Over the eleven years since Blagg’s first trial, the Court has made public Charlesworth’s medical, employment, DMV and IRS tax records and information from them has been published in the local paper, all without her consent. The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel now routinely features her name in articles about the Blagg case. Charlesworth and her husband now face thousands of dollars in legal bills for her defense from the two-pronged legal onslaught by Blagg’s defense team the Mesa County District Attorney’s office.

Contrast this with how the same D.A.’s office handled a second case of a juror accused of the exact same charge — misconduct — in another recent case, and whose actions resulted in a convicted defendant, a child molester, getting a new trial.

Different Cases, Same Charge

In 2010, Rodney Eddy, a former resident of Mesa and deacon at Mesa View Bible Church, was convicted of multiple felony counts of sexual assault on a teenage girl. A jury found him guilty on four counts each of sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust.

Rodney Eddy, who is going for a third trial -- the juror accused of misconduct in Eddy's case suffered no consequences

Rodney Eddy, who is going for a third trial — the juror accused of misconduct in Eddy’s case suffered no consequences for intentionally lying on a juror questionnaire

Eddy, now 73 years old, had two trials. The first ended in February, 2010, after jurors deadlocked on the charges against him. His next trial came six months later, in August of 2010. In that trial, jurors convicted Eddy of four counts of sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust and four more counts for a pattern of abuse. He was acquitted of eight additional charges and sentenced to 16 years to life in prison.

Fast-forward to February, 2015, when the Court awarded Eddy a third trial, this time due to juror misconduct.

In a screening questionnaire given to jurors before Eddy’s second trial, one unidentified juror answered “no” to the question of whether he or any of his family members had ever been a victim of sexual abuse. He later confessed that he had, in fact, been sexually abused by a priest in Grand Junction in 1965, at age 12. He told investigators that he had lied on his questionnaire to get on the jury after he learned sexual abuse allegations were central to Eddy’s case. He told investigators he was seeking “payback” for the wrongs allegedly committed against him by the priest when he was a child.

As a result of knowingly lying on his juror questionnaire, the Eddy juror suffered no consequences whatsoever. The District Attorney didn’t file any contempt charges against him, charge him any fees or fines, didn’t threaten him with jail time or having to pay the cost of Eddy’s next trial. Also, the Daily Sentinel has refrained completely from printing the Eddy juror’s name in the paper. Instead, in articles about the misconduct, Sentinel reporters only call him “the juror” or “the man.”

All this stands in stark contrast to how Charlesworth has been treated by the DA, and in the courts and press. She stands accused of the exact same crime, but in her case, “juror misconduct” was a matter of opinion that turned on whether or not she believed she had been involved with domestic violence decades ago — a subjective decision that depends on a number of circumstances, including the definition of domestic violence in the early 1990s, the juror’s understanding of what constituted domestic violence at the time, and whether she felt victimized at the time or not. Charlesworth argued that at the time of Blagg’s trial in 2004, she did not consider herself a victim of abuse, that she got out of the relationships as soon as her partners displayed aggression and considered herself a strong and successful woman for doing so. She was forced to publicly defend the thought process that led to her answer “no” on a juror questionnaire asking whether or not she or anyone in her family had experienced domestic violence. The Court disagreed with her, and charged her with lying on her questionnaire.

So Why Such a Big Difference in Treatment?

Why there has been such a huge difference in treatment between these two jurors?

Could it be because one case involves a male juror and the other female? Or because one case involves sexual molester while the other involves a murderer? Or because one juror had a difference of opinion regarding her own life experience, while the other juror was clear that he intentionally lied to get on a jury for the purpose of exacting some sort of misplaced revenge?

It could be any or all of these, or maybe there are other reasons for the big difference, too.

Unlike the Eddy case, the Blagg case involves a very important local person with a much bigger profile in the case than Charlesworth: Former Colorado State Senator Steve King.

King now poses a huge problem for the DA’s office, one that makes Charlesworth look like small potatoes.

King was a former investigator for the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO), and the lead investigator on the Blagg case back in 2004.  In 2014, while running for Mesa County Sheriff, King was caught embezzling from the Mesa County Sheriff’s office and Colorado Mesa University, and was forced to drop out of the race as the Republican nominee for Mesa County Sheriff. He pled guilty to the charges, was sentenced to two years probation and ordered to pay over $4,800 in restitution to CMU and the Sheriff’s Office.

As a result of King’s misconduct, the acting head of the Sheriff Department was forced to write a “Brady letter” about King to Mesa County District Attorney Pete Hautzinger. The letter labels King a “Brady cop,” which means that defense attorneys must be notified of the fact that King engaged in a sustained pattern of dishonesty. This letter pre-taints any of King’s testimony in Blagg’s new trial. It allows Blagg’s defense attorneys to officially question King’s integrity and seek to exclude all of his testimony from the trial. Because so much of the evidence presented at Blagg’s 2004 trial was circumstantial, this represents a huge, maybe fatal, blow to the DA’s case.

This situation seems a whole lot more harmful, and has a lot worse ramifications, than a juror who may or may not have believed she suffered an incident of domestic abuse more than 20 years ago.

A Smokescreen?

So why does one juror walk out the door unscathed while the DA carries on a full-frontal, from-all-angles attack against the other? Who wins from this attack?

It might seem like the DA is pursuing Charlesworth in order to hold someone — anyone — accountable for Blagg’s retrial, but given the cost of pursuing legal action against Charlesworth, particularly as her case now heads to the state Supreme Court, plus the additional cost the County would incur by putting her in jail, one must wonder why the DA would go to all the trouble of pursuing her to such an extent and incurring all these extra costs. The costs of pursuing Charlesworth are in addition to the cost of Blagg’a new trial, AND the cost of a third trial for Eddy. If the DA is doing it to make an example of her, it certainly is a very expensive example for all involved, including the County. It doesn’t make sense to pursue her as a source of funds for Blagg’s retrial, because Charlesworth isn’t wealthy, and is very far from being a deep pocket the County can tap for funds. They can’t attach her future earnings to pay for anything either, because her eyesight is now so bad that she cannot drive or work.

So what is the County getting out of chewing up Charlesworth like a rabid bear?

Some people think the DA’s over-the-top pursuit of Charlesworth serves some other purpose, like creating a smokescreen to divert attention from bigger and more embarrassing problems with the Blagg case, or that it is being done to help shift the focus away from other questionable local political affairs.

After all, there are a lot of other very touchy issues surrounding Steve King.

Former Colorado Rep. and GOP Mesa County Sheriff Candidate Steve King, arguably a much bigger problem for the DA's office (Photo: Wikipedia)

Former Colorado Rep. and GOP Mesa County Sheriff Candidate Steve King, arguably a much bigger problem for the DA’s office (Photo: Wikipedia)

For example, it was reported that in 2008 King was awarded a no-bid contract with Colorado Mesa University (then Mesa State College) for $17,850 for a “security audit” that is no longer on file anywhere at CMU, and that no one has been able to find. King failed to disclose the income from the contract to the state, as legislators are required to do. CMU hired King to do the audit at the same time he was serving in the state legislature, and while in the legislature, King introduced a number of bills that directly benefitted Mesa State College (now CMU), including the bill to rename the college “Colorado Mesa University.” The issue of King’s no-bid contract was touched on only briefly by local media, and not pursued.

The issues surrounding King and his involvement with CMU also point to the question of patronage hiring at CMU. In a 2007 blog in the Colorado Independent, Leslie Robinson raised the patronage job issue, calling Mesa State College “Mesa Republican College,” and pointing out that CMU has been a landing spot for many former Republican politicians and their spouses, among them former Mesa County Commissioner Janet Rowland, who now works on contract to the University, John Marshall (Bob Beauprez’s 2006 campaign manager) and former State Representative Gayle Berry, who, after leaving office, was hired to be Mesa State College’s lobbyist.

Add this to the many recent episodes of corruption and deeply embarrassing failures by the Mesa County GOP: Grand Junction Regional Airport Board’s fraud investigation, the debacle surrounding the arrest of 2013 GOP City Council candidate Rick Brainard, the back-stabbing of Grand Junction stalwart Bill Pitts, the Grand Junction Chamber of Commerce opposing the position held by almost all local business owners on Referred Measure 2B (the Riverside Parkway extension), the Chamber’s 2013 lies about how the Brady Trucking property re-zone would create “jobs and trails,” and more — and maybe the “case” against beleaguered Blagg juror Charlesworth is really helping keep the focus off all these other, far more extensive and consequential problems caused by the longtime local GOP’s political dominance and the machine they have set up across Mesa County.

Until someone explains exactly what purpose the county’s over-the-top pursuit of Charlesworth serves, we’re all left to speculate. But if we take our eyes off the DA’s efforts to string up the beleaguered Blagg juror and look around at all the deeper problems that accompany this case, maybe we’ll get the bigger picture of what we really need to see, and what we should be paying much more attention to.

  5 comments for “Same Crime, but Vastly Different Treatment of Two Jurors in the Mesa County Courts

  1. I don’t trust human beings in general. I am afraid of reprisal if I voice my opinion. I am a layperson when involved with legal aspects, as the majority of citizens are. Having said this, I don’t believe our legal system administers justice well for the layperson but allows the elite, powerful or rich much more latitude in the administration of law. As a potential juror I want to fulfill my obligation as a citizen but I am concerned about the appropriate conduct of the jury. In a group of human beings certain personalities provide the leadership and others tend to be more submissive to those more dominant personalities. In the give and take of a group discussion, such as a jury, the opinions of the more dominant personalities tend to coerce the more passive personalities. I have very seldom see this phenomenon fail. As a result, the verdict is not always objective but reflects a consensus of opinion established by those more dominant personalities. I would prefer a summary judgment from an educated judge working closely with the attorneys
    on both sides. I think the concept of a jury of peers has outgrown its usefulness and the concept of a jury should be abandoned.

  2. Excellent investigation and application!
    Seems like the vilification of Mrs. Charlesworth is quite the smokescreen.
    If everyone is concentrating on this case and her involvement, no one will
    realize that the “Steve King” testimonies themselves would have brought
    about a re-trial. This way, everyone blames the Juror.
    Crooked little town…

  3. Thank you Anne for bringing this travesty to light. I do not live in Grand Junction, Co or Mesa County, and quite frankly would be ashamed to admit it if I did. Worst case of “cowboy justice” I have ever heard of.
    Does Colorado not have any oversight over their jurisdictions to assure that the application and enforcement of laws and punishments are administered in a consistent manor? Do any of the other jurisdictions handle their cases in such an inconsistent and arbitrary manor?
    I have never heard of a jurer being so persecuted and abused. Its quite obvious from the comments in your previous post that the judicial system, court and media has brainwashed the community and created an air of hatred surrounding this jurer when her real crime was fulfilling her civic duty.

  4. During my run for Sheriff, I had asked that all the candidates take the “Pledge.” I will reiterate it now:
    “THE PLEDGE
    1> Review and amend any Mesa County Sheriff Office policy that supports a culture of double dipping. That a full audit of Sheriff timecards under Hilkey be carried out by an uninvolved third party and to initiate all practical recommendations by that third party, to prevent a King situation again.
    2> Call for and follow up on appropriate agencies to review and audit CMU and all personnel involved in the hiring and knowledge and/or tolerance of King’s CMU Salary. This should also include all “direct CMU lobbyist” salaries for the past 12 years.
    3> Request and obtain all information from the FBI, for the Mesa County DA to review, the Grand Junction Airport Authority investigation, including records on business dealings, purchases, budgets, etc, to determine if all dealings and communications were completed, lawfully. The investigation information should be as transparent as legally possible.
    I call on all the Sheriff candidates to make this pledge now, as I do…and if you are not able to do so you have no business running for Sheriff.” NOTHING HAS CHANGED!! NOTHING HAS BEEN DONE!!

    Marilyn Charlesworth made a mistake not being aware through the passage of time and according to Judge Bottger, that the definition of “domestic violence” was the same 2-3 decades ago as it is now, and that what SHE BELIEVED, was according to Bottger, not what she believed. Of course Bottger would know better what she believed better then what she would, since he is so well informed about domestic violence, understands its ramifications and can read Marilyn’s mind.

    The whole premise of the judicial system allows for changes to occur when social conditions and mores enlighten. Just think, 2-3 decades ago would you have believed that the Supreme Court would have specifically ruled corporations a “person” and that money in politics has no effect on voting?

Leave a Reply to Benita Phillips Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *