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A.G. urges dismissal of petition to clear teen in rape-recant case
Attorney general's office seeks dismissal of petition in teen's recantation case
Date published: 11/7/2009
By PAMELA GOULD Stafford attorney Denise Rafferty provided effective counsel to a former Aquia Harbour teen whose victim recanted her rape allegation after his conviction, according to the state Attorney General's Office. The office's response is part of a motion to dismiss a petition by the boy's attorneys, who are seeking to clear his name and get him off the state sex offender registry. The response was filed in Stafford County Circuit Court this week. The teen served about 17 months in a Department of Juvenile Justice facility after pleading guilty to rape and breaking and entering charges in Stafford Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court in 2007. Though he maintained his son's innocence, Edgar Dulaney agreed to have the boy accept a plea agreement to ensure he didn't risk winding up in an adult prison. The prosecution had sought to try him as an adult. About two weeks after the boy's commitment to the Department of Juvenile Justice was confirmed, the alleged victim told her mother she hadn't been raped and he hadn't broken into their home. Since then, the girl's mother has sought to rectify what she considers to be an injustice. The girl was 14 at the time of the June 2007 incident; the boy was 15. Both lived in Aquia Harbour at the time. As part of the petition, the boy's attorneys claim Rafferty violated his constitutional right to effective counsel. Specifically, they claim she failed to investigate the claims against her client, failed to interview him, failed to investigate his and his accuser's backgrounds, misrepresented the evidence against him and ignored an eyewitness. Their petition included affidavits from school officials stating the girl previously made false accusations. The boy is represented by a team of attorneys, including Deirdre Enright, director of the Innocence Project at the University of Virginia law school, and Andrew K. Block, legal director of JustChildren, a program of the Legal Aid Justice Center in Charlottesville. This week, Assistant Attorney General Gregory W. Franklin filed a motion to dismiss the petition on grounds that the juvenile justice department no longer has custody of the boy, the petition wasn't properly filed and that Rafferty provided effective counsel. The motion included a nine-page affidavit from Rafferty, laying out steps she said she took as court-appointed counsel for the teen.
Date published: 11/7/2009
UNJUSTICE KEEPS GOING
(posted by
TragicJustice
, Dec. 2, 2009 3:40 pm)
This is only an observation but a first hand observation of the great lengths that "the good old boys" network will go to preserve the unjustice that goes on in the Stafford JDR system. I would bet that those involved in this claim are far from innocent players in the unjustice going on in Stafford, VA. I highly doubt, that the GAL lived up to the list of GAL duties that she supposibly swore to uphold and protect for this young man and who knows how many others.
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