Solicitor makes right call in dropping flawed case

Published Sunday, July 26, 2009

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Fourteenth Circuit Solicitor Duffie Stone's decision not to prosecute a man charged in the death of Bluffton teenager Josh George was the right one.

Stone should not bring the case to trial when he has doubts about the man's guilt and the evidence in hand doesn't support prosecution.

The man charged should not be put through it, nor should the George family and the people of Beaufort County. Whether Stone thought he could persuade a jury or not, it would be the wrong thing to do.

"It was a difficult decision, one that I didn't make lightly, but I have never prosecuted anyone that I wasn't convinced committed the crime, and I'm not starting now," he said.

We all should take heart in a judicial system that puts a person's freedom ahead ofprosecuting to save political face.

Juan Roman, previously identified and booked as Juan Olague Rodriquez, has been in the county jail since May 18, 2008, awaiting trial on charges of felony DUI and leaving the scene of a wreck resulting in death. The charges carried a potential prison sentence of up to 50 years.

This case had all the elements of high drama. Seventeen-year-old George died in a prom night crash at the intersection of Bluffton Parkway and Buck Island Road as he headed home at about 3 a.m. The man charged in his death has been identified as an illegal immigrant. He is expected to be deported.

It was a volatile mix that didn't make Stone's decision any easier.

Key to that decision was the fact that DNA evidence from two beer cans found on the front floorboard of the vehicle that law enforcement officials say hit George's pickup truck failed to connect the suspect to either the driver's seat or the passenger's seat of the vehicle. DNA from a third beer can near the scene of the crash matched Roman's, Stone said, but wasn't enough to tie him to the car and, more importantly, put him in the driver's seat.

Unfortunately, it took 14 months to determine this. That's more than a year that the Bluffton Police Department could have been working to gather evidence to either make its case against Roman or determine who was driving the vehicle if not Roman.

Stone sent off the DNA samples several months ago, and the results came back only recently. When the tests came back, he made the decision not to prosecute.

Law enforcement officials got off to the right start in the case. Two Beaufort County deputies followed debris for several miles and quickly found a vehicle with damage that matched up with evidence at the scene of the accident.

But the investigation went off track right after that. Officers went to a house, where they found up to 10 Spanish-speaking people who had been drinking. None of the officers spoke Spanish. They found a woman inside to translate. She didn't seem to be intoxicated, Bluffton Police Chief David McAllister said, and was the only person inside who appeared to speak English. But no officer communicated directly with Roman right away. Another man at the house accused him of being the driver.

All of the people living in the home left within days of the fatal wreck, leaving police with two unknown DNA profiles and no witnesses, officials said.

A Spanish-speaking officer should have been brought to the home immediately when officers saw what they were dealing with. Surely, they could have kept the people there until that officer arrived. Or the officers could have used a translation service.

McAllister has criticized Roman for not cooperating with investigators. But it is incumbent upon the police to make their case, not Roman. Bluffton police officers have work to do if they want to bring the guilty party to justice.

But that brings us to the wisdom of Josh George's siblings, who also lost their father in a plane crash and know about loss. Nineteen-year-old Jessie George said it well:

"It doesn't matter who's punished. It won't change what's already happened. Somebody being in jail isn't going to change anything. We don't want (Roman) to be punished if he's not guilty. ... Two wrongs don't make a right."

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17 Salt Wind Way, Hilton Head Island, S.C. 29926
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