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State v. Richardson11/10/2005
In March of 2004, the appellant, a Shelby County special education teacher, was indicted by the Shelby County Grand Jury on one count of assault and one count of child abuse arising from an incident between the appellant and a student. The appellant sought pretrial diversion.
The district attorney supported the grant of pretrial diversion. The appellant holds a master's degree in special education and has no prior criminal record. According to the district attorney's statement of facts in support of pretrial diversion, the victim, an autistic child, was discovered sitting at his desk bleeding from the head. The appellant offered no explanation at the time of the incident, but the victim's mother was told that the appellant had hit the victim on the head with her shoe.
In the appellant's application for pretrial diversion, she explains that the victim became upset when he was not given the sports section of the newspaper. The victim began having a "severe behavior episode." The appellant attempted to calm the victim down, but the victim began grabbing the appellant and assaulting her, even biting her on the hand. The appellant concluded her statement by admitting that she "hit and pushed the student to get loose" and that "the student's head was injured at the end of the ordeal."
The trial court held a hearing on the matter of pretrial diversion and ultimately entered an order denying pretrial diversion. The trial court determined that the district attorney acted "arbitrarily and capriciously in entering into this diversion agreement without requiring some statement of admission and remorse on the part of the defendant, given the shocking nature of the facts of this case." At the hearing, the trial court explained the reasoning behind the denial of the request for pretrial diversion as follows:
y concern has been, and continues to be, the shocking nature of this offense and the fact that the defendant hasn't really shown any remorse because she hasn't, at any point, that I'm aware of, admitted that she committed this offense.
She sort of talked around it and talks about stepping out of the room and coming back and, lo-and-behold, something has happened to this child; but never has she stated that she concedes that she did this; and it was a terrible mistake and a terrible thing, and she's sorry, and she wants to put it behind her and move on. No statement of that sort appears anywhere in the record. Notwithstanding the fact that you made a statement a week or two ago that you thought, on your client's behalf, that she has admitted guilt in this case and is sorry, nothing that's been presented to me would bear that out.
And I still have to ask the question: Does society have any interest at all in ensuring that a victim in a case like this emerges from the whole process in at least as good of a situation as the defendant does.
And we have to keep in mind that the request here is for the extraordinary relief of diversion where your client would then be allowed to complete the period of diversion and erase any record, whatsoever, of this offense ever having occurred.
But in a situation where she has come to the court - first to the attorney general and now it's before me - asking for this extraordinary relief, I do think that there is some need to have some acknowledgment of the guilt of the offense charged in the whole process for the system to work properly and for the victim, in a case like this, to have any measure of satisfaction out of the system and the process.
I think there is a legitimate interest by society in how this whole process affects the victim, in addition to your client
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