The True Story of How a Series of Lies Sent an Innocent Man to Prison
Parts of this post were used in Aggravated. The prosecution called two expert witnesses. We’ve already covered Ada Dixon. This post is about the other one, Blake Goudy, the man who gave the speech that day at Hanna’s school. Goudy said he only spoke to Hanna for fifteen minutes, so all he could say was …
Parts of this post were used in Aggravated. During Trial #2, Hanna tried to slip some extra information into one of her answers, but it didn’t work. Here’s how that happened. Elmer Ross had just finished questioning her about some incidents that she claimed happened after Beau’s 21st birthday party. She described several things, two …
Parts of this post were used in Aggravated. What the Court Got Wrong Much of the following is directly quoted from court records (with names changed, of course). Just to recap, Argument 2 concerned Steve’s marijuana conviction. Steve thought it shouldn’t have been admitted because of its age (24 years before). Argument 3 charged that …
Parts of this post were used in Aggravated. Two Arguments the Court Got Wrong In Steve’s first appeal (to the 19th Court of Appeals, in Keegan, Texas), he made four arguments, all of which the court ruled against. I’m only going to deal with Arguments 2 and 3 in this post, but here’s a quick …
Parts of this post were used in Aggravated. Influence on Hanna As you saw in a previous post, I believe that Ada Dixon’s book is clearly much more a Christian-centered religious text than a self-help book for victims of abuse. My biggest concern, though, is that large parts of it could also have been a …
Parts of this post were used in Aggravated. Statistics During Steve’s second trial, Steve’s attorney, Cleveland Sanford, was questioning expert witness Ada Dixon about her methodology. In particular, he was interested in a list of symptoms Dixon had said were indicative of someone who had undergone sexual abuse. He asked her if those symptoms were …
Parts of this post were used in Aggravated. Bolstering Truthfulness – Gonzo’s Trial In the previous post, we looked at Blake Goudy’s and Ada Dixon’s testimony in Steve’s trial, and I wondered if Dixon’s insistence that her clients were always truthful was typical of her trial behavior. In the court’s opinion for the appeal for …
Parts of this post were used in Aggravated. Bolstering Truthfulness – Steve’s Trial I’m not a lawyer, and if I’ve interpreted this incorrectly, someone please tell me, but I believe that a federal rule of evidence (Number 608) precludes a witness (like an expert witness) from being able to say that they know someone is …
Texas v. Munsen – The Complaints I mentioned in an earlier post that the Texas State Board of Examiners of Professional Counselors (TSBEPC) had been given two complaints against Ada Dixon early in her counseling career (the first was closed with a “No Violation” status, the second was closed by issuing her a Warning Letter). …
Parts of this post were used in Aggravated. Texas v. Munsen – The Social Media Attack On Tuesday, January 29, 2013, the second day of the Munsen trial (the first day Dixon appeared in court), Janice Deal, the Executive Assistant to the Superintendent of the Deep Springs School District, sent an email to about 140 …