Delays

Rollin retrial confirmation delayed

Two evidentiary motions filed by attorneys unrelated to the prosecution or defense in the retrial of Joseph Pierre Rollin upended court proceedings Wednesday and delayed a trial confirmation hearing.

This case is being retried because the verdict was thrown out on appeal after a higher court determined that Gallegos used statements during the trial that were made by the defendant before he had been read his Miranda rights.

That is to say, Gallegos used Rollins' non-Mirandized denial of guilt as evidence rather than his Mirandized confession, reasoning that denying he was guilty proved he was guilty, something like that.

Deputy District Attorney Ben McLaughlin will prosecute the case this time around, with jury selection expected to begin later this month.

It's a horrific case, and it looks like McLaughlin is the office's new heavy hitter.
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Attorneys' pretrial wrangling continues in dependent abuse case
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As previously reported: "Joi died on March 19, 2002, probably bent into the bathtub of a condemned trailer in Orick, her body weighing only 60 pounds and swathed in a soiled disposable diaper.

A medical examiner determined that Joi, 42 years old and long rendered helpless by multiple sclerosis, died from lobar pneumonia with a variety of contributing factors.

These included MS, malnutrition, a urinary tract infection from a catheter that hadn’t been cleaned in several months and 20 or more feces-infected bedsores, two of which gaped so wide and deep that the bones beneath were exposed."

Joseph Pierre Rollin "was convicted only of the enhanced abuse of a dependent adult and was sentenced to eight years in prison.

But in December, the conviction was reversed on appeal because, court documents show, Gallegos repeatedly used Pierre’s non-Mirandized denial of responsibility for Joi’s death — later refuted by a Mirandized confession — as evidence of his guilt.