A jury ruled a Connecticut man not guilty on all three counts of first-degree sexual assault after the defendant showed his penis in court to demonstrate that it did not fit the description of the woman who said he raped her, The Washington Post reported on Sunday.
Defense attorney Todd Bussert insisted that he did not mean to sensationalize the case by having his client, Desmond James, drop his pants in court.
"I can fairly say I never envisioned this scenario in my career where something like this would come up," said Bussert, who has practiced law for some two decades. "Here it just seemed like the only real viable option… If I felt I had [another] really clear unimpeachable option that would have established the same point, I would have pursued it."
He explained that the woman identified her rapist as James after seeing his picture in a news report and she had described the assailant as a black man whose penis was lighter than the rest of his body.
Bussert said the defense had wanted to use several photographs they had taken of James' penis to prove it did not fit the description and thus he wasn't the suspect in question.
"Unfortunately, in one of [the photos], the flash had washed everything out," Bussert said. "And given that the color was the issue, that became problematic."
Bussert made a request to offer "non-testimonial evidence," which Judge Elpedio Vitale granted, stating it was James' Sixth Amendment right to defend himself.
James "stepped up before the jury box and proceeded to unbutton his pants," Bussert said. "The whole thing took three to five seconds. The court didn't want to make it a huge thing."
The attorney added that it was humiliating to his client, but his penis "was probably the strongest piece of evidence that we could offer. The whole claim was so specific and so unusual – there wasn't a lot of ambiguity about it – we thought, well, if we can refute that, we can obviously persuade the jury."
Although Bussert said he did not want the case sensationalized, the New Haven Register reported that word quickly spread in the courthouse about what was about to unfold, and the courtroom was packed for the incident.
The report also described the reactions of some of the jurors. Co-defense attorney Erica Barber said, "One of the women looked away. One of the male alternate jurors looked as if he was trying not to have an outburst. I'm sure they were shocked but they did a good job of not showing it."
Prosecutor Stacey Miranda tried to persuade the jury that this was not hard evidence, because James might have changed his pubic hair since the time of the rape six years earlier or that the lighting could have caused the accuser to remember her assaulter's penis differently during the time of the assault, according to The New York Post.
However, despite the acquittal in the case, James did not go free, because he is serving a 65-year sentence after being convicted last year of home invasion and sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl, the New Haven Register reported.
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