An accused serial sex offender, whose 2011 conviction for a 9th Ward rape was struck down by appellate judges in April, could wind up
http://www.authentic49ersshop.com/shop-by-players-michael-wilhoite-jersey-c-1_33.html serving life in prison for his legal victory after he was indicted by an Orleans Parish grand jury on a more severe charge in the same case. Conversely, he also could still wind up walking free.
Orleans Parish prosecutors on Thursday (July 20) filed a superseding indictment charging Troy Taylor, 41, with aggravated rape and aggravated kidnapping in connection with a case that originated in 1994. The new rape charge is punishable with a mandatory life sentence upon conviction. It marks a potentially bleaker prospect for Taylor, who has served six years of the maximum 40-year sentence he was handed after being convicted of a lesser forcible rape in August 2011.
Taylor managed to get his conviction and sentence overturned on timeliness grounds by the Louisiana 4th Circuit Court of Appeal on April 6. He contended that his original trial attorney was ineffective because he had not made a motion to quash the forcible rape charge as untimely. The alleged rape occurred early on Aug. 30, 1994, but Taylor was not identified as the rapist until late 2008. That's when his DNA sample taken after a Texas drug arrest was found to match one collected from the 1994 victim in a rape kit that sat untested for years inside an NOPD storage facility.
The statute of limitations for forcible rape expires after six years. Another state law enacted in 2003 gives authorities a new three-year
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In late April, District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro's office urgently appealed to the Louisiana Supreme Court to reinstate Taylor's conviction.
"Taylor is a threat to the safety of the community," assistant district attorney Donald Cassels wrote in his motion to the high court. "With respect to the underlying forcible rape, Taylor's guilt is conclusively established -- his conviction having been obtained in large part on the strength of recently obtained DNA evidence. In addition, the evidence adduced at Taylor's 2011 trial demonstrates that since that rape, Taylor has engaged in at least two additional acts of sexually assaultive behavior."
Jurors at Taylor's trial learned of another incident in 2006 during which the defendant sexually assaulted another woman under similar circumstances, as well as a 2004 incident when Taylor exposed himself to a gas station employee.
But on June 16, a divided Supreme Court denied the state's writ on a 5-2 vote without a hearing and let stand the 4th Circuit's ruling, potentially paving the way for Taylor to walk free. Justice Scott Crichton was so disturbed by the decision he attached a written opinion expressing his concern.
"Given the repeated nature of this defendant's convictions," Crichton wrote, "I would grant the state's application, order briefing and docket for oral argument to more carefully scrutinize this matter."
With no hope of reinstating Taylor's earlier conviction and sentence, prosecutors sought the new grand jury indictment to retry Taylor on the more serious charge of aggravated rape. There is no statute of limitations on that crime in Louisiana, but it requires the state to prove aggravating circumstances within the offense. Those can include the perpetrator's use of a weapon, threats of "great and immediate bodily harm," or an instance in which "the victim resists the act to the utmost, but whose resistance is overcome by force."
Taylor is expected to challenge the
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Assistant district attorney Christopher Bowman, spokesman for Cannizzaro's office, declined to comment Friday on the new charge, citing policy against discussing open cases. So did Taylor's new attorney, Thomas Frampton of the Orleans Public Defenders office.
