Convicted Sex Offender Found Not Guilty of Raping Girls
A jury recently found a convicted sex offender accused of raping two teen girls in an underground bunker not guilty of kidnapping, sex crimes and assault with intent to kill, according to an article posted on the Fox News Website. The article said jurors took four hours to arrive at the verdict.
Prosecutors accused Kenneth Glenn Hinson of kidnapping the 17-year-old girls from their bedroom last year. They said Hinson then dragged them one at a time to the underground room hidden beneath a tool shed, where he raped and bound them with duct tape. Officials said Hinson expected the girls to die because the room had no air supply.
However, Hinson testified during the six-day trial that the girls had consensual sex with him. He said they made up the story so they would be able to take drugs from the underground room, which he used to store marijuana. The two young women were not in the courtroom when Hinson was acquitted. Their mothers and other relatives wept. Hinson also reportedly became emotional after the verdict announcing his acquittal was read.
If convicted, Hinson faced a mandatory life sentence without parole under the state's two-strikes law because he was convicted of raping a 12-year-old girl in 1991.
Hinson testified in his defense that he built the underground room, which was about the length and width of a mid-sized car with a ceiling about 4 1/2 feet high, behind the trailer where he lived. Hinson’s attorney picked apart inconsistencies in the teens’ testimony including how long it took them to call 911 after their alleged escape and whether they saw Hinson with a gun. But prosecutors argued that any discrepancies in the girls’ stories might have been a result of the trauma the teens went through.
“We are shocked and stunned. We believed Mr. Hinson was guilty as charged. We still believe he is guilty as charged,” said Attorney General Henry McMaster, who helped prosecute the case.
Hinson, however, remained in custody on a federal firearms charge because he allegedly had a gun when he was arrested. Convicted felons are not permitted to carry weapons.
The stakes of a sex crime conviction are extremely high. In this case, the defendant faced life without parole because of an earlier conviction. The legal team at Criminal Defense Partners includes former district attorneys, former police detectives and a former crime lab director. Our collective law enforcement background and experience gives us insight few other defense attorneys can even claim to have and helps us identify the missing pieces, weaknesses and contradictions in the prosecution’s case that will lead to a win for a defendant. Call us for a free discussion and evaluation of your case.
