One Convicted Two Acquitted

by Rachel Lagodka

Judge Reichler Convicts Holmes, Acquits Curtis and Partington

Text of the decision

After keeping the students waiting for close to five weeks, Judge Reichler shocked and dismayed the students’ attorney and their supporters by convicting student body president Justin Holmes of harassment in the second degree. The decision departs in significant ways from a reasonable assessment of the facts, and uses a single email and a three minute incident in a hallway as the basis for establishing a “course of conduct” necessary for conviction of harassment in the second degree.

Her findings of fact depart from the facts that are clearly shown on the video that was submitted as evidence and betray a kind of carelessness on her part. She states that Justin Holmes was filming Caracci  “all the while ordering her to ‘shut up.’” Holmes tells Caracci to “shut up” exactly once—in a tired voice – it is captured there on the camera. The video represents the entirety of Holmes’ participation in the incident as the camera is around his neck and on when he approaches her. Judge Reichler also claims that Holmes calls Caracci “ridiculous,” when in fact he calls her ‘hilarious.” This may sound like splitting hairs, but it indicates a kind of inaccuracy that plagues the decision. Of course you can watch the video for yourself.

More egregious is her comment in her acquittal of codefendant Mr Partington. She states: “Sadly Mr. Partington may have believed the untruths he had been told by Mr. Holmes about Ms. Caracci’s activities prior to the election and become angry at her.” What kind of assumptions do we have here? Partington was privy to the same information as Holmes. And nowhere was it proven that Holmes’ allegations of Caraccis’ participation in the election were untrue. Were we at the same trial? Two of Ms. Caracci’s own employees admitted, contrary to her testimony, that she had in fact advised them of how she wanted the students to vote in the election.

Judge Reichler seems to be more concerned with attacking Holme’s character than examining the evidence. “Rarely does the court have the opportunity to observe a witness who is so lacking in credibility, so prone to equivocation and prevarication. Every long sentence was ambiguous, contorted, evasive. Mr. Holmes bullied his way through this testimony, note even taking direction from his own attorney, in a haze of obfuscation.” Holmes was discursive, and somewhat inattentive to the wishes of his attorney and this clearly annoyed Judge Reichler who told him off several times during the trial, however he was not supposed to be on trial for his attitude, but whether he had committed a violation.

The situation Holmes was trying to explain at the trial was complicated, but not impossible to understand. He did not in fact recommend any cuts in services, the question was over where the money should come from, whether it should come from the Student Association budget or from CAS. Judge Reichler has inferred that Holmes did want to make the cuts and that he didn’t want Caracci telling people about it so he set out to “discredit, intimidate and harass” Caracci. Judge Reichler claims that Holmes “made every attempt to position himself on all sides of every question” so his intentions would have to be inferred. What? And how does one position oneself on all sides of every question?  And so from this the judge infers that an email calling an official on illegal activity, and the filming of what became a somewhat heated conversation in a hallway indicate that Mr. Holmes was out to seriously alarm and annoy Ms Caracci for no legitimate purpose?

By her own testimony, Ms. Caracci stated that she did not see the camera, so how could it then be a “tool of intimidation” if she didn’t even notice it? One look at the video shows that the camera is on as he leaves his office it is obviously dangling from his neck as the image rocks from side to side

Likewise, the single email that Judge Reichler is stating combined with the three minute hallway incident shows a “course of conduct” was not something Caracci had even complained about.

Stay tuned…. on the advice of his attorney, Holmes is going to appeal.