Updates Re: Murder Trial of Chuck Long II

[Teen Advocates USA]

http://teenadvocatesusa.homestead.com/TonyHaynes.html

[cherish wisdom]

Here was another article about the trial and an inappropriate ourtburst from the wife of Chuck Long....

Wife of man accused in camp death shocks courtroom

Michael Kiefer
The Arizona Republic
Nov. 19, 2004 12:00 AM

Like the cliffhanger ending of a TV episode, the murder trial of Buffalo Soldier Charles Long recessed for the Thanksgiving holiday with a shocker.

Over the objections of the prosecutor, Long's wife, Carmelina, blurted out what the victim's mother told her when she learned of her son's death.

"I can't believe he did it," Carmelina Long claimed the mother said. advertisement  
 
 


"She said he had been trying to kill himself for three years and he finally did it."

The judge overruled the objection and allowed the spontaneous remark.

Charles Long is on trial in Maricopa County Superior Court in the 2001 death of 14-year-old Anthony Haynes, who died of dehydration and complications from nearly drowning while attending Long's desert camp for troubled teens.

Carmelina Long was testifying on the first day of the defense's case, and her statements furthered a portrait of Haynes as a self-destructive and out-of-control child.

Haynes was eating dirt and acting erratically before he collapsed. Long ordered another counselor to take him to a motel room to cool off and shower. At some point between the camp and the motel room, Haynes lost consciousness. He died shortly after being brought back to the camp.

Carmelina Long, who helped her husband in the camp's administration, was at the campsite near Buckeye when Haynes died.

She claimed that Haynes had walked to the pickup truck under his own power and sat in its cab during the ride to the hotel. Other witnesses claimed that Haynes had to be carried to and from the truck and that he rode stretched out in the truck bed.

Although there has been no evidence to suggest Haynes killed himself, jurors gasped at the remark.

"It's just another example of trying to shift responsibility on the part of the defense," Deputy County Attorney Mark Barry said.

Barry will not have the chance to cross-examine Long until the trial resumes Nov. 29.

Earlier in the day, Judge Ronald S. Reinstein re-evaluated the counts against Charles Long. Long is charged with second-degree murder in Haynes' death; aggravated assault for allegedly threatening another camper with a knife; and seven counts of child abuse relating to other children at the camp. Reinstein downgraded the child-abuse counts to lesser felonies.

The time appears to me to have come when it is the duty of all to make their dissent from religion known.
--John Stuart Mill

[EricasMom]

It's with the jury as of yesterday--12-14.  I pray that justice is done for Tony.  Living right here in Phoenix, I cannot believe how scant the news coverage has been.

[Anonymous]

Michael Kiefer
The Arizona Republic
Dec. 23, 2004 12:00 AM

After two straight days of jury deadlock, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge suggested on Wednesday that prosecutors amend charges to avoid a mistrial in the murder trial of Buffalo Soldier Charles Long.

Long is charged with second-degree murder in connection with the 2001 death of Anthony Haynes, a troubled youth attending a summer desert survival camp near Buckeye run by Long's America's Buffalo Soldiers Re-Enactors Association.

Judge Ronald S. Reinstein has instructed the jury to also consider the lesser charges of manslaughter and negligent homicide. The jury is deadlocked on the distinctions.

"I think the state could make the decision to eliminate the possibility of the murder second-degree charge and the reckless manslaughter charge or whatever you choose to do, and I think that will legally eliminate the impediment that they have already told us about," Reinstein told attorneys for both sides after dismissing the jury for the week.

Deputy County Attorney Mark L. Barry said that Reinstein's statement was just a suggestion.

Long also faces seven counts of child abuse relating to other teens at the camp and one count of aggravated assault for reportedly threatening a youth with a knife.

He said he remained hopeful as his trial finished its 11th week.

"I'm a praying man," Long said when the court recessed until Dec. 30. "They've got a break now to go through the Christmas holidays. I believe in miracles."

Haynes was sitting in a disciplinary line in the July heat, when he began acting erratically, eating dirt, and possibly hallucinating. A counselor and several youths took him to a hotel and placed him, unconscious, in a shower bath, where he inhaled water.

Then, rather than call for medical help, they took him back to the camp, where he died.

The counselor pleaded guilty to negligent homicide.

The jury, which has been impaneled since Oct. 6, has only reached a verdict on the assault charge, which has not been divulged.

They began deliberating on Dec. 14 and have asked the judge about the penalties for each charge, a consideration that is beyond their responsibility as jurors.

If a mistrial had been declared, and the jury had pronounced Long guilty of the single charge, which carries a mandatory prison sentence, he would have been taken into immediate custody.

The attorneys were philosophical about the jury impasse.

"I appreciate the fact that they're giving it all they've got," Barry said.

Long's defense attorney, JoAnn P. Garcia, agreed.

------------------------------------------
Please see link below for breaking news, archives and special reports:

http://teenadvocatesusa.homestead.com/TonyHaynes.html

[cherish wisdom]

This is truly one of the most outrageous cases I've read about. I can't believe they want to reduce the charges. They truly allow these people to get away with torture and murder of children.

This is an outrage and must not be tolerated...

For something that has spread with all the forethought of kudzu, the Internet isn't half bad."
-- Newsweek, 2/27/95

[Deborah]

We need a Teen Liberation Militia.  :lol: The authorities don't seem to be able to think clearly when a 'troubled teen' is killed or mamed (physically or emotionally).

[Anonymous]

Charles Long can pray all he wants, hopefully the jury will provide the justice he deserves and find him guilty!!

[Nihilanthic]

Deborah - funny you're joking about that.

The more this shit keeps up in this country the more likely it will be that everyone whose being screwed is gonna snap out of it and take care of it themselves.

That would be a bad thing, just more propaganda for the very thing we're trying to stop.  :sad:

The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism.


--William Osler

[Teen Advocates USA]

Lawyer suggests mother to blame in boot camp death

Associated Press
Dec. 14, 2004 09:00 AM

The mother of a teenager who died after attending a boot camp for troubled youths is partially to blame, said the lawyer for the camp director on trial for murder.

Joanne Garcia, the lawyer for camp director Charles Franklin Long, said during closing arguments Monday in Mesa that Melanie Hudson failed to mention on enrollment forms that her 14-year-old son had a medical condition requiring him to drink more water and have access to shade.

Hudson's son, Anthony Haynes, died in July 2001 from complications of near drowning and dehydration after he was forced to stand in the sun for hours as discipline and then later was placed in a bathtub of water and left.
 
America's Buffalo Soldiers Re-Enactors Association camp leader, 59-year-old Long, is on trial for second-degree murder and child abuse.

"You have to wonder where was Mrs. Hudson's responsibility," Garcia said.

But prosecutor Mark Barry said Long was simply trying to shift blame.

Source:

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... 14-ON.html

No surprise here .... blame the victim or their parent(s) ... anybody but the program owner and/or operators.

[Deborah]

Good lord, can they get any more creative with their defenses?
Would it matter if they had known? (Given that this is true) If I had a kid talking crazy and eating dirt, he would've been in the hospital as quick as I could get him there. Not a hotel room bathtub. These scum bags are disgusting and pathetic.

[Anonymous]

I just love Carmelina Long trying to put the thought of suicide into the jurors heads. Have you ever heard of a kid committing suicide by dehydration? It's ubsurd. No one is dumb enough to believe that Tony Haynes was trying to kill himself by sitting in the sun all afternoon and eating dirt. It just proves how there is no defense for what they did.

[Antigen]

Wow! Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't this mother defend the program even after her son's death?

The idea of God is the sole wrong for which I cannot forgive mankind.
--Marquis de Sade, French libertine

[Anonymous]

I think Mrs. Long is the wife of the defendant.  Not sure though.

[Anonymous]

Yes, she is the wife. I just can't get over her blurting out that it was suicide right before the Thanksgiving break, trying to leave that in the jurors minds for the week off. I live in AZ and am surprised there hasn't been more in the paper. Deliberations seem to be going slow.

[EricasMom]

The jury just came in with a verdict of guilty to manslaughter and assault.

Not as good a second-degree murder, but does carry mandatory prison time(the assualt charge).