Palm Beach Polo Mogul's Conviction Overturned

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Huffington Post

Palm Beach Polo Mogul's Conviction Overturned
Posted: 05/04/2013 3:42 pm

One of the country's most bizarre criminal cases took another twisted turn on Friday when a Florida judge threw out John Goodman's DUI manslaughter conviction for the death of Scott Wilson.

Investigators determined that Goodman's blood alcohol level was more than twice the legal limit when he ran a stop sign in the tony equestrian community of Wellington in his Bentley convertible and slammed into Wilson's Hyundai. Goodman fled the scene of the crime leaving the recent University of Central Florida graduate to drown in a drainage canal.

However, late Friday afternoon Judge Jeffrey Colbath ruled that juror Dennis DeMartin's questionable conduct -- which ranged from deliberately concealing his ex-wife's own DUI arrest to conducting an unauthorized drinking experiment at home prior to jury deliberations -- led him to conclude that Goodman did not receive a fair trial.

"The cumulative effects of DeMartin's antics transformed an imperfect but fair trial into a constitutionally impermissible proceeding," wrote Colbath.


Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-okeefe/palm-beach-polo-moguls-co_b_3215797.html

---

[center]





[/center]

[Mr. David]

1. Wanna bet the stupid judge was bought?

Appeals from the state should reinstate the DUI conviction and sanction/suspend/fire the judge involved and put a permanent mark that the mogul is not to be let out of prison until he is 99 years old.

Assets are seized and paid to the victim.

[24601]

5. What do you believe should happen when there is juror misconduct? Sorry, but even spoiled

rich toads deserve a trial with honest jurors.

I'd say welcome to DU, but if you are just a visiting freeper, you won't be staying long.

[marble falls]

2. i'll bet he wasn't bought off.

[mtasselin]

3. rich

Why is it rich people always to seem to find away to get away with murder oh did I say murder I was trying to say manslaughter. That is way I am against the death penalty because rich people can and do get away with murder.

[Beacool]

4. This guy is a creep at so many levels.

The 2012 trial of the Texas multi-millionaire was the subject of international coverage, thanks in part to an outrageous legal scheme when the 49-year-old founder of the International Polo Club Palm Beach attempted to adopt his 42-year-old girlfriend in order to gain access to a $300 million trust established for his two natural-born children. Overnight the legal charade became a sleazy punch line. At Slate, the headline asked, "A Florida Millionaire Adopted His 42-Year-Old Girlfriend. Isn't That Incest?" The legal website Lexology took a more philosophical attitude when it noted that "Girlfriends Come and Go, but Daughters Are Forever." The trial judge in the wrongful death suit brought against Goodman by Scott Wilson's parents said the adoption took the court "into a legal twilight zone." (The Wilsons received a $46 million civil settlement from Goodman and one of the clubs he had been drinking at the night Wilson was killed.)

As Goodman's daughter, Heather Hutchins, have received an estimated $16.75 million in payouts from the trust. But Goodman's ex-wife would have none of it. She filed a lawsuit to void the adoption and an appeals court saw through the sham, calling the adoption a "fraud" and labeling Hutchins Goodman's "paramour."