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Judge to decide if Dillon received fair trial
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FarkSeventh Circuit Judge Janine Kern will decide if a jury followed proper procedure last May when it convicted a Rapid City man of raping four young girls in 1998.
Farrell Dillon, 49, was convicted of three counts of criminal pedophilia and two counts of first-degree rape May 19 after a weeklong trial.
It was the second time Dillon had gone on trial for the accusations. He appealed his first conviction on the grounds that his first lawyer was incompetent, and he was granted a second trial by the state Supreme Court.
Dillon's attorney, Tim Rensch of Rapid City, has filed a motion for a new trial, alleging that the jury considered outside evidence when convicting Dillon.
He said jurors found out about the conviction from the media or another source outside of the courtroom and discussed it in deliberations. Jurors were told during pre-trial instructions not to pay attention to media coverage of the trial.
Rensch said he learned in a post-trial interview with jurors that the jury discussed the conviction in deliberations.
"When you have a jury that uses outside information about the specific facts of the case, then that goes to the very heart of whether their deliberation can be fair," he said.
Pennington County Deputy State's Attorney Scott Roetzel said jurors were aware of the previous conviction anyway, because it was brought up during the proceedings in May.
He said any knowledge jurors had of the first conviction is insignificant compared to the full week of testimony they heard from expert witnesses and others.
"In the big picture, it's irrelevant, based on the weight of the evidence," he said.
Kern could decide about the trial request Thursday, July 17, or delay the decision in order to further interview jurors in the case.
Contact Ryan Woodard at 394-8412 or ryan.woodard@rapidcityjournal.com
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