Man's rape conviction called a mistrial

An El Paso County jury convicted a man of rape Friday, but the judge declared a mistrial after one of the jurors said he or she was coerced into convicting the man.

Dwight C. Robinson, 28, faced two felony counts of rape, and one count of attempted rape. The victims testified they went home with Robinson after meeting him at the now-defunct L'Jazz Affaire club in southeast Colorado Springs and he raped them.

Jurors began deliberating the case Wednesday afternoon and announced they had reached a verdict Friday afternoon, after about 18 hours of deliberation.

They found Robinson guilty of one rape charge, but not guilty of the attempted sexual assault and not guilty of rape on one victim, according to Deputy District Attorney Melissa Burchell.

Robinson's public defender, Bill Schoewe, said the jurors were polled individually after the trial by 4th Judicial District Judge Thomas Kennedy and they all agreed those were their verdicts.

But after jurors left the courtroom, one of them told Kennedy he or she was "coerced or threatened" by the other jurors into voting guilty, Schoewe said. Kennedy called the attorneys back into the courtroom, declared the mistrial and set aside the guilty verdict.

Another trial will be held.

The not guilty verdicts stand because jurors reached those unanimously, Schoewe said.

"The juror was not identified, and no one is to talk to that juror," Schoewe said. "The judge felt that juror had been through enough."

Fox 21 News Director and anchor Joe Cole was the foreman of the jury.

"I don't think anyone was threatened," Cole said. "We had a real strong group that didn't want the jury to fall into conformity."

Cole said that the system worked the way it was supposed to, but that he couldn't speculate on why the juror voted to convict then changed his or her mind. "We left there thinking we did the best we could," he said.

The case was the ultimate "he said-she said," Cole said. "We were all in the same courtroom, but saw 12 different movies."

Robinson has been held at the El Paso County Criminal Justice Center since November on the charges in events that occurred in 2006.

During closing arguments, Deputy District Attorney Amy Fitch told jurors Robinson preyed on two women two consecutive Friday nights.

"He feels like he's entitled when he goes out on Friday night," Fitch said. "He has the right to find someone at the bar, pick her up, get her back to an apartment and that he has a right to have sex. If they cooperate, great. If not, he'll take it by force."

She pointed to injuries the women suffered and that he was only in Colorado Springs for two months.

"He's either a serial rapist or the most unlucky man on the face of the Earth," Fitch said.

But Schoewe countered during his closing statements that the sex was consensual.

"He went out to have a good time, to party and have fun and hook up with women," Schoewe said. "But now he's living a horrible nightmare because of two people who were also out partying falsely accused him of raping them."

Schoewe pointed out inconsistencies in the women's stories to police and to jurors. He said during one of the alleged rapes, Robinson's sister was in the next room.

"She didn't hear fighting and screaming, she heard giggling and laughter," he said.

He also pointed to the lack of damage to the shirt of one woman after she told police Robinson ripped it off her. Robinson also left his number with one of the women.

"Would a violent rapist do that?" Schoewe asked.

Robinson is due back in court Thursday and is being held on $25,000 bond at the El Paso County Criminal Justice Center.

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Contact the writer: dennis.huspeni@gazette.com or 636-0110.