Molestation case sent back to Yuma
Arguments heard to determine if former teacher had ineffective counsel during 2007 trial
The Arizona Court of Appeals has remanded the case of Philip Gregory Speers, who was found guilty in 2007 of molesting two of his students, back to the trial court after he filed an appeal contending the jury should have had the option to consider lesser-included offenses when he was convicted.
The appellate court ruled on Feb. 6 that it was returning the case to the trial court for the limited purpose of determining whether Speers had ineffective counsel during his trial. Oral arguments were held on Tuesday before visiting Maricopa County Judge Christopher Whitten.
Whitten had been brought out of retirement to preside over the trial because every Superior Court judge in Yuma had at one time or another recused themselves from the case.
In 2007, Phillip Gregory Speers, a former secondgrade teacher at St. Francis of Assisi School, was sentenced to a combined 34 years in prison — 17 years for each of two separate counts of molestation of a child, with credit for 2,553 days of previous incarceration. He was acquitted, however, on three other counts.
He was originally convicted in 2003 on four counts of child molestation and one count of sexual conduct with a minor, but the Court of Appeals reversed those convictions because of evidentiary error and remanded the case back to the Yuma County Superior Court for a new trial.
After the case was remanded, Speers waived his right to counsel and began representing himself in the 2007 trial, with the assistance of attorney Kristi Riggins of the Yuma County Public Defender’s Office, who was appointed to the case in an advisory role.
However, on the seventh day of the trial, Speers requested that the court appoint Riggins to represent him for the remainder of the proceedings. The jury began deliberating on the 14th day of the trial.
After almost four days of
deliberation, the jury found Speers guilty of molesting the two students and acquitted him of three other charges. Riggins filed a motion for a new trial that raised numerous issues, including a claim that juror misconduct warranted a new trial.
The trial court, however, denied the motion and sentenced Speers to a combined 34 years in prison.
In appealing the conviction, Tucson-based attorney Harley Kurlander, who represents Speers, argued that Riggins rendered ineffective counsel by not proposing jury instructions that would have added contributing to the delinquency of a minor as a lesser included offense of the child molestation charge.
He argued that his client had admitted to hugging his students and kissing them on the forehead, as well as letting them sit on his lap throughout that school year, which serves as the foundation of a lesser included offense on the child molestation charge.
He further argued that had Riggins informed Speers of her decision not to put forward the jury instructions, he would not have agreed to do so, especially considering that jurors were given the option of less included offenses at his original trial in 2003.
A second issue Kurlander raised was that his client was prejudiced by the prosecution’s contention that the evidence in the case was compelling, saying there was never any testimony to support that characterization.
However, prosecutor Joshua Salisbury, of the Yuma County Attorney’s Office, contended that Riggins fairly reviewed the facts of the case and did not make a mistake.
“I think she applied the facts of the case to the law and came away with a different conclusion than what the Appeals Court did,” Salisbury said.
Salisbury also argued that while Speers admitted to hugging his students and kissing them on the forehead, there was no other evidence presented at trial, other than the fact that the victims were sitting on his lap when they were molested, that he was kissing or hugging them so there is no basis for a lesser offense.
After listening to more than two hours of argument from both counsel, Whitten gave both parties until Friday to enter any post argument pleadings, saying he would take them into consideration and issue his ruling sometime within the next 60 days.