In December 1989, a 16-year-old girl reported to police that two men forced her into a car in Omaha, Nebraska and drove her four miles away to a park in Pottawattamie County, Iowa where they raped her.
Police arrested 20-year-old Anthony Davis and 18-year-old Donald Hannon and charged them with rape based on the girl’s identification of them.
Davis and Hannon went on trial in July 1990 in Pottawattamie County District Court. The girl testified that she knew both men prior to the incident, and that they forced her to get into their car on December 4, 1989. She said they drove to Lookout Point in Fairmount Park, about four miles from Omaha and just outside of Council Bluffs, Iowa. There, she testified, they both raped her, then took her back to Omaha.
Davis and Hannon both testified in their own defense. Both admitted they had sex with the girl, but said that the sex was consensual. Statutory rape in Iowa does not apply to youths 16 and older.
On July 27, 1990, the jury convicted Davis and Hannon. Sentencing was scheduled for September and they each faced minimum mandatory sentences of 25 years in prison.
In August 1990, defense attorneys for Davis and Hannon discovered that the girl’s cousin had told police that the girl admitted that the sex was consensual. The prosecution then turned over the cousin’s statement, which had not been disclosed to the defense prior to trial.
The defense filed a motion for a new trial and on August 30, 1990, Pottawattamie County District Court Judge Keith Burgett vacated the convictions of Davis and Hannon because the cousin’s statement “clearly and convincingly contradicts” the testimony of the complaining witness. Burgett ordered Davis and Hannon released on bond.
The prosecution appealed the ruling, but the appeal was denied. On March 31, 1992, the prosecution dismissed the charges.
– Maurice Possley
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