I spent the day at the Sonoma County Superior Court in support of two young women who were facing their molester in court for the second time. On Oct. 11, 2013, 55-year old John Sparrow was found guilty of twelve felonies involving the sexual molestation of two minor victims under the age of 14.
In 2013, both victims weathered the indignity of testifying to terrible crimes committed against them when they were young girls in front of a room full of total strangers. When they left the court room, emotionally and physically drained from sharing their personal nightmares, they had full confidence that Sparrow would spend the next several decades behind bars. However, less than a year later Sparrow was granted a new trial on grounds of ineffective assistance from his first lawyer. Lawyers may be the only profession that regularly throws its own under the bus in the quest for more business: or is it perverted justice?
The case is simple enough. Jane Doe One was Sparrow’s neighbor, having moved into his neighborhood when she was only 8-years-old. He began molesting her at 11, and continued to molest her for the next five years. She said that she told no-one because he made her feel like the molestations were her fault. She was afraid that if anyone found out that she was doing something wrong, she would get in trouble.
The molestations always started with a shoulder rub, because Sparrow is a certified massage therapist, but over time they escalated to graphic and overt sex crimes. When Jane Doe One was 16-years old she and Jane Doe Two, who is two years younger, went to Sparrow’s house to smoke pot and eat magic mushrooms. Some hours later Sparrow gave Jane Dow Two one of his infamous sex-massages, and when he slid down her bra strap and put his hand on her breast she stopped him, got her friend and went to the authorities. Thus ended (at least we hope) a pedophile’s career.
The defense doesn’t contest that Sparrow gave his legally procured medical marijuana to young girls, that he supplied them with hallucinogenic drugs, that he took the children into the woods to trip, or that he couldn’t keep his hands off of them. What they do deny is that any sexual molestation ever occurred.
In his opening statement Sparrow’s new lawyer, Steve Gallenson, said that the girls fabricated the molestations. The first witness, Jane Doe Two, was brought to tears on several occasions as she was forced by Gallenson to recount her ordeal in excruciating detail. He tried and tried to trip her up by pointing out minor inconsistencies over several testimonies, interviews, and third party reports. However, she held her ground, refusing to be bullied by a lawyer who will settle for nothing less than 100% recall about the worst trauma of her young life that occurred while she was high on pot and hallucinogenic mushrooms. I thought that she did an amazing job.
When Jane Doe One took the stand you could hear a pin drop in the courtroom. After recounting her history of being molested by Sparrow at the direction of Assistant District Attorney Tania Partida, Gallenson attacked again. He, and his client, forced her to recount the details of 5-years of sex crimes in front of total strangers. During the first two-hours of her testimony she refused to look at Sparrow, just as he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off of her. The bitter irony is that in her mind and in the courtroom Jane Doe One is being continually re-victimized at the same time that Sparrow, in his mind and in the courtroom, is continually re-victimizing her.
I wonder what kind of ambiguous and skewed morality allows a lawyer to attack children in a courtroom and bring them to tears time and time again, as he defends the indefensible.
