The judge whose jury instructions in a Naval Academy midshipman’s 2022 rape trial were successfully challenged will preside over a retrial on a remaining assault charge.
Anne Arundel Circuit Judge Robert Thompson ruled Thursday that he takes “a completely dispassionate view” of the accusations against Garrett Lee Holsen, who now faces a misdemeanor assault charge after being acquitted of rape. Anne Arundel County State’s Attorney Anne Colt Leitess argued Thompson should remove himself from the case.
The retrial is scheduled to start Aug. 29.
Holsen, a 22-year-old from Wisconsin, was acquitted of raping one of his classmates at an off-campus party after the 2021 Herndon Monument Climb. County prosecutors alleged the midshipman had sex with a woman when she was too intoxicated to consent — a theory the jury ultimately rejected.
Before deliberations began in the six-day trial, however, Thompson instructed jurors not to consider the second-degree assault and third-degree sex offense charges in the case if they decided Holsen was not guilty of rape. Soon after the trial ended, prosecutors took the rare step of appealing.
In December, the Appellate Court of Maryland found the judge had “acted without authority” and ordered a retrial on the two charges that were not considered by the jury. Months later, prosecutors took the sex offense off the table due to double jeopardy, which bars the state from recharging a defendant with a crime they have already been acquitted of. Though the sex offense and rape are different crimes, the jury’s decision that the woman could consent was enough to remove the offense.
Defense attorneys Peter O’Neill and Megan Coleman attempted to dismiss the assault charge for the same reason, while Leitess and Assistant State’s Attorneys Sean Fox and Katherine Smeltzer argued the case will now scrutinize a different level of consent.
Thompson, who has acknowledged his mistake, sided with prosecutors, solidifying who will be involved in the August trial and what will be considered.
Since early June, Leitess has led the state’s request to remove Thompson from the retrial, arguing his decision to dismiss the undecided charges was the “functional equivalent” of an acquittal.
“You’ll be called upon to make a decision you’ve already made,” Leitess said.
Coleman pointed to the Appellate Court’s ruling from December which, in addition to reviving the case, stated the dismissal of the charges “did not function as a substantive acquittal.” She said like many appealed cases, Thompson could fairly preside over the next trial.
“Judges know how to separate one trial from another, that someone can be found [guilty] in one case and not the next,” Coleman said.
With the judge decided, a trial date in late August is set.
Leitess requested that the trial begin later in the year, with planned summer vacations, scheduling conflicts and the need to subpoena members of the military who’ve begun their careers.
O’Neill, however, said Thompson had, to that point, already “bent over backwards” to accommodate the three prosecutors’ schedules while Holsen’s own career has been put on pause while proceedings continued. Holsen graduated this year from the Naval Academy but was not permitted to walk the stage and he has since been in a “holding pattern…doing nothing” at the campus, his attorney said.
Holsen’s right to a speedy trial outweighed scheduling conflicts, O’Neill said.
“We are not afraid of trial. We are ready to go,” O’Neill said. “Let’s make that happen.”
©2024 Capital Gazette. Visit at capitalgazette.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
