A Degree of Guilt
The Conviction of Joshua Rosa
Now when they found Stephen, He had been strangled and beaten to death and his pants were pulled down around his ankles, but his boxer shorts were still pulled up. This is important for the fact that while his pants were pulled down, the belt he was wearing at the time was still buckled. There was also no sign of sexual abuse found on the boy. A rape kit was used in determining if a sexually assault had indeed occurred. The reason why I mentioned this is that Rosa was convicted of aggravated child abuse for the attempted sexual assault. I have seen fights between individuals where during the course of a fight a person's pants would fall down and the belt still buckled.
Joshua Rosa was Youth Church Pastor or Minister I forgot which one and had never been in trouble with the law. Stephen and Josh knew each other and Joshua was counseling Stephen for a shoplifting charge that Stephen had received. Stephen's father had even done a background check on Rosa before this incident happened. Rosa had no history of violence against anyone and the prosecution had absolutely no motive for this crime except the possibility of a sexual encounter.
I find a lot of problems with this case. First, Joshua said he found Stephen in the woods that day and tried to help him. That would explain DNA evidence found on the gloves Joshua wearing (these gloves were some sort of ceremonial gloves that he was to wear to church that night) and why he was running from the scene.
Second, here is a young 19 year old man that had never been in trouble with the law and had been an active member in his church. No one had a bad thing to say about Joshua Rosa yet it took a jury less than six hours to convict him of the most serious charges. I find it troubling that he was convicted of attempted sexual abuse when there was no evidence to support it. Just because the victims pants were either pulled down or fell to his ankles does not constitute sexual assault. I also find it troubling that a 1st degree murder conviction was handed down. For the sake of argument, let's say that Rosa did lure the boy out to the park for the purpose of having sex with him and when Stephen resisted, Josh panicked and killed him. That is NOT premeditated murder. 2nd degree murder or voluntary manslaughter I could agree with, but not murder in the first.
Let me say for the record that I am not naïve when it comes to good kids going bad. I know that young men make mistakes that cost people there lives and ruin their own lives. But I have a serious problem with overcharging defendants in cases where the evidence can be widely interpreted. I don't know if Joshua Rosa murdered Stephen Tomlinson. I have serious doubts about his guilt but I have even more doubts about the degree of his guilt. Murder is a crime that brings out passion in all that are involved. Prosecutors want the very worst punishment for the defendants and I don't blame them for that is their job. The families of the victims want revenge that they will call "justice" and I don't blame them either.
I really don't believe that a sexual assault was even tried in this case but I was not there so I can't say for certain. I'm just going by the evidence. Unless Joshua Rosa wins on appeal he will never walk out of prison a free man. He was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. The judge had no discretion in the sentencing. He was only 19 when this happened and in the blink of an eye one boy is dead and the other one might as well be. I hope to see what happens on appeal and maybe someday we will know the truth. My heart goes out to the families for both the victim's and the defendant's for their lives have been destroyed as well. I have no sympathy for anyone who kills a child but we do have laws on the books that hold a person to a certain degree of culpability. I don't feel in this case that was done.
Published by K. D. Adams
New York State Employee who is seeking to abolish the death penalty not only in this country but worldwide. View profile
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15 Comments
Post a CommentFor anyone that is interested, there has been a blog started to support discussion for all those who believe:
That Joshua Rosa was wrongly convicted
and/or
That Joshua Rosa was convicted on insufficient evidence
Go here:
www.joshuarosa.blogspot.com
For anyone that is interested, a civil, informal petition has been started on ipetition.com for anyone who either:
1. Believes Joshua Rosa was wrongfully convicted
and/or
2. That the evidence presented was not significant enough to justify the conviction.
Not sure that it has any legal bearing.
It seems to be a show of solidarity aimed at gathering the large amount of people from the blogs who don't support the conviction.
Go here:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Joshua_Rosa/
What I have the biggest problem with is the attempted sexual battery charge when all they had to go on was the victims pants being around his ankles. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest a suexul assault took place and the circumstancial evidence is not solid. I will respectfully agree to disagree with you Taz as we look at case through to different sets of eyes. Thanks again!
the evidence says to them about the degree but Rosa is probably guilty of the murder, yes I do believe that.
With the force of the wound to the pants area yes I believe sexual assault was the motive and yes I believe Rosa committed this crime but I wasn't there KD and the crime scene did not talk to me, I couldn't see it first hand so I it could show me what happened there but the piece add up to me into a pretty solid circumstantial case of murder and attempted sexual assault but where I agree with you is whether the murder was planned before hand and my feeling is that it was not. I think sex was planned and when the victim resisted he realized he had just opened Pandora's Box and had to kill the victim to protect himself. The question is when did he form the intent to murder the victim, was it during the sexual assault or after the victim was defenseless and the attempted assault was over and he realized the mistake, that is the difference between first and second degree murder and I just don't know that but you charge first degree and let a jury decide what
Let me ask you a question, Taz. Do you believe that Rosa took Stephen out to the park with the intention of raping him and killing him? There is no wrong answer here, I just want your opinion and whether the conviction was proper.
This case is a sad case and I certainly agree there are a lot of questions to be answered but this shows exactly what I have been saying for years that people are told that police are your friends and that depends on what hat they are wearing at the time, if their rendering aid and assisting people yes they are your friends but when they have the detective hat on you need to be very careful of what you help them with because they are not your friend and can hurt your badly (i.e. Michael and his statement).
Let me clear up some of what I said, Rosa initially denied being in the park but then stated he was looking for his keys and came upon the victim and tried to render aid. He had some scraps and cuts on his body of a type you would receive in a struggle, the clippers were taken by the deputy who initially responded to the scene and the gloves were given back but later taken when the police got a search warrant. The nail weren't removed but scrapings from under the nails were removed in an attempt to destroy evidence. Rosa initially tried to flee the scene prior to the deputy's arrival but was kept there by neighbors under threat of force.
Taz, you make a strong case except for one point; Stephens finger nails were never clipped. That came out at trial. I can give you a hundred reasons why he may have been acting strange and number one is that he saw someone he cared for that had been severely assaulted and as far as the blood on the gloves, there is the possibility that he got those marks by trying to help the kid. I don't know what kind of a relationship they had but I do know that the physical evidence in this case can be spun to either make him look guilty or show that he tried to help Stephen. He may be guilty, I don't know. You, as a law enforcement officer, know that when someone is under tremendous pressure that they can give conflicting statements or the police can influence him to change his statements whether they are guilty or innocent. This case leaves more questions than answers. Thank you for your comments. As always, you bring a different prospective to the issue.
Oh yeah I forgot this,
The injuries left on Tomlinson's body indicated a struggle, but didn't contribute to his death. Chrostowski said that there was a mark so deep from blunt force in the area of the elastic band from Tomlinson's under-shorts that it left the "picket fence" marks from the band into his skin. That possibly showed that the jean shorts and black leather belt were still firmly attached to him when he hit the ground, because the elasticity of the shorts did not expand. Tomlinson's jean shorts were found down around his ankles so the belt had to be unhooked, the pants undone and unzipped. Joshua Rosa had some defensive wounds, as in slight cuts and scrapes, found on him during the initial investigation. Rosa's keys were actually found between the legs of the victim near the groin area, not under the body.