ONLINE ONLY: Juror ponders vote change following guilty verdict in sex abuse trial

An eight-woman, four-man Whitley Circuit Court Jury recommended a one-year prison sentence for a Corbin man Thursday afternoon after convicting him for allegedly sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl in late 2008.

How sure all the jurors were about their guilty verdict is unclear though.

After the jury delivered its guilty verdict against Donald Jason Rockey, defense attorney David Hoskins asked to have the jury polled, which is a routine procedure often done after a verdict.

When asked whether this was their verdict, all the jurors immediately replied that it was, except for one.

"If I changed my mind since the vote, can I change it now?" one female juror asked Special Judge Roderick Messer.

Messer and attorneys for both sides met with the juror privately at the bench, then she sat down again in the jury box.
After giving the woman a few moments to think about it, Messer asked the juror if that was her decision when the jury was deliberating.

"I’m not really for sure," the juror said, but soon added, "I’ll stick with my decision."

Hoskins said that in his 25 years of practicing law, he had never actually seen a juror say anything out of the ordinary during the poll.

"If there are grounds for appeal, it would be this thing polling the jury. I’ve never seen that happen before," Hoskins said noting that he would have to research the matter to see if it is grounds for an appeal.

Hoskins said that until the instance where the juror was polled, there was nothing to appeal in the case during the one-day trial.

"I don’t believe that there was a single objection all through the trial," Hoskins said.

He noted that his client had given a statement to police, but only part of it was admissible. Hoskins said that he and Commonwealth’s Attorney Allen Trimble edited through the statement agreeing on which parts were admissible and which parts weren’t.

Trimble said that he doesn’t think the jury inquiry question will impact the case, if it is appealed.

"I think the judge took care of it," Trimble said.

Only one witness was called during the sentencing phase of the trial.

The victim’s mother testified that she had noticed a lot of difference in her daughter since the incident, and that her daughter is now in therapy.

"She had a lot of emotional problems," the mother testified. "She has a lot of nightmares now."

The mother testified that her daughter had tried to hurt herself since then, and at one time had to be hospitalized, but is now doing better with medication.

Jurors could have recommended up to a five-year prison sentence for Rockey, but instead recommended the minimum sentence of one year in prison after six minutes of deliberations.

Hoskins said that he wasn’t surprised by the jury’s verdict, but was a little surprised by the one-year prison sentence.

"I thought this was a case that could go either way," Hoskins said. "There was an offer of three years that if it had been me, I would have probably taken. He said, ‘I might just get one.’ Sure enough he did."

Trimble said that he wasn’t surprised by the guilty verdict either.

"I think it was a good strong case, and there wasn’t a whole lot of disputed facts," Trimble said. "The defendant admitted that he did what he was alleged to have done, but claimed that it was not for sexual purposes.

"The letter that he left kind of suggested otherwise, but I think it was a correct verdict based on the evidence."

Trimble said that in the letter, Rockey essentially asked his wife to give him a chance to find out the reason why he did what he did. It noted that he had contacted mental health professionals and had appointments with two of them.

His wife had asked him why he had gotten married with her having children, and he replied something to the effect, "I thought that I could control it," Trimble said.

"He didn’t say that he said those words, but that he had said ‘something to that effect,’" Trimble said. "I think his own words pretty much convicted him."

Trimble said that the female child was 12 years old when the incident happened on Dec. 7, 2008.

"He apparently took her into his bedroom. She had been scratching. He asked her if she had shaved her pubic area, and she said, ‘No,’ and that she didn’t know how."

Trimble said that Rockey had the girl drop her clothes below the waist and showed her how to shave her pubic region.

"During the demonstration, he touched her pubic area," Trimble said. "Then he went back into the bedroom an hour later and had her take off her top and rubbed calamine lotion on her top."

Trimble said that Rockey, now 31, will have to register as a sex offender and complete a sex offender treatment program because of the conviction.

Messer ordered Rockey to be remanded to the custody of the Whitley County Jail until his June 10 sentencing hearing.

(Editor’s note: The News Journal doesn’t publish the names of rape or sexual abuse victims, including identifying information, such as a parent’s name.)