Baltimore City Circuit Judge Martin Welch on Thursday declared a mistrial for a former city private school teacher accused of raping a 13-year-old student.
Welch made the decision after a school official, Carolyn Seawell, who was on the witness stand, discussed allegations made by additional students against the teacher, Charles Carroll, 30, of Baltimore.
Carroll?s attorney, Edward Smith, successfully argued that Seawell?s comment, along with statements made by the 13-year-old accuser and another teacher, caused the jury to be prejudiced against Carroll by making them aware that other students were accusing Carroll of sex crimes.
The judge said the mistrial was due to a witnesses? testimony and not an error on the part of the prosecutor.
“We?re absolutely going to retry this viable, criminal case,” said Joseph Sviatko, spokesman for Baltimore City State?s Attorney?s Office.
Carroll?s case created a national controversy after he was indicted in 2005 for rape and child abuse charges. He had been convicted of murder but was still hired to teach at Community Initiatives Academy in Baltimore.
Christina Phillips Holtsclaw, principal of Community Initiatives Academy, publicly defended her hiring of Carroll in 2005, saying he deserved a “second chance.”
She never told parents about Carroll?s 1995 second-degree murder conviction.
The girl testified Tuesday that Carroll fondled and groped her on numerous occasions, sometimes consensually, before eventually raping her on the floor of a classroom.
According to police charging documents, Carroll also abused two other girls between December 2004 and April 2005.
During opening arguments in the trial Tuesday, Smith told jurors that his client was not guilty of any of the alleged crimes, and prosecutors and police have no physical evidence or DNA to corroborate the girl?s story.
Sexual abuse of a minor carries a maximum prison term of 25 years. Second-degree rape carries a maximum sentence of 20 years.
Carroll must now be tried again, though a new date has not been set.
