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Legal experts weigh in on Curtin acquittal
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LIVINGSTON — Four years after a jury sentenced Melanie Curtin to life in prison and an appeals court ordered a new trial, a jury Tuesday night found Curtin not guilty of simple rape and video voyeurism, marking a significant shift from her previous conviction.
After an eight-day trial, the 12-person jury deliberated for over four hours, and Melanie Curtin was acquitted, saying afterward that her prayer had been answered.
"I am so grateful for the people who have prayed for me and fought for me," Curtin told reporters Tuesday. “I am looking forward to freedom."
As the verdict was read aloud, Curtin broke into tears as she was acquitted on both charges.
Previously, a judge sentenced Curtin to life in prison after a jury found her guilty of raping and filming an unconscious woman alongside convicted, former Livingston Parish Deputy Dennis Perkins in 2014. Following Curtin’s 2021 rape and voyeurism conviction, a higher court later ruled that her trial unfairly left out evidence, prompting the new trial.
Baton Rouge-based defense attorney Franz Borghardt did not work on the Curtin case but watched it unfold over the years, and he says the new trial and new evidence ultimately changed the perspective of those who followed the case.
"Getting a second bite at the apple is never guaranteed," Borghardt said. "We hear new pieces of evidence about the victim that we never heard before that change and reshape the narrative that we heard outside."
This time, the presiding judge allowed evidence about the other woman’s sexual history to be presented in court. In a statement, the Attorney General’s Office, which prosecuted the case, said the court’s ruling to allow that evidence “significantly weakened the protections of the state’s rape shield law.”
Borghardt says the process that unfolded was the way the system intended, although controversial.
"It is a good example of our system working," Borghardt said.
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