Indecent Exposure Trial

Ferrel Kelly's indecent exposure trial is coming up.  A jury of 25 will be called and 10 selected which will be reduced to 6 for the actual trial.  The trial is expected to take a day.

Four separate juries of 25 are to be called for the multiple hearings over time. Thus a hundred people will be giving at least one day to justice in Pocahontas County,  This is not accounting for witnesses and lawyers who are involved in the cases.  Special Magistrate Smith from Greenbrier County will hear the cases.  It may take four or more days to complete the trials.

If Ferrel is found guilty he will have to pay the court's costs in the matter.  If he is found innocent, the county will be picking up the costs. Ferrel's court appointed attorney is Joshua Edwards.
Newly appointed assist. prosecutor is Joshua Hardy.

Apparently, these four rocket scientist wannabes have never figured out that the one person not paying the costs, is the defendant,  Ferrel Kelly.

Why:  Because Ferrel hasn't a dime to his name.  The court knows this because he filed a pauper's paper indicating $0 income.  Ferrel isn't even on welfare.  The state could try to take his driver's license, but he doesn't have a license.  He eats from a dumpster. 

This is all an exercise in futility.  Even if sentenced to jail he will still cost the county $48 per day.  This doesn't include any Obamacare. (which he doesn't have)

They can't garnish his Social Security check, his SSI, or his medicaid because he doesn'' have anything.  The county will have to hold a bake sale or conduct bingo to get a red cent for his fine.


Actually once the pretrial hearing started,  It occurred to me that perhaps I had wondered on to the  set of Saturday Night Live.  Four intelligent people with over a hundred years of education where arguing about some funny things that Ferrel is supposed to have done,

Here were the basic elements of the argument as I remember them:

How many actual charges have been submitted to the court?  The warrants for his arrest list two separate pieces of conduct.  The complaints say that he came into IGA and as he went up to the counter to get change for the newspaper machine , he exposed himself.  Then he went out of IGA and exposed himself to Gary Hefner.

Indecent exposure has some specific elements that the county must prove,  First of all something has to be actually "exposed".  As in a male defendant.  One can not be charged for forgetting to zip his/her fly,  The lawyers argued about whether of not he reached into his pants and dangled his penis before the clerk.  There must be a deliberate attempt to offend someone by exposing your penis to them.  The stores's camera's were not apparently resolute enough to show his penis.

 Either they are cheap cameras or Ferrell has an extremely small penis.  (By the way, you don't want to miss this trial.)  Despite the fact that the new assistant prosecutor didn't know where the trial was to be conducted, it will take place in the circuit court room,

But it gets more complicated.  The lawyers were arguing before the lady magistrate as to whether Ferrel dangled his penis the entire time or did he tuck it into his pants when he left the store.  Gary Hefner was outside and claimed that Ferrel exposed himself to him.  If there are two events of exposure thereby  joining the the two charges into one, the magistrate wants to wait until she hears Gary's testimony under oath.

Translated this means for there to be one continuous charge Ferrel would have had to pulled his penis out of this pants at the counter and then left it out when he went into the parking lot.  Defense wanted the case dismissed (but that would take all the fun out of this silly trial.)  But lacking a dismissal the following will have to be determined:

If he dangled his penis in front of the cashier and tucked it back in upon leaving the store he would have of necessity had to yank it back out again and dangle it in from of the other complainant.  It will take testimony from Hefner to determine if Ferrel had tucked his penis back in and danged it again in front of Hefner.

The presence of two separate complaints seem to indicate that someone must have seen him dangle his penis and then tuck it back in before leaving the store.  Hefner will be tasked with testimony as to where Ferrel's penis was tucked  in and he reached in an yanked it back out again.  This will be what Magistrate Smith wants to hear before ruling on the duality of the complaints.

Then the question also has be be resolved as to what constitutes "exposure."  There was considerable discussion as the the necessity of him actually exposing his penis.  The law requires that "indecent exposure" requires that a person shows his penis in an effort to offend someone.  Just leaving your fly down is not enough.

This is made difficult by the fact that Ferrel Kelly is pretty famous in the county.  It is doubtful that any prospective jurors have not seen Ferrel on the road.  He spends great amounts of his day in the Town of Marlinton near the park bench across from the Presbyterian church.

The question will then be:  Of all the times you have seen Ferrel Kelly standing on the streets of Marlinton have you seen him dangling his penis for the travelers to see.   This will be on the minds of the various jurors as they consider his fate. 

So be ready to set aside some time Wednesday for this spectacular waste of the public dollar.