Court: Shackling didn’t taint molester’s trial

MAT-SU — A man convicted in 2005 of having sex with the 9-year-old daughter of a woman he lived with received a fair trial since jurors couldn’t see he was wearing shackles at the time, the Alaska Court of Appeals ruled in a memorandum released Friday.

That court had originally ruled in an appeal filed by Glen Ogletree, 52, that Palmer Superior Court Judge Eric Smith shouldn’t have ordered Ogletree shackled during his trial, and sent the case back to the lower court for proceedings that would decide whether the jurors saw the shackling and whether Ogletree might otherwise have been wronged by the shackling.

When the case returned to his court, Judge Smith took testimony from the trial attorneys. The prosecutors involved testified they did not recall anything indicating any jurors saw or focused on the restraints; the defense attorney had no recollection of the proceedings, the appeals memorandum stated.

During the trial, Ogletree wore street clothes. The shackles he wore were swathed in black cloth to prevent them from making noise when Ogletree moved.

The two hearings Smith convened took place in the same courtroom where Ogletree’s trial was held.

“Judge Smith arranged for Ogletree to be shackled and seated at the same table at which he was seated during his trial, with an opaque skirting covering the front of the table, as it was during the trial,” the memorandum stated. “Judge Smith walked around the courtroom and observed Ogletree from several different spots to determine if it was possible to see the shackles.”

Smith concluded there were a few places where a potential member of the jury could have seen the shackles, but only if that person were specifically looking for them.

There was discussion about whether the jurors should be brought in and asked about what they saw, according to a 2009 Frontiersman story about the proceeding.

Ogletree’s attorney, Doug Moody, said at the time that he thought pictures of the shackles taken from different places in the courtroom by Ogletree’s defense team prior to trial spoke for themselves, the story stated, and that the photos combined with an examination of the courtroom’s setup would be sufficient.

The judge said he disagreed with Moody’s contention and thought the appeals court disagreed also.

“Those pictures were taken very carefully so you could see [the shackles],” Smith said. “But that doesn’t mean someone did see them or could have seen them.” The appeals court “didn’t think the pictures were a slam dunk.”

Smith interviewed seven of the 12 jurors who decided Ogletree’s case, one at a time and out of each other’s presence.

“All seven of the jurors stated that they did not know whether Ogletree was wearing leg shackles during the trial, and that this subject had not come up during jury deliberations,” the memorandum stated.

Ogletree sexually assaulted the girl over a period of six years he was living in the home with her and her mother. Mhe assaults began when the girl was 9 years old. He photographed the girl while he had sex with her and then later, violating a protective order, broke into the home to take back those photos he had taken of her.

Ogletree’s trial jury convicted him of five counts of first-degree sexual abuse of a minor, exploitation of a minor to make pornography, distribution of child pornography, violation of a protective order and first-degree burglary. Smith sentenced Ogletree to 30 years in prison, with 18 years to serve and the other years suspended, as well as another 10 years’ probation.