Clarion Uni. Withheld Evidence that Would Have Exonerated a Student Accused of Sexual Assault; He Spent 16 Months in Prison

A scholar named Darold Palmore is suing Clarion College, the college’s police division, and the county prosecutor, for anti-male discrimination, due course of violation, defamation, false arrest, and malicious prosecution.

Palmore was imprisoned for 16 months on the premise of a sexual assault cost about which Clarion withheld proof that will have proven his innocence. It wasn’t till after nearly a 12 months and a half in jail {that a} second jury heard Mr. Palmore’s case and located that he was harmless.

In keeping with Mr. Palmore’s complaint, he was a scholar at Clarion College when, in 2015, he was falsely accused of sexual assault by one other scholar, Katelyn Hosler, and requested to go away college whereas the college conduct board performed a listening to. He maintains that he didn’t have “any sexual relations with Ms. Hosler” and that he had by no means even been inside her dorm room, the place she alleged that the assault occurred.

Mr. Palmore claims that the college violated his rights “when it realized and knew that the alleged conduct which was topic of the disciplinary listening to was patently false and did not make a closing dedication as to the standing of the listening to.”

Moreover, when Mr. Palmore requested video footage of Nair and Wilkinson Corridor, the scene of the crime Ms. Hosler alleged, the college and the college police power acknowledged his request however later ignored it and didn’t hand over the footage. The footage, in response to the grievance, would have confirmed Ms. Hosler’s claims false and exonerated him.

Additionally, according to Just the News, “[one of] The campus cops who cornered Palmore in his dorm room…is on the report promising to withhold doubtlessly exculpatory proof from Palmore.”

Mr. Palmore, because of Clarion College’s actions, acquired all failing grades that semester and was charged and convicted by the Clarion Nation DA workplace for sexual assault. He was imprisoned from that point in 2016 till 2918.

Mr. Palmore’s grievance maintains that, all through that harrowing course of, Clarion College afforded him no constitutional protections or procedural protections and that he was not even allowed to current a protection in opposition to the accusations.

In 2019, a jury unanimously exonerated Mr. Palmore “for,” in response to the grievance, “the intentional and false allegations by Ms. Hosler.” It took the jury solely 29 minutes of deliberation to totally exonerate him.

Regardless of that exoneration, Clarion has not corrected Mr. Palmore’s transcript to replicate that he was falsely accused and that the college made errors through the course of.

Mr. Palmore additionally maintains that as a result of Clarion has “repeatedly ignored [his] request to resolve the false sexual misconduct allegations in opposition to him,” he has been unable to “enroll in a equally ranked and esteemed school…as he at present has an unresolved Conduct Listening to for a sexual misconduct that he didn’t commit.”

Clarion not solely allowed each a listening to and trial primarily based on an allegation that will have been confirmed false by the data it withheld to proceed, however it has additionally since refused to right the report, even after a jury unanimously exonerated Mr. Palmore.

Simply the Information reports that “The college declined to touch upon his claims, citing pending litigation. Simply the Information shared the swimsuit with the college in mid-August however the federal court docket solely ordered that it’s served on the defendants a month later. Clarion nonetheless hasn’t made an look in court docket, although the DA’s workplace did final week.”

Clarion just isn’t the one college that faces accusations of anti-male bias in its sexual misconduct listening to course of. Washington and Lee College, in Virginia, had to settle a lawsuit with a scholar who maintained that an anti-male bias led the college to power him to go away primarily based on a false accusation of sexual misconduct. Regardless of settling the swimsuit, W&L maintains that Ms. Kozak, its Title IX administrator, acted appropraitely. Colgate Universtity faces similar allegations.