• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
MENUMENU
MENUMENU
  • Home
  • About
    • Contact Us
    • FlaglerLive Board of Directors
    • Comment Policy
    • Mission Statement
    • Our Values
    • Privacy Policy
  • Live Calendar
  • Submit Obituary
  • Submit an Event
  • Support FlaglerLive
  • Advertise on FlaglerLive (386) 503-3808
  • Search Results

FlaglerLive

No Bull, no Fluff, No Smudges

MENUMENU
  • Flagler
    • Flagler County Commission
    • Beverly Beach
    • Economic Development Council
    • Flagler History
    • Mondex/Daytona North
    • The Hammock
    • Tourist Development Council
  • Palm Coast
    • Palm Coast City Council
    • Palm Coast Crime
  • Bunnell
    • Bunnell City Commission
    • Bunnell Crime
  • Flagler Beach
    • Flagler Beach City Commission
    • Flagler Beach Crime
  • Cops/Courts
    • Circuit & County Court
    • Florida Supreme Court
    • Federal Courts
    • Flagler 911
    • Fire House
    • Flagler County Sheriff
    • Flagler Jail Bookings
    • Traffic Accidents
  • Rights & Liberties
    • Fourth Amendment
    • First Amendment
    • Privacy
    • Second Amendment
    • Seventh Amendment
    • Sixth Amendment
    • Sunshine Law
    • Third Amendment
    • Religion & Beliefs
    • Human Rights
    • Immigration
    • Labor Rights
    • 14th Amendment
    • Civil Rights
  • Schools
    • Adult Education
    • Belle Terre Elementary
    • Buddy Taylor Middle
    • Bunnell Elementary
    • Charter Schools
    • Daytona State College
    • Flagler County School Board
    • Flagler Palm Coast High School
    • Higher Education
    • Imagine School
    • Indian Trails Middle
    • Matanzas High School
    • Old Kings Elementary
    • Rymfire Elementary
    • Stetson University
    • Wadsworth Elementary
    • University of Florida/Florida State
  • Economy
    • Jobs & Unemployment
    • Business & Economy
    • Development & Sprawl
    • Leisure & Tourism
    • Local Business
    • Local Media
    • Real Estate & Development
    • Taxes
  • Commentary
    • The Conversation
    • Pierre Tristam
    • Diane Roberts
    • Guest Columns
    • Byblos
    • Editor's Blog
  • Culture
    • African American Cultural Society
    • Arts in Palm Coast & Flagler
    • Books
    • City Repertory Theatre
    • Flagler Auditorium
    • Flagler Playhouse
    • Flagler Youth Orchestra
    • Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra
    • Palm Coast Arts Foundation
    • Special Events
  • Elections 2024
    • Amendments and Referendums
    • Presidential Election
    • Campaign Finance
    • City Elections
    • Congressional
    • Constitutionals
    • Courts
    • Governor
    • Polls
    • Voting Rights
  • Florida
    • Federal Politics
    • Florida History
    • Florida Legislature
    • Florida Legislature
    • Ron DeSantis
  • Health & Society
    • Flagler County Health Department
    • Ask the Doctor Column
    • Health Care
    • Health Care Business
    • Covid-19
    • Children and Families
    • Medicaid and Medicare
    • Mental Health
    • Poverty
    • Violence
  • All Else
    • Daily Briefing
    • Americana
    • Obituaries
    • News Briefs
    • Weather and Climate
    • Wildlife

Same Molestation Charge, Third Trial for James Taylor After Mistrial and Appeals Court Reversal

September 16, 2019 | FlaglerLive | Leave a Comment

James Taylor during jury selection at his second trial more than two years ago. He went through the same process today, ahead of a trial expected top take the rest of the week. (© FlaglerLive)
James Taylor during jury selection at his second trial more than two years ago. He went through the same process today, ahead of a trial expected to take the rest of the week. (© FlaglerLive)

Taylor is a violent felon and sex offender convicted for burglary, conspiracy to commit a robbery, stalking, and lewd and lascivious battery. Almost two and a half years ago he was tried in Flagler County for another count of molestation allegedly involving his then-11-year-old step-daughter. A jury deliberated just over an hour and convicted him.


Circuit Judge Dennis Craig sentenced him to life in prison without parole, counting his past against him even though the charge he was convicted on carried a maximum penalty of 15 years, and most of those convicted on such a charge never get the full prison penalty.

The entire case had rested on the 11-year-old girl’s claim that Taylor one night came into her bedroom and brushed his hand over her general upper chest area “for a couple of seconds,” over her clothes, a gesture his defense attorneys compared to any parent checking in on his children at night. There was no corroborating evidence, no physical evidence. One of the girl’s older sisters was sleeping in the same room, but her testimony was as vague as her younger sister’s about what she saw. She too claimed Taylor would touch her inappropriately, but no count was filed as a result of her claims.

To the defense, the two younger girls were making up stories because they hated Taylor, he was mean and allegedly violent toward their mother, and they wanted him out of the house.

It was a case made for reasonable doubt, and the prosecution knew it: it did not file charges for two years, and did so only after the oldest of the three daughters claimed Taylor had raped her in Alachua County sometime in 2012, when she was 12.

Defense lawyers for Taylor didn’t wait for Craig to finish sentencing him to life in April 2017. One of them walked over to the clerk and handed her a document indicating their intention to appeal. Immediately. They knew their client had not had the fairest trial. They knew that Craig should not have allowed the oldest girl to testify about her allegation that she was raped, an allegation that Taylor was not on trial for in Bunnell, but that the judge allowed as so-called “similar-fact evidence.” They had objected. Craig had overruled.

But the defense lawyers were right: the Fifth District Court of Appeal a year ago Wednesday ruled that the older girl’s testimony about the rape should not have been allowed, and that it prejudiced the jury against Taylor. The reason: “the dissimilarities between the charged offense and the collateral crime evidence are significant.”

In his order allowing the older girl’s testimony, Craig had acknowledged that it could be “highly prejudicial,” but said it was established by clear and convincing evidence.

In fact, the charge in Alachua County was dropped in Aug. 2017, four months after the charge played a key role in Taylor’s conviction in Flagler, though that fact does not enter into the appeals court’s decision.

The appeals court ordered a new trial. It will be Taylor’s third on the same charge: Craig declared the first a mistrial when the oldest of the three girls blurted out yet other details about Taylor that were inadmissible.

That trial began today with jury selection. It is expected to last the rest of the week. Taylor, who’s been incarcerated since 2015, is facing his fourth judge since his case began, Terence Perkins.

Last week Perkins, Assistant State Prosecutor Melissa Clark and Assistant Public Defender Regina Nunnally argued a few motions to establish the rules at trial. Clark filed three of them. One of them is to prevent a repeat of the first trial, when the defense called on Taylor’s family members to testify to his church-going. “This testimony is irrelevant, it is improper character evidence” and would be used to “mislead or confuse the jury,” Clark argued.

Clark also asked that the court forbid testimony from family members who claimed, again in the first trial, that Taylor had been abusive toward his ex-wife. And Clark didn’t want Nunnally or her witnesses to try to demolish the credibility of the state’s two main witnesses–the two younger girls, one of them the alleged victim–by making references to them stealing or lying.

Nunnally agreed to all three motions, making Perkins’s ruling an easy one. Still, the hearing stretched for over an hour as the two sides discussed other possible testimonies that could prejudice the case for either side, such as the time when the children’s grandfather discovered that Taylor was a sex offender, and wanted him gone. None of those inferences may be made at trial (though the grandfather himself has since died). “The whole family was aware of that,” Clark said of the grandfather’s investigation. “I’ve instructed them that we’re not getting into that.”

So the matter of Taylor’s status as a sex offender is off the table. “I don’t want it slipping out accidentally unless we’ve all agreed, the door is open,” Perkins, a stickler for strict parameters, told the two attorneys.

Similarly, however, the two younger witnesses will be instructed not to say anything about what they claim was Taylor’s abuse of their mother.

And this time, all references to the older girl’s claims of rape will be out of bounds.

“Is there any evidence you anticipate coming in involving” that girl, the judge asked the prosecutor.

“No,” Clark said emphatically.

“We remain 100% confident that your ruling will be the correct and just ruling,” Taylor’s mother, Priscilla, had written Craig a day before his sentencing in June 2017. at the beginning of June 2017. She had been among a dozen members of Taylor’s family at that hearing. He is one of 17 siblings.

Support FlaglerLive's End of Year Fundraiser
Thank you readers for getting us to--and past--our year-end fund-raising goal yet again. It’s a bracing way to mark our 15th year at FlaglerLive. Our donors are just a fraction of the 25,000 readers who seek us out for the best-reported, most timely, trustworthy, and independent local news site anywhere, without paywall. FlaglerLive is free. Fighting misinformation and keeping democracy in the sunshine 365/7/24 isn’t free. Take a brief moment, become a champion of fearless, enlightening journalism. Any amount helps. We’re a 501(c)(3) non-profit news organization. Donations are tax deductible.  
You may donate openly or anonymously.
We like Zeffy (no fees), but if you prefer to use PayPal, click here.

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  • Conner Bosch law attorneys lawyers offices palm coast flagler county
  • grand living realty
  • politis matovina attorneys for justice personal injury law auto truck accidents

Primary Sidebar

  • grand living realty
  • politis matovina attorneys for justice personal injury law auto truck accidents

Recent Comments

  • No political affiliation on Palm Coast’s Golden Chopsticks Buffet Open Again 2 Days After Sanitation Inspection Ordered It Closed
  • Shark on Danko No Longer District Director for Randy Fine; Congressman Calls for Nuking Gaza’s 2 Million Palestinians
  • Laurel on State Attorney Investigating Records Linked to Casey DeSantis’ Hope Florida
  • Jim on Danko No Longer District Director for Randy Fine; Congressman Calls for Nuking Gaza’s 2 Million Palestinians
  • Engin Ruslpostur on Danko No Longer District Director for Randy Fine; Congressman Calls for Nuking Gaza’s 2 Million Palestinians
  • Laurel on Flagler Beach’s Farmers Market Will Move to South 2nd Street by City Hall After Losing Wickline Park
  • Schocked Republican on Palm Coast City Attorney Calls Mayor Norris ‘Unprofessional and Inappropriate’ 3 Weeks After Censure for Similar Behavior
  • Mj on Danko No Longer District Director for Randy Fine; Congressman Calls for Nuking Gaza’s 2 Million Palestinians
  • BillC on The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Thursday, May 22, 2025
  • Jane Gentile-Youd on Margaritaville’s Compass Hotel in Flagler Beach Opens in Buffett-Themed Celebration of a Downtown Remade
  • Laurel on Danko No Longer District Director for Randy Fine; Congressman Calls for Nuking Gaza’s 2 Million Palestinians
  • Ed P on The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Thursday, May 22, 2025
  • T on Danko No Longer District Director for Randy Fine; Congressman Calls for Nuking Gaza’s 2 Million Palestinians
  • Niyfb. Okay on Danko No Longer District Director for Randy Fine; Congressman Calls for Nuking Gaza’s 2 Million Palestinians
  • nbr on Danko No Longer District Director for Randy Fine; Congressman Calls for Nuking Gaza’s 2 Million Palestinians
  • Skibum on Sheriff Warns of Scammer Peddling Fake Arrest Warrant

Log in