Prank gone awry could land teen in prison

7-5-2011 Indiana:

Experts question appropriateness of felony charge after student placed sex doll in school bathroom

RUSHVILLE, Ind. -- When Tyell Morton placed a blow-up sex doll in a girls' bathroom stall as a prank on the last day of school, he had no idea what he was about to get into.

He didn't bet that a janitor's witness of his quick exit from the school -- wearing latex gloves and a hooded sweatshirt that concealed his face -- might trigger administrators' worst fears: explosives.

They locked down Rushville Consolidated High School for three hours. They called in state and local police. And before anyone could find the sex doll, K9 dogs and a bomb squad were scouring the building. Morton was soon arrested.

Now Morton, 18, faces charges that could bring up to eight years in prison. Yes -- eight years. Not to mention a felony record, if he's convicted. All for a good student with no criminal record.

All for a senior prank gone awry.

Whether Morton's treatment has been motivated by race, prosecutorial zeal or a post-Columbine mind-set that treats every perceived threat seriously has been the focus of intense discussion -- both inside Rushville, a small blue-collar city an hour southeast of Indianapolis, and well beyond Indiana.

It's unlikely Morton will receive anything near the full sentence, but the prospect is turning heads.

Sympathizers are raising money for Morton's legal defense and have publicized the case on radio shows across the country. Some created a website called "Free Tyell Morton." On Friday, a companion Facebook page, describing the incident as a "harmless senior prank," had 3,810 members stretching around the world.

Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts focused on Morton's case in his nationally syndicated column, published June 23 in The Indianapolis Star.

Pitts suggested that Morton's case was another example of unfair treatment for a black youth without a wealthy family.

Legal experts question the charges' appropriateness -- and even whether they are being applied properly.

But school administrators in the city of 6,300 aren't second-guessing their handling of the May 31 incident.

And the Rush County prosecutor so far is sticking by his decision to charge Morton with disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor, and institutional criminal mischief, a Class C felony that carries the potential of two to eight years in prison.

"My heart just dropped"

Rushville's modern-style high school sits on a sprawling multischool campus on the city's north side, next to the Rush County fairgrounds.

Morton lives in a tidy house on Harrison Street, across from the high school, with his grandmother and an aunt. His mother lives in Tennessee and his father in Illinois.

When a police officer arrested Morton in the aftermath of the doll incident, he quickly copped to his role.

He was jailed and released five days later, after his family satisfied the $30,000 bond by raising $3,000, mostly from donors.

Morton's attorney declined an interview request on his behalf.

Cammie Morton, his mother, said the school district told the family that Tyell couldn't participate in graduation -- which took place the same day he was released from jail -- but that he would still receive his diploma.

Soon after hearing about her son's arrest, she saw a report about it on a TV station in Tennessee. She has traveled to and from Rushville a couple of times since then.

"I know there has been plenty of pranks done at that school," Cammie Morton said. "I went to that school. When I heard what they was charging him for, my heart just dropped."

But if the prank was admittedly juvenile, school officials say the situation they confronted seemed anything but harmless.

After the janitor saw Morton run away from the building, administrators reviewed security footage. They saw the disguised figure enter the school with a package concealed under the hooded sweatshirt. He left five minutes later -- without the package.

That's when they alerted authorities.

"Believe me, sir, we have reviewed this situation numerous times," Rush County Schools Superintendent John E. Williams said last week. "When you have an unknown intruder in the building, delivering an unknown package, we come up with the same conclusion. . . . We cannot be too cautious, in this day and age."

Still, many question what happened next.

Charges questioned

Rush County Prosecutor Philip J. Caviness did not return repeated phone messages about the case. His office said he was on vacation much of last week, and his chief deputy, Phillip T. Morgan, also did not return a phone message.

Caviness, a Republican, took office in January. The sex-doll caper is one of two recent cases to draw attention outside Rush County. The other involves a 21-year-old Amish man arrested in June on charges he sent naked images of himself and hundreds of other text messages to a 12-year-old girl.

In public comments since Morton's arrest, the prosecutor has suggested he does not intend to seek a prison term.

He told the Rushville Republican newspaper: "Although it is early, I think the facts bear out that there was no intent to hurt anybody and that a prison sentence is not warranted. I think that would be a little excessive in this case."

But legal experts question the foundation of the lead charge, as does Morton's attorney.

Joel Schumm, a professor at the Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis, said the use of the serious felony charge seems beyond the intent of the law.

Institutional criminal mischief, which starts out as a misdemeanor, applies under Indiana law when a suspect recklessly, knowingly or intentionally damages a school. But it gets boosted to a Class C felony -- Morton's charge -- if the "pecuniary loss" is at least $2,500.

The probable cause affidavit filed in court cites an $8,131.50 loss -- based on the hourly compensation of all school employees, from secretaries to the superintendent, whose time was diverted for hours that day.

Schumm said that misreads the legislature's intent, especially since the incident occurred during school hours. No physical damage resulted.

"It's clear from the language of the statute that they're talking about (damage to) real property -- about structures, or items in the school like desks," Schumm said. "I don't think they're talking about salaries. . . . I don't think it qualifies as institutional mischief at all."

Schumm also questioned the validity of Morton's misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge.

"Their reaction is understandable," Schumm said, "but use the school disciplinary process. Don't try to label the kid a felon for the rest of his life."

Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, raised a wider question about the case on his legal blog: "The question is what type of society we are creating when our children have to fear that a prank (could) lead them to jail for almost a decade. What type of citizens are we creating who fear the arbitrary use of criminal charges by their government?"

Williams, the superintendent, declined to say whether he thought Morton's criminal charges were merited, preferring to defer to the court system to sort it out.

But he said the prank was far from harmless, citing another kind of damage that resulted: "I don't think you can put a price tag on the education that was lost."
Residents' reaction

As for suggested racial motives, Morton's father, Walter Nelson, brushed off the suggestion when Pitts, the columnist, asked him about it. And his mother declined to discuss that point with The Star.

Bill Goins, 58, a member of a prominent black family who has led the local NAACP chapter for 20 years, disagreed that race seemed to be a factor. And Williams pointed out that early on that day, school administrators who were frantically reviewing security video couldn't distinguish the suspect's race.

Morton is being represented by Indianapolis attorney Robert Turner, a former city public safety director.

Turner, who is black, also downplayed race. He suggested another factor: the fact that it happened in a small town.

"I don't think there's probably a lot of crime waves in Rushville," Turner said. "I don't think they do this sort of thing very often. Had this happened in Indianapolis . . . they would not have had this kind of charge filed."

Goins, who is president of the Rushville City Council and the Democratic nominee for mayor, calls Rushville a "quintessential small town."

It has weathered closures of nearby automotive suppliers in recent years and occasional racial tension. The ingrained segregation of decades ago -- when blacks lived on the east side and attended a separate school, named after Booker T. Washington -- has long since faded. In April, however, a man from a nearby town was cited for littering after he distributed Ku Klux Klan leaflets in Rushville.

Yet everyone pretty much gets along, Goins said, and much of Rushville's African-American community, numbering 100 to 150, has deep family roots in the town.

Many of Morton's supporters, including white and black residents of Rushville, say they understand the initial response of school administrators and police.

But hanging out the prospect of prison?

"I have not talked to anybody that's happy with how this situation happened," said Goins, a retired plumber-pipefitter. "Let's move on and get it out of the news. . . . He's been punished. Let's move on."

Beth West, 48, a white hospice nurse who attended Rush County's recent 4-H fair, views the incident through a similar lens, though she hasn't followed the story as closely.

"I've only thought about it as a mother. My two boys are not too much older than that," she said. The school was right to take the threat as deadly serious, she said, but "you want the punishment to match the crime -- which, in hindsight, was much less than it seemed."

After all the hoopla, the "multi-gender" sex doll described in court documents is almost an afterthought.

Goins, who knows Morton's family, says common sense should win out. "He's a great kid. He just made a mistake."

Morton's mother says she has been heartened by the strong response her son's case has sparked well beyond Rushville.

Tyell Morton wants to attend college, his mother says, but worry over the case is consuming him.

"It's stressful for Tyell," Cammie Morton said. "He doesn't know where his life is going to end up. He has been looking -- I'll just put it this way: He's scared."

A resolution of the case might be months away, with his trial set for Sept. 13 in Rush Circuit Court. ..Source.. by Jon Murray

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