The Two Minute Verdict

A photograph was allegedly found on a computer disc in Nickel’s possession. But because the image had been ‘deleted,’ it was not and could not have been found by simply inserting the disc into a disc drive. Special software was required to ‘recover’ it.

Just a couple of years after Jeffrey Nickel's trial, Peter Torncello prosecuted another child sexual abuse case; this time, against a pediatric neurologist by the name of Philip Riback. Torncello's tactics there -- as well as other, subsequent events to be discussed below -- tell us a lot about his character.

Due to the fact that Arthur was under 12 years old at the time of the trial, a hearing was conducted to assess his competency to testify under oath.

A non-jury or "bench" trial is when the judge, rather than a jury, decides guilt or innocence.

Links to relevant articles about the case.

"Even in free societies, in crimes violating cardinal moral and societal beliefs...judicial impartiality is often thrown to the wind -- and we have 'political justice.'"

-- Thomas Szasz

"A Judge who requires others to 'tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth' must set an example by telling the truth herself in a legal proceeding."

-- Administrative Judge Robert Tembeckjian, State Commission on Judicial Conduct

"The underlying premise of our criminal justice system is that a defendant must be tried for what he did, not who he is."

-- Bennett Gershman, Prosecutorial Misconduct, at § 10:2, pg. 10-4 (quoting the American Bar Association's Standards for Criminal Justice)

"Child witnesses are highly susceptible to suggestion and often undergo severely suggestive interviews."

--Dugas, 'State of New Jersey v. Michaels: The Due Process Implications in Interviewing Child Witnesses,' 55 Lou.L.Rev. 1205, 1226 (1995)

The prosecutor as well as the judge initially assigned to the Nickel case were different from those who would handle his case at trial. Presiding at Nickel's pre-trial hearings was Judge Thomas Breslin ; the prosecutor was Veronica Dumas .

Indignation, it seems, is the most gratifying of all emotions. Nothing is quite so soothing as the feeling of superiority over sinners who have committed offenses that we are sure ourselves to be innocent of and that allow us to purse our lips in disdain…