JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – A circuit court judge came under scrutiny from at least one member of the House Monday for dismissing the case of a man who confessed to raping his own five-month old daughter in 2009.
Judge Patricia Joyce of Cole County dismissed the case of Aaron Michael Fisher, a resident of Brumley, when she accepted his lawyer’s argument that his Constitutional right to a “fair and speedy trial” had been infringed upon.
It begs the question, how could Joyce free a man who admitted to committing such a heinous crime?
“I called her office today to ask that very question, and I was not able to talk to Judge Joyce,” Rep. Rocky Miller, R-Tuscumbia, said. Miller has represented Brumley, and the rest of the Lake of the Ozarks area for three years. He said when he called the judge, an aide of hers said they could not talk about the case. Sometime this week however, she will lay out her full reasoning for the decision.
“This appears to be the height of incompetency for a Circuit Court Judge in Missouri, and I will be reviewing her performance to verify that it has risen to the level of impeachment,” Miller said in a release.
Impeachment of judges rests in the hands of the Missouri House of Representatives. Should the articles of impeachment be approved by the House, the Missouri Supreme Court would hear a trial on the matter.
Fisher’s trial has gone on for almost six years to the day after his arrest in late October in 2009. The victim underwent emergency treatment at the University of Missouri Hospital that night for broken bones, a skull fracture and internal wounds caused by the sexual assault.
Part of the reason the case went on so long were because Fisher’s legal team filed for multiple continuances after the case was filed Feb. 22, 2011.
Fisher took back his confession in 2014.