Biker garb gets sex-crime conviction overturned

Jacksonville Sheriff's Office booking photo of Brian Long

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – A state appeals court Wednesday ordered a new trial for a man convicted of sexually abusing his former step-daughter because of the possible influence on jurors of people wearing leather jackets emblazoned with the name "Bikers Against Child Abuse."

In a 2-1 decision, the 1st District Court of Appeal said the bikers were seen sitting in a hallway with jurors on the morning that the trial of Brian Scott Long was scheduled to start in Duval County. The majority of the appeals court agreed with Long's attorney that "an unacceptable risk was created that the verdict reached was, at least in part, a result of the pre-trial encounter with the insignia-laden bikers."

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"While we would not describe the bikers with a pejorative term such as mob, it is nevertheless the case that these individuals appeared at trial with the announced purpose of remonstrating 'against child abuse.' " said the majority opinion, written by appeals-court Judge William Van Nortwick and joined by Judge Philip Padovano. "The bikers, then, sought to send an implied message to the jury that Long should be found guilty. Such a message has no part in a trial."

But Judge Lori Rowe, in a dissenting opinion, wrote that the trial judge questioned the jurors and determined that they could be impartial. The trial judge, who denied a motion for mistrial, also told the bikers not to wear their insignia in the courtroom and not to congregate around the jurors. Several bikers were spectators in the courtroom during the trial.

"Simply put, there is absolutely no evidence in the record that the jurors in this matter were in any way influenced by the presence of the bikers before and during the trial,'' Lowe wrote. "Indeed, the trial court, who was in the best position to monitor the atmosphere of the courtroom, found no actual or inherent prejudice as a result of the presence of the bikers in the hallway."

Long was charged with multiple counts of lewd and lascivious molestation and sexual battery of his former step-daughter, according to Tuesday's ruling. The crimes were alleged to have taken place over several years, and the victim did not report them until years after she said they happened.

The jury ultimately convicted Long of two counts of lewd and lascivious molestation and one count of sexual battery by a person in familial or custodial authority, the ruling said. Department of Corrections records indicate Long, 44, was sentenced in 2012 to 30 years in prison.

Lowe's dissent said the case is the first time that the Tallahassee-based appeals court has ruled on the "question of whether conduct by a private spectator at trial can be found inherently prejudicial." But she pointed, in part, to the Florida Supreme Court's handling of issues involving spectator conduct, including a case in which a spectator during jury selection wore a shirt memorializing a murder victim.

"The Florida Supreme Court has never held or implied that a defendant has been deprived of the right to a fair trial by private spectators displaying buttons, pictures, or other insignia inside the courtroom,'' Rowe wrote. "And, it has certainly never attempted to regulate the conduct of spectators outside the courtroom, in regards to the wearing of buttons, pictures, or other insignia."

But the appeals court's majority wrote that the bikers knew the victim and could have shown support for her without the garb. The ruling said the bikers chose to wear clothing to send a message.

"That message was the appellant (Long) was a sexual abuser and that sexual abuse was to be condemned by a guilty verdict,'' the ruling said.