Inmate’s new trial rejected
Staff writer
A man sentenced 10 years ago to life without parole after a Marion County judge ruled him a habitual sex offender filed a motion Aug. 29 for a new trial or to have his sentence changed.
However, district judge Courtney Boehm dismissed the petition Aug. 31 on grounds that his time to appeal had run out, that he made no claim of actual innocence, and that dismissing his petition did not equate to “manifest injustice.”
Terry Bowen, 75, is serving his sentence at Lansing prison.
In his petition he claimed his lawyers — both for his trial and his appeals — were ineffective and should have eliminated jurors he considered “prejudiced.”
He claimed one jury member had a cousin who worked in the state attorney general’s office and that a witness was also his wife’s nephew; another had a brother “that rapes his 8-year-old daughter”; another researched child abuse before the trial; one’s voice “changed” when she was asked about a friend who was sexually assaulted at age 7; and another jury member had friends and family members who had been sexually assaulted.
Bowen was sentenced in December 2011 for two counts of rape along with aggravated criminal sodomy, aggravated kidnapping, and battery.
The crimes took place in Peabody and followed earlier convictions and prison time for two counts of aggravated indecent solicitation of a child under age 14.
He was sent to sex offender treatment in 2004 during his first sentence, then paroled to Marion County in 2005 and Harvey County in 2006. He returned to prison in 2006 for violation of his parole, then was paroled to McPherson County in 2007.
That sentence expired in April 2007.
During his second sentence, he was disciplined eight times for various infractions.
This is not the first time Bowen has fought his sentence. Soon after his conviction, he filed motions for a new trial and for the judge to acquit him. He later filed appeals with the court of appeals and the state supreme court.