{West Virginia}...Putnam County Prosecutor Mark Sorsaia filed a brief this week with the Supreme Court appealing a lower court's ruling which ordered a new trial for Joseph Lavigne who was originally convicted of sexually assaulting his five-year old daughter. A lower court judge overturned the verdict and freed Lavigne from prison to stand trial a second time. Sorsaia says he strongly believes the law is basically inappropriate to give him another trial. Sorsaia says Lavigne had a fair trial and a jury decided the state had proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt, and he disagrees with the premise that can just be summarily ignored some 15-years later. Lavigne's attorney won the new trial on three issues. One was a lack of sufficient evidence, second was an error in instructions to the jury, and the third issues was an argument the trial judge abused discretion in allowing for only character witnesses. Sorsaia fears allowing the conviction to be overturned sets a dangerous precedent to allow all criminals who are locked up to flood the courts with similar appeals. Sorsaia is asking the high court to vacate the lower court's ruling and remand Lavigne back to the state prison to finish his sentence.
