Eddie William Crawford Jr. will continue to spend the rest of his life in prison now that the Georgia Court of Appeals upheld his 2016 conviction.
On Nov. 22, 2016, Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit Superior Court Judge Alison T. Burleson sentenced Crawford to life in prison for child molestation.
Crawford filed a motion for a new trial, which Burleson denied. He then filed an appeal with the state court, which was denied on May 7 by the Georgia Court of Appeals Third Division Presiding Judge Sara L. Doyle and affirmed by Judges Kenneth B. Hodges and Jeffrey A. Watkins.
Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit District Attorney T. Wright Barksdale said he was “pleased with the decision” of the appellate court, and he praised Eatonton Police Chief Howell Cardwell’s diligence in gathering evidence for the arrest and trial. Cardwell was Eatonton Police Department’s chief investigator then, and Barksdale was Putnam County’s assistant district attorney prosecuting the case during the 2016 trial.
“I am proud of the work Chief Cardwell put into the case and the collaboration put forth by DFACS and the Putnam County Middle School staff,” Barksdale said Tuesday. “Without everyone’s help, justice would not have been served. This prosecution highlights what a wonderful community we have, and the togetherness we share in protecting our children from predators like Eddie Crawford.”
History of the case
Crawford was arrested on Nov. 12, 2015, for performing sexual acts on an elementary-aged family member for more than two years between 2013 and 2015, according to court records.
The allegations came to light when the child told friends at school what was happening, and school officials notified the police.
Following a four-day trial, which included not only the victim’s testimony but forensic evidence as well, a Putnam County jury of seven men and five women found Crawford guilty of all charges.
During the sentencing hearing on Nov. 22, 2016, defense attorney Dwight L. Thomas and Teri L. Thompson, of Atlanta, called seven or eight of their client’s family members and acquaintances to testify of his character in hopes of getting mercy and leniency.
Thomas requested his client be given the minimum sentence with time already served in jail plus credit for time served on bond while banished from Putnam County.
“There is not enough time to be served for the acts Mr. Crawford has done,” Barksdale said during the pre-sentencing recommendation. “No matter what happens here today, it won’t change what has been done to this child, to this family.”
Burleson responded that there was no question Crawford came from a good family, but the jurors had seen and heard what happened behind closed doors in Crawford’s home.
Burleson sentenced Crawford to life in prison for four counts of aggravated child molestation, 20 years with the first 15 years in confinement for a single count of child molestation, and 50 years with the first 25 years in confinement for incest. Each sentence was to run concurrently with the others.
The appeal
Crawford’s appeal with the state court was based on him being denied a new trial. The motion for a new trial was based on
Crawford's claiming his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to strike a juror who was a jail employee when he had been arrested.
Identified on court documents as “Juror 38,” the juror testified during the Putnam County Superior Court hearing on the motion for a new trial.
In the Court of Appeals ruling, Juror 38 reportedly said that he was a jail officer whose primary job was to intake inmates, including fingerprinting, photographing, and searching them.
“He did not have arrest powers…. He searched Crawford when he was booked; (and) at the time of trial, he did not remember Crawford or that he had encountered him at the jail, and he did not discover until after the trial that he had searched Crawford,” the 12-page ruling reveals.
Crawford’s appeal cites various case laws, some of which Doyle wrote were “not pertinent here.”
Regarding the “Strickland v. Washington” case, the ruling reveals that if the court had concluded that Crawford’s defense counsel had committed errors, the errors would not “likely have affected the outcome of the trial.”
“Thus, as the trial court correctly concluded, even had counsel asserted a strike (of juror 38) for cause, it would have been refused. Moreover, the victim’s testimony, as well as that of those with whom she shared the incidents, was sufficient to support Crawford’s convictions. In sum, Crawford has not established that his trial counsel was ineffective, so we affirm his conviction,” Doyle wrote in the ruling.