State Trial Audio – Mark Spangler
Our next witness is where things start getting a bit interesting.
Meet Mark Spangler.
Mark was the night poultry manager in Agri during 2005 and 2006, he wore a “orange hat” and everyone working at night reported to him. His testimony gets interesting before he even steps foot in the courtroom because of his past and (at the time) current legal issues. Seems Mr Spangler had prior convictions for theft and parole violation among other things (for a complete list listen below) and was in fact coming to the courtroom to testify from jail due to a 2 year old warrant that was enforced when he reentered the state to testify.
Prior to his testimony there was a discussion regarding what parts of his checkered past was relevant for the jury to hear. The state argued that only 2 of his past convictions (both for petty theft) should be allowed to be presented to the jury as a indication of his character and believability. As for the fact that he was coming from jail the state argued that because it was a matter that was already settled (he received 10 days in jail) it was no longer a issue that could be used to impeach him.
The defense argued that what the jury needed to hear about was his pattern of abusing alcohol, breaking the law and being dishonest with the court, how can the jury trust that he is telling the court the truth when he is coming from jail for not keeping his word to the very same court?!?! They also pointed out that the “petty theft” that the state had mentioned was actually a plea deal he made on what started as a charge of first degree grand larceny over the theft of $100,000 (I’m sure it just slipped her mind). But more importantly they argued he had been fired before 2007 and therefor had nothing to do with (and couldn’t know about) anything that may have happened during the time period relevant to the complaint.
The judge ruled as follows.
- With regards to what can be told to the jury, he agreed with the state that only the 2 petty theft convictions could be brought up but he would allow the defense to ask him from where he was coming in order to testify.
- As for the time frame he ruled that if he was going to testify about about a pattern of overlooking such records ( worker age etc) then we would allow it. But if he was going testify to the tune of “jee, this happened before on a different occasion” then thats something he would preclude.
Take a listen.
To listen to the discussion (that the jury did not hear) about Mr Spanglers past click here (aprox 12:00)
To hear Mr Miller for the state click here (aprox )
Ed note: In the warrant used for the raid the government ”informant” said that the workers had different color hats based on if they where legal or not, if they where paid on the books or not etc. Funny how the state of Iowa knew that but the fedarel Govenment didnt, oh wait…… Loved his use of the word “sometimes” whenever a bit of “stretching” was needed. That “high school gym” comment will come in to play a little later in the trial stay tuned.
To hear Mr Brown for the defense click here (aprox 5:30)
Ed note: He saw Sholom only twice in a year and this somehow supposed to implicate Sholom. We included the recross of Mr Spangler in the defense clip due to how short it is.
