samuel plotnick

Cause of Conviction: Sexual Abuse

County: Whitley

Trial/Plea: Trial

Race: White

Year 2001

Sentence: 18

Time Served: 7

Date Sentence Vacated: January 2008

Reason Sentence Vacated: Perjury​

Cause of Wrongful Conviction: Ineffective Assistance of Counsel​

In 2000, Plotnick’s girlfriend’s young son accused Plotnick of sexually abusing him with a tent pole. He was sentenced to 20 years, and served 8 years before his release in 2008.

The complaining witness in this case allegedly told his mother that Plotnick had sexually abused him with a tent pole. His mother took him to be examined the next day, and the examination revealed bruising around the complaining witness’s rectum. The complaining witness’s mother was aware of the fact that she had given him a couple of enemas because of constipation about the time of the accusations, and the child often rode a bicycle that did not have a seat on it, but did not provide those alternate explanations to officials because she was afraid she would lose custody of her children. She later claimed in an affidavit that the prosecutor had threatened to take her children away if she did not testify against Plotnick. Plotnick's attorney had conducted no independent investigation into the offense and knew nothing of these alternate explanations for the child’s injuries.

At trial, the complaining witness originally repeated his allegation against Plotnick. On cross examination, the child testified that another of his mother’s boyfriends had hurt him; specifically, that he had steel or metal tips on the toes of his cowboy boots and that he had fallen on the toe of his boot. Eventually, the child’s testimony became so fanciful that - according to the opinion of the Kentucky Supreme Court - further cross examination would have been “futile.”  In order to bolster the credibility of the complaining witness, the prosecution relied on testimony from the child’s grandmother, doctors, nurses and social workers about statements the child had made to them. Plotnick’s counsel waived any objection to those statements.

In post-conviction litigation, the Kentucky Court of Appeals found that counsel’s failure to object to incompetent evidence of the child’s prior statements constituted ineffective assistance of counsel, and reversed Plotnick's conviction. The prosecution was dismissed several months later, in 2008.​ ​

For more information on the case:

https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=4083