Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools Superintendent Don Martin takes the stand in the negligence lawsuit against the Board of Education and former Glenn basketball coach Robert Fulton, who was convicted in 2004 of committing a sexual act against a female student.
It’s not clear to me why the judge asked the jury to leave the courtroom when plaintiff attorney David Pishko mentioned another case where a teacher had sex with a student:
Pishko also mentioned a case involving Timothy Christian Weaver, a former teacher at the school who was convicted of having sex with a 16-year-old female student he worked with in the school’s band.
Last November, a jury awarded $400,000 to the student. That lawsuit said the school board was negligent in continuing to employ Weaver and ignored complaints about his behavior before the sexual contact with the student took place.
Judge Catherine Eagles told jurors to leave the courtroom during Martin’s testimony after several objections by Ronald Dilthey, an attorney representing the board. Eagles told Pishko not to question Martin about the case involving Weaver, which occurred after the Fulton case, because it was not relevant to the trial.
When the jury returned, Pishko began to quiz Martin again, this time about the Glenn case.
Make sense to anyone else?
