CANYON COUNTY - A 2012 lewd conduct and sexual battery of a minor conviction was overturned by the Idaho Court of Appeals, where a three-judge panel ruled that the prosecutor may have racially prejudiced the jury against the black defendant by reciting a line from the song “Dixie.”
James D. Kirk (picture) was charged in August 2012 and found guilty in April 2013 of having sexual contact with two girls, 17 and 13, in a Nampa motel room.
Both were runaways from a local group home, according to court documents, and both were white.
In her closing arguments, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Erica Kallin quoted a line from a song appellate judges say has racist overtones, even if Kallin didn’t intend it that way. More Strange News
