The nine-woman, three-man jury will resume deliberations this morning in Richland County Common Pleas Court. Campain was the only witness on the trial's fourth day. He said he could not have engaged in sexual relations with female inmates at the county jail. "I can't get an erection," he said at the end of direct examination.
Campain, a retired Marine, said he suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome and from erectile dysfunction. First Assistant Prosecutor Brent Robinson immediately went on the attack. "Erectile dysfunction, that's what you're talking about?" he asked loudly. "That's the first we've heard about it, isn't it?"
Campain responded, "It's not something I want to publicize."
Defense attorney Randall Fry did not mention erectile dysfunction in his opening statement or his closing argument. Campain said he was diagnosed in 2003. Robinson asked why he didn't produce any medical records. "I didn't consider it necessary," Campain said. On direct examination, Campain refuted the claims of the 11 inmates who testified against him. "Somewhere along the line, I made somebody mad at me," he said.
Campain denied the allegations of a woman who said he fondled her breasts in a holding cell. The inmate said she performed a sex act on him. Campain said the woman came on to him. "She said 'Can you fix my shackle?' " he said. "I told her to put her leg up. She said, 'I'm in the right position for you.' "
Campain said the inmate could have lied on the stand because he "shunned" her. He also refuted a 30-year-old woman's claim that he rubbed against her during a book-in procedure. "I might have brushed against her," Campain said. "I rub up against a lot of people when I'm taking fingerprints."
On an often contentious cross-examination, Robinson and Campain sparred about the truth. "Somebody in this case, either you or them, is lying on the witness stand," Robinson said. "Yeah, it's not me," Campain said. "That's for them to decide," Robinson replied, pointing to the jury. Robinson didn't buy Campain's conspiracy theory. "Why would they gang up on poor Jim Campain?" the first assistant prosecutor asked. "Someplace along the line, I made somebody mad," Campain said. "You don't understand inmates if you don't understand the jail system."
Assistant Prosecutor Bambi Couch-Page and sheriff's Capt. Larry Faith, the lead investigator on the case, snickered at some of Campain's answers. In her closing argument, Couch-Page recalled a holding cell incident as an example of Campain's dereliction of duty. "I find it ironic that he acknowledges that he transports this female, places her in an unlocked holding facility and walks away," she said. "There is no way any reasonable corrections officer would have done that."
Couch-Page said Campain took advantage of his authority to make female inmates "feel like dirt." In his closing, Fry pointed out a number of the inmates initially lied to Faith and didn't file complaints about Campain. "None of these girls reported this because none of it happened," he said. "They lied."
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