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Sex-assault conviction is reinstated
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
10/18/2007
St. Louis — The conviction of a former Baptist minister from the Bootheel for sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl was reinstated Wednesday after twice being overturned in state and federal appeals courts.
The 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in St. Louis reversed a decision by a three-member panel of its own judges.
At issue was whether James R. Niederstadt, 55, of Malden, Mo., could be convicted of forcible sodomy despite the fact that his victim was asleep when he fondled her in 1992.
The teen had been entrusted to him by her parents, who were missionaries abroad. She was ill, and when she awoke to find him fondling her, he told her he had been taking her temperature, court documents say.
He also physically abused her, the state court said.
Niederstadt, first convicted in 2000, was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
He appealed, saying prosecutors did not prove "forcible compulsion" since the girl was asleep. The Missouri Court of Appeals agreed in a 2001 ruling. But about six months later, the state Supreme Court reversed it, saying the "totality of circumstances" did support the charge.
Last year, a three-member federal appeals panel voted 2-1 to overturn the conviction, saying Niederstadt did not have "fair warning" that fondling a sleeping girl could be prosecuted as forcible sodomy.
But on Wednesday, the full federal appeals court voted 8-3 to support Niederstadt's conviction, saying the defendant received due process and knew that "despicable sexual abuse of a sleeping teenage victim would be punished in this fashion."
hratcliffe@post-dispatch.com | 314-621-5804
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