A former University student who was found guilty of an honor offense and expelled from the University has filed a complaint against the Honor Committee, alleging multiple counts of unfairness in his trial.
Adam Boyd, now a senior at James Madison University, was found guilty of cheating on a make-up quiz in Prof. Charles R. Tolbert's Astronomy 124 class in an October 2002 open honor trial.
In a letter sent to the Honor Committee Oct. 18, Boyd advanced three claims of unfairness in his trial.
First, Boyd claimed that Tolbert's "damaging" testimony may have been a source of unfairness. Boyd said Tolbert was "deceptive" in his grading procedure because he told Boyd the 84 he received on the quiz in question would stand after the case was initiated but later sought to give him a zero.
"When the accuser has a propensity to duplicity ... his testimony is tainted," Boyd said in his letter.
Tolbert said he did not intend to deceive Boyd in any way. "But he knew that if he cheated on the quiz, he would receive a zero," Tolbert said.
Boyd also claimed that there was procedural unfairness in the investigation conducted by the opposing counsel. Boyd said the counsel for the accused failed to conduct an interview with Astronomy Department Secretary Jacqueline Harding, who gave Boyd the make-up quiz paper. The two counselors issued a statement, however, saying they had interviewed Harding but that she "had nothing pertinent" to say, according to Boyd.
"The absence of her testimony was devastating to my case," Boyd said.
Tolbert said Harding was interviewed extensively by the investigators but did not remember the details when asked about it months later.
"Who handed out the quiz paper and what she remembers about having a discussion with students has no bearing on the act of cheating that he carried out," Tolbert said.
Boyd also claimed that the trial chair was biased and accused him of procedural misconduct. Former Honor Committee Chair Christopher Smith appointed himself the trial chair, which Boyd said presented a conflict of interest that "jeopardized the primacy of the fairness" of his trial.
"Any time the honor chair oversees all aspects of the case, it's not a good situation," Boyd said, adding that his decision to have an open trial could have been seen as an attack against the Honor Committee itself, which was not his intention.
Boyd also said Smith failed to give the jury adequate instructions and then later claimed he did.
Boyd said he does not want to gain re-admission to the University, but rather wants the Committee to correct the injustice he feels it dealt him.
"I want the Honor Committee to overturn the verdict," he said. "I never committed this act of cheating. It's something I ask them to do not because I want to be re-admitted to the University, but because of the wrongness the Honor Committee partook in."
While Honor Committee Chair Meghan Sullivan could not discuss the specifics of Boyd's case, she said the Committee is following the standard procedure for handling post-trial grievances.
A student can file a grievance in the form of a letter alleging fundamental unfairness that occurred during any stage of the trial. The executive committee discusses the merits of the grievance and decides by a majority vote whether to forward it to the entire Committee for consideration.
"Basically, it's a very open process," Sullivan said. "It's an opportunity to remedy any sort of unfairness that occurred."
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