CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – After three days of testimony and two hours and 15 minutes of jury deliberation, former EMT Samuel Rutherford, charged with two counts of rape, was found not guilty by a jury.
On March 10, 2017, Clarksville police responded to a call on Alfred Thun Road in Clarksville concerning an incident involving an emergency medical technician (EMT) who was transporting a patient from a hospital in Nashville. Rutherford, then 20 years old and from Hendersonville, was in the rear of the private ambulance with a female patient. The victim told law enforcement Rutherford forced her to perform oral sex on him.
After listening to all of the witness testimony and evidence presented, a jury of Rutherford’s peers on Thursday found him not guilty.
A missed opportunity
District Attorney General Nash led his closing argument by repeating the phrase, “I wasn’t going to miss out on an opportunity,” which is what the defendant told Clarksville Police detectives after the incident seven years ago.
Nash told the jury that in order for there to be reasonable doubt about the rape charge, they had to believe that after the victim underwent two major back surgeries – the second resulting in a three-day hospital stay where she was routinely drugged and sedated – the first thing she wanted to do after an hour in an ambulance was to perform oral sex on a 20-year-old stranger.
“Nothing in the law says jurors have to leave their common sense and life experiences outside the door of the courtroom,” Nash said. “You bring those with you. Does that sound reasonable? That the victim, in that condition, initiated anything with Mr. Rutherford? Or did he seize an opportunity to fill his desire with a helpless patient strapped to the bed?”
Nash read directly from the defendant’s statement he made in 2017.
“I just, like, I wasn’t thinking. I’m 20 versus 43, and I haven’t been around the block, per se. So, I wasn’t going to, I guess, miss out on an opportunity, and I should have. I should have stopped everything that was going on and talked to my partner and talked to my supervisor, and let them know that it had happened. But, instead, I tried to play it off, like it was an OK thing to do, and that’s part of the reason I wanted to take my life. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to be in trouble; it was because I felt so terrible for what I had done to someone who can’t even say yes or no.”
An opportunity for money
Jeff Grimes, Rutherford’s defense attorney, doubled down on the victim’s ability to consent, and he suggested that she saw this as an opportunity to get money from a lawsuit.
“We know she wasn’t physically helpless because we heard her talking in the back of the ambulance,” Grimes told the jury, referring to the police interview at the scene. “You heard her voice, there was no slurring, she was very clear, her memory appeared to be very clear and she spoke rapidly.”
“And there’s something else. Right away, the gratuitous offering of, ‘I’m not a whore, I’m not that kind of lady,'” Grimes said. “Isn’t that kind of weird? First thing she wants to offer up is, ‘I’m not a whore’? Just like someone who’s, maybe, protesting a little too much.”
He discussed the convenience of the victim testifying that she couldn’t remember anything other than waking up with a man’s genitals in her mouth.
“You know why that’s really convenient? For this lawsuit she’s got filed!” Grimes told the jurors. “She doesn’t even know how much money she’s suing for. That’s her opportunity. That’s her opportunity to make bank because she participated in something, willfully, knowingly, and then regretted it as soon as they got caught.”
Grimes told the jury he doubts the victim doesn’t remember anything, and he could tell that some of the jurors didn’t believe her either.
He explained that his client was on a shame spiral after being told by his partner he was going to jail, told by a police officer that he was going to pay, and then shackled to the wall in an interrogation room.
“Just because the government wants you to convict somebody doesn’t mean you have to,” Grimes said to the jury. “Don’t let her use her opportunity to make some dollars.”
Not guilty verdict
With closing arguments finished, the jury retired to deliberate. About two hours later, they returned with a verdict. A tense silence filled the divided courtroom: on one side, Rutherford’s family and friends, and on the other, the victim and her family.
The foreman stood and read the verdict: not guilty on both charges. Immediately, Rutherford appeared to take a gasp of air. He relaxed into his seat and let his head fall back as he looked up at the ceiling in relief.
Judge Robert Bateman thanked the jury and dismissed them, then asked Rutherford and his counsel to rise. With tears running down his face, Rutherford and his attorneys, Timothy Warren and Grimes, stood.
“Mr. Samuel Paul Rutherford, a jury of your peers has found you not guilty as to count one of your indictments, and not guilty as to count two of your indictment. The charges against you are dismissed.”
Outside the courtroom, some of the jurors spoke with Clarksville Now. They said the decision was based on the judge’s instructions, and they said there were inconsistencies in testimony that left them with reasonable doubt. Clarksville Now does not identify jury members.
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