COLUMBIA - A new attorney for former Columbia Police Officer Steven Rios authored a hypothetical article, right after the trial that called into question the efforts of Rios' original defense team.
Stone Grissom is one of Rios' new attorneys for his retrial, expected to begin in July or August. The other is Gillis Leonard of Moberly.
Grissom wrote the paper "Theory of Case" for lawyers only. The hypothetical story's defense lawyers only go through the motions to save their jobs and practically concede the loss before the trial begins.
The case in the article reads identical to Rios' case. It involves a local police officer named "Jonathan Doe, IV." The officer arrests a male college student and the two soon begin a sexual relationship. Two months later, the young man is found dead in his front yard, and John Doe is charged with murder.
Grissom said not to look too deeply into it; his story was simply a reaction to what he saw in the Rios trial.
"I used my memories of that trial as an analogy," Grissom said. "That doesn't mean that today I'm going to rely 100 percent on the words that I used in that article."
Grissom said he wrote the story to teach lawyers successful practices in the courtroom. He also said it's easy to take his words out of context and that it wasn't a shot at Rios' former defense attorneys.
To read Grissom's article, click on the links to the left.
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