• 28
  • December
    2011

As Molly Hennessy-Fiske reports for the Los Angeles Times, a $150 billion jury award for the estate of Robert Ray Middleton, who was 20 when he died, makes it the largest such award for personal injury in U.S. history.

"This is a plea for justice," says Middleton's lawyer, who hopes that the huge jury award will convince prosecutors to charge 26-year-old Don Collins, who, at 13, is said to have perpetrated sexual assault on an 8-year-old Middleton and then set him on fire two weeks later.

Collins is already in prison for an unrelated sex crime and is set to be released, as Hennessy-Fiske reports, this coming September. If Collins is charged with sexual assault and for setting Middleton on fire, he could face a substantial number of years in prison, though it does not appear likely that he will be charged.

At the time of the 1998 incident, investigators could not find hard physical evidence against Collins. (Collins was arrested shortly after the burn incident but was released and never charged.) Local prosecutor David Walker says, "There will be people who will say that's an excuse," referring to the lack of evidence, "but the professionals here worked very hard."

In Texas, allegations of sexual assault are taken very seriously. If charged, Collins will most certainly face felony charges, which carry with them years in prison upon conviction.

Source: Los Angeles Times, "Jury awards record $150 billion to family of burned boy," by Molly Hennessy-Fiske, 12/21/11