Lawyers for three of the 12 former educators on trial in the Atlanta Public Schools cheating case rested their cases Monday afternoon, two of them without calling any witnesses.
As the pace of the trial picks up, two defense attorneys finished calling witnesses Monday afternoon.
Bob Rubin, who represents former Dobbs Elementary School principal Dana Evans, called the last of 18 witnesses just before the 12:30 p.m. break.
Defense attorney George Lawson, who represented former school district executive director Michael Pitts, followed, calling only a state official who talked about programs available to help failing schools and classrooms.
Then Lawson rested his case.
Earlier Monday, once jurors had returned from lunch, lawyers for Theresia Copeland, former testing coordinator at Benteen Elementary School, and Shani Robinson, a former Dunbar Elementary School teacher, rested. They did not call any witnesses.
In answer to questions from Judge Jerry Baxter, Copeland, Robinson and former Dobbs Elementary teacher Dessa Curb said they had decided not to testify. Pitts, who was over a cluster of APS schools, also told the judge earlier in the day that he would not testify. Former Dobbs Elementary School principal Dana Evans made the same announcement last week.
The other seven defendants have not said in open court whether they will take the stand.
Baxter has said he will tell jurors they are not to read anything into any defendant’s decision not to testify.
The defendants are fighting charges that they conspired to change students’ answers on the 2009 Criterion-Referenced Competency Test, mostly at under-performing schools, to ensure the district had improved scores to comply with mandatory standards.
All 12 are charged with racketeering and could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison if they are convicted.
So far, only Evans’ lawyer has finished calling witnesses.
Attorneys for other defendants from Dobbs Elementary have used the witnesses called by other defendants to try to boost jurors’ perceptions of their respective clients. They have tried to show that previous prosecution witnesses offered damaging testimony because of long-held grudges and not because of cheating. Defense lawyers have tried to portray those witnesses as bad employees who were often tardy or left classes unattended.
The recurring theme from defense witnesses is that Evans was a “visionary” trying to fix a broken school. Several have testified that Evans’ management message was, “We’re all in this together.”
“She believed in our students. She made sure they had the tools to be successful and prepared for the 21st century,” Deandrea Johnson, a media specialist at Dobbs for the past eight years, testified Monday.
Another witness on Monday also repeated what others had said before: that some of the former educators lied when they testified for the prosecution.
Lori Revere-Paulk, once a math teacher at Dobbs, was one prosecution witness accused of lying in her testimony about her suspicions of cheating.
“I don’t think she may have told the truth,” testified Deborah Bythwood Murray, a retired reading coach.
At the same time, Murray said, some of the former educators who pleaded guilty in the case and some of the defendants were good teachers.
“She was an excellent teacher. She had good delivery, good rapport with her students,” Murray said of defendant Angela Williamson, who taught at Dobbs.
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