The Honor Committee granted an appeal May 4 to second-year Engineering student Patricia Gonzales, who was found guilty of cheating on an organic chemistry exam and was subsequently expelled from the University.
Gonzales now will stand a second trial, probably next fall, Committee Chairman Thomas Hall said.
Third-year College student Matthew Sachs, a teaching assistant in Gonzales' CHEM 241 course, initiated the charges and Gonzales was found guilty in an open honor trial -- the first open honor trial since Sept. 1998.
Gonzales filed an appeal that was granted after Committee members agreed that Gonzales was denied the explicit right to choose her own counsel in the initial trial. All accused students have the right to choose their own counsel.
Before the trial, she selected third-year College student Winston Gwathmey as her head counsel because he was familiar with organic chemistry, the subject in which she allegedly cheated. But at the time, Gonzales did not know that Gwathmey was acquainted with Sachs, the TA who filed the charges.
Gwathmey was a student in the same discussion section as Gonzales for the CHEM 241 course, said first-year Law student Jose Cora, who represented Gonzales in the appeal.
Before the trial, Committee members decided the fact that Gwathmey knew Sachs did not present a conflict of interest to the case.
If the Committee feels honor counsels "in their professional judgment can serve in a fair and unbiased manner, it's not really a problem" if they have been students under a case initiator, Hall said.
But the Committee neglected to inform Gonzales of either Gwathmey's acquaintance with Sachs or the question of whether this could have posed a conflict of interest.
Committee members "had exclusive control of that information," said Cora, who represented Gonzales in the appeal. "There would be no way she could have gotten that information unless the Committee had provided it to her."
Gonzales also claimed in the appeal that Gwathmey was incompetent as counsel. But an appeal panel of three Committee members found this claim to be without merit, Hall said.
The appeal panel "did not believe it was more likely than not that [incompetence] would affect the outcome of the trial," Cora said.
He said Gonzales probably will choose to hold a closed trial next fall.
Accused students may choose to open their cases to the public before each stage of the process during pre-trial and pre-appeals hearings but most students opt to have closed trials.
Amy Campbell, chairwoman of Gonzales' trial, said the appeal went extremely well and that the case presented honor representatives with a tough decision.
"They agonized and took a long time" to reach a decision, Campbell said. "It was by no means an easy decision."
Gonzales, Sachs and Gwathmey could not be reached for comment.
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