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The fate of Michael Charles Kistner is in the hands of the jury.
Day two of his trial began today with the defendant again failing to appear in court.
Kistner, 23, of 402 W. Main St., Warsaw, is being tried in absentia on three counts of dealing in a controlled substance, all Class B felonies. He is accused of trading a portable CD player for 50 phenobarbital tablets to a 13-year-old girl. State law does not require a defendant to appear for his trial and jurors were instructed that Kistner's apsence should not be seen as an admission of guilt.
The teen-ager and her 13-year-old friend both required medical attention after swallowing seven to 12 of the tablets each.
The girls, both now 14, testified Monday, during the first day of the trial in Kosciusko Circuit Court.
One of the girls testified that she approached Kistner about the tablets because "I had heard that he was selling them" and she wanted them to "get high."
The ninth-grader, who appeared bored with the whole court process, told Kosciusko County Prosecutor Chuck Waggoner during direct examination that she didn't know what the pills were when she got them, but that she and her friend "sat down and started taking them."
Throughout her testimony, the 14-year-old kept her elbows on the witness stand, often shifting her chin from one hand to the other and sometime chewing a fingernail. She claimed that after taking the pills, "I couldn't walk straight. I couldn't talk straight," and believes the drug affected her memory of the occurrences of April 20, 1999.
A runaway at the time the overdose occurred, the teen-ager admitted to Waggoner that she "would just like for this all to go away."
Defense attorney Mike Reed questioned the teen as to why she said one thing in an April statement but another on the stand Monday.
"You lied to me in the statement, but today, in court, it's the truth, is what you're saying?"
Despite the absence of his client, Reed challenged whether it was Kistner or a 17-year-old who lived with Kistner at the time who gave the pills to the girls.
Now 18, Joshua Hamilton also took the stand Monday, telling jurors that he helped Kistner sell the pills because he was afraid of him and claimed that Kistner threatened to beat him up if he didn't do it. Reed also went after Hamilton's credibility, pointing out that earlier statements made to police didn't include those facts or the fact that he witnessed the transaction of drugs for a CD player between Kistner and the 13-year-old girl.
Hamilton testified that he flushed the remainder of the tablets down the toilet at Kistner's request after it was learned that the girls were hospitalized, and that he threw the bottle the pills had come in outside before police arrived.
Also testifying for the state were Ptl. Joe Stanley of the Warsaw Police Department; Jill McBride, a forensic scientist with the Indiana State Police laboratory; and a Kosciusko County Jail inmate who overheard a conversation involving Kistner and another man regarding the sale of the pills a few days prior to the incident involving the teen-age girls.
The state rested its case about 3:30 p.m. Monday and court resumed this morning with the defense presenting its case. The case went to the jury at about 10:45 s.m. today.
