photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Defendant Miquel Brown, left, leaves the courtroom after a jury found him guilty of rape and aggravated criminal sodomy on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025, in Douglas County District Court.

Updated at 5:35 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 5

Douglas County jurors on Wednesday found a 33-year-old Lawrence man guilty of rape and aggravated criminal sodomy — in a case where they had to determine whether the woman’s silent conduct amounted to consent and whether she had been overcome by fear.

A jury took about four hours to determine that Miquel Brown was guilty of the two felonies stemming from an Oct. 27, 2024, incident involving an 18-year-old. The teen said he assaulted her on his living room couch, where she was spending the night after an evening out with the man and his girlfriend.

Brown displayed little discernible reaction as Judge Sally Pokorny read the verdicts. The victim, holding hands with her supporters, looked on quietly from the gallery.

Defense attorney Gary West asked for the jurors to be polled, prompting seven men and five women to each separately stand and affirm that their vote was for “guilty.”

All testimony in the trial agreed that the 2024 encounter began with the man sitting beside the teen on the couch and massaging her legs — the teen said it began with her feet at an earlier hearing, but at trial she said it started suddenly at her thigh. The touching then progressed to the man undressing her and touching her genital area with his fingers and mouth. The woman said intercourse occurred. Brown said it had not.

All testimony indicated that the teen never pulled away, never said no and never attempted to get off the couch. Testimony also indicated that the man did not threaten the teen or pressure her, and the state said it was not alleging that Brown had ever used “force.”

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Senior Assistant District Attorney Ricardo Leal addresses the jury in the Miquel Brown trial on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025, in Douglas County District Court.

The state, represented by Senior Assistant District Attorney Ricardo Leal, argued that the teen did not consent to any sexual activity and had simply been overcome by “fear” of an older, much larger man — 360 pounds to her 123 — to the extent that she froze, unable to react, as he “used” her.

The defense, however, contended that “all the facts demonstrate consent” and that the fear she claimed to have felt was not warranted by the circumstances. Among those circumstances was the fact that she had a good relationship with the man, whom she had known all her life and considered “a brother.” Why would she suddenly become fearful and unable to talk to him now? West wondered in his closing argument. Why wouldn’t she have said “thanks, but no thanks,” he said, as the massaging began and then gradually progressed? She had plenty of opportunity to pull back, which he said would have been the “natural reaction” to unwanted touching.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Defense attorney Gary West addresses the jury in the Miquel Brown case on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025, in Douglas County District Court.

When asked at trial Tuesday what had made her so afraid that she couldn’t say no at any point, the teen told Leal: “The idea that he would hurt me.”

West seized on that statement, telling jurors that an “idea” in someone’s mind that is “never voiced” was insufficient to convict a person of rape.

“He never used his size against her,” West said. “… There must be something that causes the fear” apart from an internal “idea.”

“All the facts demonstrate consent,” West said, adding that, “Positive verbal affirmation is not required under the law. If it were, many people would be in trouble.”

“At some point in time a person is responsible for their own agency,” he said.

Leal countered that the teen was “terrified” and didn’t say yes or “participate” in the encounter. He noted that, according to a police video played for the jury, Brown said that when he looked at the teen as he was touching her “her face looked like nothing.”

“She’s just there and he uses her,” Leal said, betraying the teen’s trust in the sibling-like relationship they had.

“Some people freeze when they’re afraid,” he told the jury. “She wanted to get through it.”

West told jurors that the teen had moved in ways to facilitate the touching, and in the police interview, Brown said he interpreted sounds she made as moaning.

West conceded that jurors might find Brown’s behavior “icky” and might not feel comfortable with the way he behaved toward someone who had been like family to him but that he had done nothing illegal.

“To betray someone is not a crime,” he said.

The defense also questioned the teen’s assertion that she was frozen into speechlessness during the encounter because testimony indicated that she had spoken to a dog in the room, telling it to go away as the sexual activity was taking place.

West also questioned the thoroughness of the police investigation, criticizing officers for, among other things, not collecting a suspect sex assault kit and for engaging in “confirmation bias,” which he characterized as “believing what they wanted to believe and disregarding the rest.”

Though Brown’s police interview was played for the jury — during which he denied sexual activity four times before finally admitting it — Brown did not take the stand Wednesday and tell his version of events.

The defense’s one witness was a forensic scientist who challenged the state’s interpretation of the DNA evidence in the case. The expert, Stephanie Beine, told the jury that the findings in the KBI report were not consistent with the teen’s claim that penetrative sex with ejaculation had occurred.

Under Kansas law, rape includes penetration of the female sex organ by a finger, a male sex organ or any object.

After the guilty verdicts, Leal asked for Brown to be immediately incarcerated, given the severity of his crimes, but Judge Pokorny denied that request, noting that he had not had any issues while on bond. He will remain out of jail until his sentencing, which is scheduled for Dec. 22.

In a news release Wednesday evening, Douglas County District Attorney Dakota Loomis said: “The defendant used his position of trust and authority over the victim to commit unforgivable abuse. Thankfully, the courage and resolve shown by the victim in this case allowed us to hold this defendant accountable. Our office remains committed to seeking justice for survivors of sexual violence and will continue working with our law enforcement partners to do just that.”

The DA thanked the Lawrence Police Department for its “thorough investigation.”

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Senior Assistant District Attorney Ricardo Leal points to defendant Miquel Brown during his closing argument on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025, in Douglas County District Court. From left are attorney Gart West, Brown, attorney Jessica Glendening and Leal. Assistant DA Britt Welch is at right foreground.