Roughly a month ago I had a murder trial that involved a client who claimed he acted in self defense. Self-defense seems like a great route to go when you kill someone, until you realize the hurdles that need to be leapt over to be able to justify taking another human beings life. The trial started on a Monday morning and what was different about this as opposed to a lot of other trials I handle, is that it was the only one on the docket and I knew there would be no l last second plea deal. In a lot of situations a trial is set with a bunch of other trials and either the trial doesn’t go because another case set for trial is older, or a plea deal is reached day of trial. I had negotiated a plea deal for this client that was a fairly good deal under the circumstances. My client turned the deal down and due to it being a murder trial the judge we were in front of had cleared the docket for the week for our trial. I’d rather no I am going to trial than have a situation where it could plead out, it could get adjourned, or for whatever reason your trial leap frogs other trials you thought were ahead of your trial.

Jury selection is what begins the entire process and I actually had been called for jury duty the previous summer so I was then able to peek behind the curtain. When you go to jury duty in Kent County they play a video for you and the video they play has the chief judge explaining the process. His staff was involved in filming the video and when he thought the video was done he proceeded to ask his staff “how was that?” I went up and told him about it and he then proceeded to pull some strings to I was never actually called up to possibly be selected as a juror. They filled the courtroom with potential jurors and already had the first 14 jurors go in the jury box to begin the process. For a life offense each attorney is allowed 12 peremptory challenges where you can excuse a potential juror and not need any basis to do so. In addition, there are challenges for cause if there is an actual reason the person would not be suited to sit on a jury. Of the first segment of jurors, one of them was wearing a slip knot T-shirt and struck me as the type of guy I’d want on the jury, unfortunately the prosecutor realized this and booted the guy. The judge started out by asking the 14 people seated if they had any issues that would preclude them from serving on the jury. One of the jurors indicated that they have to pee every forty five minutes, making it impractical for them to sit on the jury since they take breaks every hour and a half or so. A second juror indicated that he had severe anxiety and that he was having a panic attack at that very moment, to make matters worse he had already burned through his allotted days worth of medication and it was only 9:30. Needless to say both of those jurors were excused for cause. In addition, another juror had to reveal to the entire courtroom that they had IBS and were summarily excused for cause as well.

After that was taken care of and three more jurors were seated and indicated they had nothing holding them back from serving as a juror, the prosecutor began his questioning of the potential jurors. As he began to question jurors, sobbing could be heard from the back of the courtroom. One of the judges clerks eventually alerted him to the disturbance in the courtroom but he decided we could continue on and address it later. However, it got louder and the judge was forced to stop the questioning and deal with the disturbance. The sobbing juror indicated to the court that she had PTSD from an auto accident and her sobbing turned into a complete meltdown. The judge allowed her to be excused and as she left she attempted to stifle her tears and told the judge through sobs, I’ll be good in six months, you can call me back then.

Mid morning we had a jury of 14 and were ready to start the trial. The prosecutor gave his opening statement and I reserved mine. I don’t always reserve mine, but it seemed like the proper strategy under the circumstances. The killing took place at what is referred to as a trap house. A trap house is a place where people do crack and hang out. I prefer to just hang out, but if there’s crack available I totally get it. Technically Big Sed was on the lease and the one responsible for not paying the rent. This particular night there were a lot more people at the trap house than normal because they were throwing Big Sed a going away party, he was being evicted. Big Sed was one of the many witnesses that the prosector called for his case in chief. Big Sed was legally blind and couldn’t see shit. Big Sed was also present in the kitchen when the victim in the case was killed and claimed to see what happened. On cross examination I held up a picture for Big Sed from the podium where I was questioning him, he had no idea what it was, I went five feet closer, he still had no idea what it was, I had to get within a foot of him for him to be able to identify what was in the picture.

There were a number of other people who testified who were present at the trap house who testified but none of them actually saw exactly what happened (neither did Big Sed) other than one witness who claimed to have seen the entire altercation that led to the shooting. He testified that the victim was shot with a revolver and that it was chrome in color and had a cherry butt to it. The actual murder weapon was a semi automatic black handgun. The rest of the witnesses who were at the trap house testified to events and circumstances leading up to the shooting but did not witness the actual shooting. In looking through the police reports there was another person who was interviewed who claimed to have witnessed the shooting, I was wondering why she wasn’t testifying until I realized she was dead. In addition to her being dead, there was another witness who died along the way. Almost every witness who was involved with the trap house had a nickname, Butters, big Sed, little Sed, Dee Dee, and Snots were just a few of the nicknames of the witnesses from the incident.

After the prosecution rested I made my opening statement and called the only witness I had other than my client. Turns out, the Friday before trial a new witness surfaced who claimed to have been at the trap house when the shooting occurred and saw the decedent with a gun in his hand prior to being shot. Conveniently this witness was housed at the jail so I could speak with her but inconveniently she was a completely unreliable crack head. She testified to what she told me she was going to testify to and then my client took the stand. Many of you may know this, maybe all of you, but a person has the right to decline testifying if the person so chooses. However, it’s pretty hard to establish a claim of self defense without doing so. I wouldn’t say things were going splendidly when I got my client up to the part where he shot Cocoa, but they weren’t going terribly either. However, this particular judge allowed the jury to write down questions after every witness testified that they had for that particular witness. There were two questions they had for my client and one of the questions resulted in him elaborating on the shooting and indicating that he continued to shoot the victim even when he had dropped his gun. The amount of force used to defend oneself needs to be reasonable and justified. Once my client indicated Cocoa no longer had his gun and he continued to shoot, his actions were neither.

I have since left my partnership but when I was in it we had a partner who left and we all hated him. He had a jury come back with a guilty verdict in 11 minutes once. That was the threshold for all of us whenever we went to trial. I blew way past the 11 minute mark, the jurors took lunch and then deliberated until 3:30, coming back with a guilty verdict. Unfortunately, it was to first degree murder, meaning they believed it was premeditated and more importantly that my client is going to prison for the rest of his life. The good news for him, because he went to trial he has an automatic right to appeal.