Day 2 - First Set of Witnesses

Day 2 Tues Sept 13

1st Witness

After opening remarks and then lunch, we had our first witness. He was Jerry Smith’s brother. Looked exactly like his brother who was dead. He testified that he was in bed asleep at 12:56 am on Dec. 20, 2009 Sunday (actually Sat night into the early morning Sunday). He was so sad as he retold, hearing the shot that woke him out of bed. And hearing his mother scream downstairs as his brother came through the door with blood literally pouring out of both sides of his neck. He tried to put a towel or sheet or shirt around his brother’s neck and the last words were, “they shot me”. The last time he saw his brother alive was earlier that night when his brother asked to borrow his ID so he could get some smokes.

Witness #2 was the store clerk who showed us the store video at the local Circle K where Jerry Smith bought those smokes at 12:48 that night. Eerie, very eerie. Alive one minute, dead the next. It can happen so quickly.

Very soon we heard about the life that these poor kids are living. Two brothers with their mother living in a small poor house with a white girlfriend and two little kids. The cars belong to the girlfriends and the two black boys ages 18 and 20 are NOT working. All the witnesses in this trial all tell the same story.

Witness #3 (I cannot remember the exact order, but more or less) was the first officer on the scene. I very nice man who was shocked at the amount of blood and jumped right in and tried to save the life of the boy until Fire and Rescued arrived. He had to go to the hospital for blood on hands treatment and saw Jerry Smith dead at the hospital and then returned with his dog to look for “tracks” (the smell of people sweating and running away….they claim dogs are good at this….i do not see how without some clothing of the person you are trying to track).

Witness #4 was the second officer on the scene and he tried to secure the area and start taking a “neighborhood survey”…no one saw nothing.

Witness #5 was the officer from the crime lab who labeled all the evidence on the street next to the car and the blood on the front door and inside the house. He also collected the evidence. He also took about 70 photos and we saw about 10 of them. These photos would be used throughout the entire trial.

Witness #6 was the autopsy doctor. She testified about the cause of death and we again saw some photos of Jerry Smith dead with bullet wounds on each side of his neck. She testified that the blood stains on the walls by the front door were consistent with this type of wound. She also testified that it was a large caliber bullet.

Then we had 4 witnesses. The Rimerez brothers (Mexican) who were told by Outlaw (the black defendant) that he killed someone. These two characters looked very shaky to say the least. They also visited the crime scene on Sunday with the driver of the get-a-way truck JT (Jorge Torres). Next came JT (Jorge Torres) the driver of the get-a-way truck. For some reason he was NOT charged with anything.

Since he was there when the shooting happen, he testified that Outlaw had the gun and that there was a third person with them name Daddy Mike “the mexican” who was never founded. It was JT’s testimony that we believed and that convinced us that Outlaw was guilty. It was also JT who testified that Outlaw gave him the gun to get rid of. JT gave to gun to the Rimerez brothers who gave the gun to someone else. The gun was NEVER found.

Finally we got Outlaw’s cousin. This was the worse looking of the bunch. He looked very rough and was very cocky on the witness stand. He denied everything he told the cops. He denied everything he gave in the deposition during the summer months. The judge excused the jury for the day. And court continued. It was our feeling that the judge reminded Outlaw’s cousin that he was under oath and that he was under oath when he gave his deposition….and that he was perjuring himself.