Deliberation (Part 2) - The Decision

Deliberation (Part 2)

So now that we had everyone agreeing that Mr. Outlaw was there the night of shooting, I felt a little more relaxed because we all had agreed that he was guilty of something (1st degree, 2nd degree or manslaughter). My gut feeling was that he was guilty and it was good to know that 11 other people felt the same way.

So now we moved onto the whether Outlaw had a gun or not. No gun was ever found. People started reading their notes about who said what about what, about the gun. This got confusing since we all different notes and it was hard to keep track whether something was said in deposition or on the witness stands.

Another question to the judge.
#4 can we have a copy of JT and Outlaw’s cousin transcripts ?

I gave these two questions to the bailiff to give to the judge. Phone records and Transcripts.
(Now I remember the phone records was asked in the first round of questions and the judge said they were not in evidence.)

A few moments later, we were all called into the court to hear the judges answer to the transcript request. The judge said the transcript could NOT be ready until Friday. But that we could have the testimony read back to us and that might take 1 or 2 hours. He instructed us to go back and see if we could decide without having the testimony read back.

I was pretty pissed off at this.
1. In this day and age, how can transcripts not be ready. The court reporter had at least a day to transcribe them. All we heard this morning was closing arguments.
2. The judge should have had the transcripts read without asking us to go back and decide whether we really wanted to hear them. It seem like everyone was in a rush to get this trial done in 4 days. No one wanted to come back Friday.
3. How were we going to convict a man to life in jail without the benefit of reviewing the transcripts ?

So back to the jury room we went.

So after looking at our notes, we all agreed he had a gun according to his cousin, JT (the driver) and the Rimerez brothers who got rid of the gun.

It did NOT matter whether it was his gun or the “mexican’s” gun that actually shot Jerry Smith. According to the Judge and lawyers, the law states that if you are present at the crime, you are just as guilty. It is called “principal” (One who commits or is an accomplice to a crime).

Now we turned to the second charge of robbery. Usually 1st degree murder requires premeditation. There is also something called Felony 1st degree. This states if you are committing a crime like robbery and someone is killed, they it is 1st degree.

This is where the young man from the military came in very handy. He sat the entire time in the corner of the room by the window reading his book, but for deliberation, he decided to sit next to ME. I asked him for help in reading the judge’s instructions and the definitions of the different charges etc. He was very good. Very forceful and direct. He was good at reading something and then explaining it. (I could tell he was in military intelligence. He probably has to explain to higher ups what the intelligence they were receiving meant.) And I could offset his loud voice with my calm demeanor.

The young ladies said that there was no evidence that anything was rob. And the State did not prove that they went to there to rob anyone. She had 5 people convinced. I added that I could go either way on the robbery charges.

Again the transcripts would have helped here, because we had conflicting notes about someone saying we are going to rob him.

We took another 10 min break because it got a little heated about where robbery occurred or not.

After the break, I decided to take a vote. Maybe we were all in agreement and there was no need to argue further.

We voted for 1st degree felony murder. The count was 7 to 5. I voted for 1st degree even though I was not too sure about the robbery. I knew they were trying to rob Jerry Smith, but the State had not really proved it. And anyways I wanted 2nd degree murder for the kid.

So I said ok lets discuss a little further and see if the we can convince the five about 1st degree or the 5 can convince us.

After a few more minutes of discussion, we voted again and again it was 7 to 5.

Then I said, well then we need to look at second degree murder. We voted on that and it was 11 for second degree and 1 NO !! this jurist wanted 1st degree murder. A heated discussion broke out and several people tried to explain to the jurist that we were deadlocked on 1st degree and we needed to vote for 2nd degree. So I called for a 10 min break to let things cool off.

After the break I told the group that I wanted to give each person a chance to talk. So we went one by one around the table allowing each person to have their say. Of course I started with the 5 at the end of the table who could NOT vote for robbery. One after another they expressed their doubt about whether the State proved robbery or not. Several said they knew in their gut that the boys went there to rob, but it was just not proven. After the fifth person spoke, the one remaining jury said ok, ok, I will vote for 2nd degree murder. So I quickly took another vote and got 12 for second degree murder.

Then we voted for the second count of robbery and we got 12 for no robbery.

Now it came time to fill out the paper work. Again the military guy was a pick help. The last little tough road was we had to put down whether we felt Outlaw used the gun to kill Jerry Smith OR discharged a gun OR possessed a gun OR had no gun. We voted for possessed a gun.

I signed the document and we buzzed the bailiff that we had a decision.