Murder in the Fourth Degree

The trial was a murder trial.  I was chosen as an alternate.  The prosecution claimed the defendant shot his common-law wife because he was afraid she was going to leave him.  The defense claims the defendant was handling his firearm and the gun went off, maybe because he reflexively, but unintentionally squeezed the trigger.

On the surface it seems simple enough.  Husbands kill their wives all the time.  My understanding is that usually it's the husband at fault when a wife is murdered.  The "cleaning my gun and it went off by accident" is so unbelievable it's a cliché indicating a lie.  

Both sides told their story.  The prosecution's story sounded believable enough, the only problem was the evidence didn't fit.  

    As the prosecution tells it: the defendant, a poor but attractive young man, angered because he thought his wife might leave him, told his wife to get on her knees execution-style and shot her in the back of the head.  
    The defendant told his side of the story shortly after being arrested, and it was the same version the defense attorney presented in court: the defendant, and avid gun fan, was sitting on the bed in their bedroom taking the clips out of, and making sure his guns were unloaded in preparation to clean them.  His wife was cooking dinner, and she came in to talk to him about dinner.  She bent over to tie her shoe lace or to fiddle with her shoe and the defendant accidentally shot her in the back of the head.  He immediately called 911, and tried to resuscitate her with the help of the 911 operator.

The prosecution submitted as evidence that the death was intentional:

• The body was not lying directly in front of the door but instead was about 2 feet inside the bedroom and had therefore been dragged.
• There was delay before the defendant opened the door after police arrived, therefore he was in there hiding something.
• A gun doesn't go off if the clip isn't in it.
• An undated letter was found in the apartment, apparently from the deceased to the defendant, stating that she'd like to spend some time apart from him.
• The gun cleaning kits weren't on the bed next to the defendant, but were instead on a table in the living room.
• There were gun magazines indicating this was a gun-guy.

The defense of course doesn't have to prove its case, but in refute of what the prosecution contended:

• The defendant couldn't have stood above the deceased execution style and shot her in the back of the head because: a) the bullet wound was across the back of the head, right to left, down to up, entering behind the ear and exiting in the back of the skull, and b) a dent was found were the bullet struck the living room wall about 5 feet off the floor height.  If the defendant shot her as the prosecution contends: a) he would of had to of bent his arm up as he bent over at a very awkward angle or the deceased would have had to have been positioned at an impossible angle, and b) the bullet would have dented the floor, or some low part of the wall.  The angle and dent were, however, consistent with the defendant's story.
• The body wasn't laying directly in front of the door because the deceased fell forward after she was shot.  There were no drag marks or any indication the body was moved.
• There was a delay before the defendant opened the door because he was inside on the phone with 911.  This was corroborated by the 911 time logs and the police time logs which show while the defendant was on the phone the police were on the scene.
• This gun was a cheap copy of an assault pistol, and in fact went off many times without a clip in it.  A professional firearms witness for the prosecution testified that the gun was so poorly built, that when they were test firing it, not only would it go off without a clip in it, but that it would fire twice when the clip was in and that trigger pull was very light at just a couple pounds.
• The defense acknowledged the letter and said it was about 3 years old.
• The gun cleaning kit was in the living room because the defendants intent was to move to the living room to clean the guns after unloading them where they were kept, which was the bedroom. 

Sitting there and listening to the testimony I just couldn't figure out how the prosecution's story could possibly be true.  None of the evidence matched any of their contentions, but the evidence did match the defense's.  Watching the prosecution I grew increasingly to feel that this was just a job to them, that they had many other cases to try, that the case was very poorly put together, they knew it, and didn't care.  Charts were drawn inaccurately, defense contentions were made that were never refuted, and the prosecution contradicted itself several times and seemed confused about the facts.  Just the whole spectacle felt contrived.  I thought about the two versions of what happened: the defense's seemed possible but unlikely; the prosecution's didn't seem possible.  The prosecution sure as heck didn't prove anything.  Forget "reasonable doubt:" the prosecution's story didn't even make sense.

The Defense attorney seemed to nail the major points acceptably, but didn't seem to really hammer them home with the jury.  The defense attorney seemed inexperienced and seemed to have the attitude that the truthfulness of the defense was so very obvious that he didn't need to belabor his points. 

I didn't sit in the jury room for deliberation because I was an alternate.  I did however manage to get the phone numbers of some of the jurors so I could talk to them about their discussions after the trial was over.  We never broke the rules about the jurors discussing the case outside the courtroom while the trail was going, but after the matter was settled we did talk.  The jurors deliberated for about 3 days.  The court called me to tell me the jury had decided: Guilty - 2nd degree murder.  I was floored.  I called one of my fellow jurors to find out what the discussion had been in the jury room, and he told me they spent a lot of time trying to convict the defendant of 2nd degree murder, but had trouble coming up with any kind of evidence to validate that verdict.  That was why a 3 day delay: they were struggling to find a way to give the defendant the tougher sentence.  I asked him if he had tried the gun.  He replied he had and that indeed the trigger pull was very light.  I mentioned that none of the prosecution's evidence supported their story, and he said, "Yeah, I know."  I asked him "Then how in the heck could you convict him?"  The juror replied "He had all those guns.  Something bad was bound to happen sooner or later.  People shouldn't have all those guns."

Convicted because of gun prejudice.  The defense attorney sure didn't do his job.  He was probably a public defender.  This defendant was quite poor and I can't imagine him paying for a lawyer.  This jury wanted to convict so bad they ignored the facts.

I don't know if the defendant intentionally murdered his wife.  What I do know is the prosecution did not prove their case beyond "a reasonable doubt."  Not by a country mile.  

I've often thought about how I'll find myself squeezing something unconsciously or pressing a key on the keyboard unintentionally if I'm thinking about something that bothers me.  I wonder if this defendant did something similar and he really did just squeeze the trigger unintentionally.  The only thing that offers me solace is that I'm sure there was an appeal based on the defense's complete lack of ability to put on a basic defense.

Now when someone asks me "Did you hang 'em?" it makes me sick to my stomach.

Updated May 12, 2001