Vocabulary > Justice > USA > Jury > Verdict

12 November 2004
http://www.paloaltodailynews.com/
http://www.paloaltodailynews.com/dailynews/http/peterson.html

Danny Lewin, Geoff Shenk, Katherine Lewin and Katie Lewin
read Extra edition put out by the Redwood City Daily News
after the verdict in the Scott Peterson trial
in Redwood City, California, November 12, 2004.

Peterson, 32, was found guilty in the Christmas Eve 2002 murder of
his pregnant wife, Laci Peterson, in a family-next-door case that captivated America.
The jury also found Peterson guilty of the second-degree murder of their unborn child.

Photo by Pool/Reuters.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6803722

After a trial that attracted nationwide attention,
California fertilizer salesman Scott Peterson, 32,
was found guilty on November 12, 2004
 in the Christmas Eve 2002 murder of his pregnant wife.

Peterson and defense attorney Mark Geragos
are seen in the courtroom November 3.

Photo by Pool/Reuters.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml
?type=topNews&storyID=6803722&pageNumber=1

Steve Benson

The Arizona Republic

Cagle

16.11.2004
http://cagle.slate.msn.com/politicalcartoons/PCcartoons/benson.asp
http://www.unitedmedia.com/editoons/benson/

Related
http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/11/12/peterson.verdict/

jury system
http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/j/jury_system/index.html

jury
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/14/us/kermit-gosnell-abortion-doctor-found-guilty-of-murder.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/nyregion/joshua-komisarjevsky-gets-death-for-cheshire-killings.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/04/us/prosecutors-say-doctors-greed-caused-jacksons-death.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/06/nyregion/06cheshire.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-03-14-couey-sentence_N.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-10-10-internet-defamation-case_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-04-24-moussaoui_x.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/13/us/simpson-s-lawyers-are-questioning-the-first-prospective-jurors-about-hung-juries.html
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/09/30/us/simpson-trial-to-have-304-in-jury-pool.html
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/09/29/us/simpson-trial-judge-rules-for-quick-selection-of-jury.html
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/09/28/us/many-willing-to-serve-on-simpson-jury.html

a majority of the nine men and three women on the Los Angeles Superior Court jury

deliberate
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/14/us/kermit-gosnell-abortion-doctor-found-guilty-of-murder.html

jury > begin deliberations
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/06/nyregion/06cheshire.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/us/politics/30jefferson.html

mitigating circumstances
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/06/nyregion/06cheshire.html

the jury's findings on the 10-count indictment against...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/jackson/story/0,15819,1506027,00.html

state jury
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/us/12nichols.html

federal jury
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/23/nyregion/23fortdix.html

members of the jury

 in the jury box

on a jury
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/21/opinion/jurors-can-say-no.html

foreman
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/06/nyregion/06cheshire.html
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/07/30/us/AP-US-Serial-Shootings.html

forewoman

jury pool / potential jurors
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-02-24-moussaoui-trial_x.htm

jury selection / screening
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-01-16-libby-trial_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-07-10-lunsford-case_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2006-01-30-enron-trial-starts_x.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/28/us/issues-of-race-are-raised-in-simpson-jury-selection.html

jury pool
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/27/us/4-removed-from-simpson-jury-pool-after-watching-tv.html
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/25/us/judge-rejects-simpson-prosecutor-s-bid-to-dismiss-jury-pool.html
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/14/us/members-of-simpson-jury-pool-paint-self-portraits-mostly-glowing-of-themselves.html

be sworn in
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/09/us/simpson-jury-is-sworn-in-but-opening-arguments-still-appear-to-be-months-away.html

impartial panel
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-07-13-jury-selection-stopped_x.htm

serve on the jury

juror
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/16/sports/baseball/as-roger-clemenss-trial-drags-jurors-keep-dozing.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-02-26-libby-jurors_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2005-06-13-jackson_x.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/14/us/simpson-jurors-seen-as-12-angry-people.html
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/05/02/us/judge-allows-7th-juror-to-leave-simpson-panel.html
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/06/us/judge-replaces-a-sixth-simpson-juror.html
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/09/27/us/simpson-trial-starts-with-search-for-jurors-free-for-next-6-months.html
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/11/04/us/the-12-judging-simpson.html
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/11/04/us/a-jury-is-chosen-to-hear-the-simpson-murder-case.html

be dismisssed
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-02-26-libby-jurors_x.htm

juror number

Juror 8

jury box
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/16/nyregion/16cheshire.html

jury box chair

the juror in the first seat in the first row of the jury box
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/16/nyregion/16cheshire.html

get case

face up to 10 years in prison

three strikes and you’re out
http://www.silicon-valley.com/3strikes.html
http://www.legal-explanations.com/definitions/three-strikes-youre-out.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1164204,00.html

face life in prison

face / get life in prison without parole
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-05-30-md-sniper-trial_x.htm

face a sentence as long as life in prison if convicted

deliberate
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/06/nyregion/06cheshire.html

deliberations
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-02-26-libby-jurors_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-04-25-moussaoui-jury_x.htm

have three sentencing options:
the death penalty, life in prison with parole, or life without parole
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/us/12nichols.html

deserve the death penalty

vote
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-03-14-couey-sentence_N.htm

vote to impose the death penalty on...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/nyregion/joshua-komisarjevsky-gets-death-for-cheshire-killings.html

reach a decision
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/us/12nichols.html

decide
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-03-14-couey-sentence_N.htm

deadlock
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/us/12nichols.html

deadlock > mistrial
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-04-25-terror-mistrial_x.htm

call for a mistrial
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/us/12nichols.html

 follow the jury's recommendation
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-10-23-richmond-slayings_x.htm

hung jury > unable to reach a verdict

hand the case over to the eight-woman, four-man panel

be handed the case by Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville

get case

deliberate

deliberations

weigh a Santa Barbara County Grand jury indictment that charges Jackson
with four counts of molesting a 13-year-old boy,
four counts of plying the young cancer patient with alcohol in order to abuse him,
one count of conspiracy and one count of attempted molestation

work behind closed doors

announce a deadlock

verdict
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/10/04/opinion/the-simpson-verdict.html

reach a verdict / verdicts
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/10/03/us/
simpson-trial-overview-verdict-reached-simpson-s-trial-ito-defers-announcement.html

guilty verdict
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/12/us/verdict-in-killing-of-jennifer-hudsons-relatives.html

unanimous decision

beyond any reasonable doubt / beyond a reasonable doubt

prove beyond a reasonable doubt

guilt
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/22/troy-davis-execution-last-words

guilty
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/08/us/doctor-found-guilty-in-michael-jacksons-death.html

find ...  guilty
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/14/us/kermit-gosnell-abortion-doctor-found-guilty-of-murder.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-01-24-emt-killing_x.htm

genital mutilation > be found guilty of aggravated battery and cruelty to children
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-11-01-georgia_x.htm

caged kids case > be convicted of endangering and abuse        2006
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-12-22-caged-kids_x.htm

enter a no contest plea
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-01-24-emt-killing_x.htm

convicted

be convicted of capital murder
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-10-23-richmond-slayings_x.htm

be convicted of three counts of first-degree murder
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/14/us/kermit-gosnell-abortion-doctor-found-guilty-of-murder.html

be found guilty of first-degree murder, sexual battery on a child, kidnapping and burglary
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-03-07-couey_N.htm

be found guilty of first-degree murder, rape and burglary
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-11-16-cape-cod-slaying_x.htm

 if convicted of the felony alcohol charge

felon
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/19/us/19pardon.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/18/national/18iowa.html

be an indicted felon

face more than two decades in prison

 face a maximum of about 10 years in prison

the country’s first cyberbullying verdict
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/27/us/27myspace.html

Cartoons > Cagle > Madoff gets 150 years        2009
http://www.cagle.msnbc.com/news/MadoffSentence/main.asp

convict

conviction
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/06/nyregion/06cheshire.html

convicted

convicted felon
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2012/12/29/us/ap-us-fire-shooting.html

be convicted of capital murder
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-10-23-richmond-slayings_x.htm

be convicted of capital crimes
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/06/nyregion/06cheshire.html

teenagers > convicted as an adult
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-07-10-playmate-stabbing_x.htm

be convicted of first-degree murder
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-07-10-playmate-stabbing_x.htm

 find someone guilty of first-degree murder

find someone guilty of arranging the fatal shooting of...
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-03-10-guilty_x.htm

second degree murder
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder#The_United_States

third degree murder
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder#The_United_States

manslaughter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manslaughter

be convicted of voluntary manslaughter
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-19-minister-slain_N.htm

be convicted of involuntary manslaughter
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-01-24-emt-killing_x.htm

be convicted of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-10-20-manslaughter_x.htm

be convicted of capital murder
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-02-01-yates_x.htm

be convicted on fraud charges
http://www.guardian.co.uk/enron/story/0,,1783510,00.html

be convicted of child molestation
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-02-22-church-abuse_x.htm

penalty phase
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/06/nyregion/06cheshire.html

not guilty
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/sheehan-found-not-guilty/
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/06/us/06casey.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/jackson/story/0,15819,1506008,00.html
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/10/04/us/not-guilty-the-moment-a-day-10-minutes-of-it-the-country-stood-still.html
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/10/04/us/not-guilty-around-the-nation-atlanta-roars-of-delight.html
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/10/04/us/not-guilty-around-the-nation-fairfax-va-for-many-disbelief.html
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/10/04/us/not-guilty-around-the-nation-lansing-mich-time-of-discontent.html
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/10/04/us/not-guilty-man-simpson-walks-courtroom-free-man-into-lucrative-free-market.html
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/10/04/us/not-guilty-the-jury-one-juror-smiled-then-they-knew.html

be found not guilty by reason of insanity
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-07-26-yates-trial_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-04-07-schlosser_x.htm

be committed to a state mental hospital
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-07-26-yates-trial_x.htm

psychotic
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-07-26-yates-trial_x.htm

be exonerated

punishment
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/05/us/life-sentence-for-possession-of-child-pornography-spurs-debate.html

be convicted  ≠  be sentenced
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-02-10-serial-molester_x.htm

sentencing
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/01/tom-delay-appears-in-texas-court-today-for-sentencing-/1

get 8 years for bribes
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-03-03-cunnigham_x.htm

get 12 years for armed robbery
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-03-03-cellphone-bandit_x.htm

get 800 years
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-02-10-serial-molester_x.htm

sentence

fairness
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/us/24execute.html

sentence
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/06/nyregion/06shahzad.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-10-23-richmond-slayings_x.htm

 impose the maximum sentence
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-07-10-playmate-stabbing_x.htm

life sentence
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/05/us/life-sentence-for-possession-of-child-pornography-spurs-debate.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/us/10scotus.html

juveniles > life sentence
http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2012/06/28/
evan-miller-and-more-juveniles-sentenced-to-life-in-prison-without-parole-photos.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/15/opinion/juveniles-dont-deserve-life-sentences.html

get life term
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/06/nyregion/06shahzad.html

be sentenced to life in prison
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-11-18-party-attack_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-02-01-yates_x.htm

be sentenced to seven consecutive terms of life in prison
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/09/us/gunman-who-shot-giffords-to-be-sentenced.html

be sentenced to death
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-10-23-richmond-slayings_x.htm

sentenced

be sentenced to life in prison without parole
be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole
get life without parole
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/opinion/the-misuse-of-life-without-parole.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/23/nyregion/23sentence.html

paroled
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/nyregion/06parole.html

volunteer to be put to death

competent
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-02-28-padilla-trial_x.htm

mentally competent

competency
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-02-13-padilla-cover_x.htm

competency hearing
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-02-28-padilla-trial_x.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/20/national/20tate.html

be ruled mentally competent

acquit

be acquitted
http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2005-06-13-jackson_x.htm

be acquitted on all 10 counts

acquittal

clear

cleared of all charges

be cleared of a separate charge

be cleared by DNA evidence
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-01-19-texas-dna_x.htm

walk free

Gunman in Giffords Shooting

Sentenced to 7 Life Terms

November 8, 2012
The New York Times
By FERNANDA SANTOS

TUCSON — Jared L. Loughner was sentenced Thursday to seven consecutive terms of life in prison at a court hearing punctuated by raw emotion as former Representative Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, Mark E. Kelly, for the first time confronted the man who shot her in the head during a rampage last year that left 6 dead and 12 others wounded.

Ms. Giffords, her right arm in a sling, stared at Mr. Loughner as Mr. Kelly delivered his defiant remarks before a packed courtroom, from a dais a few feet from the defendant’s chair.

“By making death and producing tragedy, you sought to extinguish the beauty of life, to diminish potential, to strain love and to cancel ideas,” Mr. Kelly said. “You tried to create for all of us a world as dark and evil as your own. But remember it always: You failed.”

Mr. Loughner’s punishment — in addition to the life terms, he was sentenced to 140 years in prison — came as no surprise. It was a condition of the guilty plea he entered on Aug. 7, admitting to the shootings and bringing to an end a case that had prompted much soul-searching about mental health treatment and the country’s gun laws.

From the bench in Federal District Court, Judge Larry A. Burns said he was not going to make “political statements,” that he was just “a single federal judge” who had “no intention to change the law.” Still, he questioned the wisdom of allowing the unrestricted sale of high-capacity magazines, like the one Mr. Loughner used to carry out his crimes.

“I don’t understand the social utility of allowing citizens to have magazines with 30 bullets in them,” Judge Burns said.

For Mr. Kelly, though, who has been Ms. Giffords’s unrelenting companion and her voice as she has struggled to articulate her words since the shooting, the politics of gun control is the “elephant in the room.” He denounced politicians who are “afraid to do something as simple as have a meaningful debate about our gun laws,” singling out Gov. Jan Brewer, whom he called “feckless,” and the Legislature, which “thought it appropriate to busy itself naming an official Arizona state gun just weeks after this tragedy.”

Mr. Kelly went on, “After Columbine, after Virginia Tech, after Tucson and after Aurora,” the Colorado suburb where a gunman killed 12 and wounded 58 in a movie theater in July, “we have done nothing.”

A spokesman for the governor said in a statement that “on this solemn occasion,” Ms. Brewer “isn’t interested in engaging in politics.”

Ms. Giffords did not say anything, only stroking her husband’s back when they slowly made their way back to their seats.

On Jan. 8, 2011, Mr. Loughner, now 24, arrived at a constituents meeting hosted by Ms. Giffords, then a member of the House of Representatives, in a shopping center parking lot. He had a loaded Glock 9-millimeter pistol and carried 60 extra rounds of ammunition. In less than 30 seconds, he fired 31 shots.

Onlookers tackled and restrained him when he paused to reload. One of them was Pamela Simon, an aide and close friend of Ms. Giffords’s who was shot by Mr. Loughner and was one of seven victims to speak in court.

Ms. Simon, who taught at the middle school Mr. Loughner had attended, said she remembered him as “a kid who loved music.” On Thursday, she told him, “You remind us that too often we either do not notice the signs of mental illness, or we just choose to look away.”

Mavy Stoddard, whom Mr. Loughner shot three times, told him she cradled her wounded husband, Dorwan, in her arms and whispered, “Breathe deeply, honey.”

Ten minutes later, he was dead.

Mr. Loughner stared at each of them, virtually motionless. He slurred his only words, “That’s right,” which he spoke after the judge asked if he had indeed waived his right to address the court.

He had been given a diagnosis of schizophrenia, but was deemed competent to agree to the plea deal, which makes him ineligible for parole or to appeal. He has been held at a federal hospital in Missouri for more than a year, undergoing psychiatric evaluations and treatment. On Thursday, Judge Burns said he should stay “in a place where he can get continual medical treatment.”

His mother, Amy Loughner, sniffled loudly at times, convulsing as people described the horror her son had unleashed. His father, Randy, was also there. Representative Ron Barber, a close aide of Ms. Giffords’s at the time of the shooting who was struck by a bullet in the leg, told them, “Please know that I and my family hold no animosity toward you.”

To Mr. Loughner, he said, “You must pay the price.”

Timothy Williams contributed reporting from New York.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 8, 2012

An earlier version of this article and headline

misstated the number of life sentences

received by Jared L. Loughner. It is seven, not six.

The article also misspelled the given name

of a woman shot by Mr. Loughner.

It is Mavy Stoddard, not Mary.

    Gunman in Giffords Shooting Sentenced to 7 Life Terms, NYT, 8.11.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/09/us/gunman-who-shot-giffords-to-be-sentenced.html

Guilty Verdict in Murder Case

That Involved Singer’s Family

May 11, 2012
The New York Times
By MONICA DAVEY

CHICAGO — The former brother-in-law of Jennifer Hudson, the singer and actress, was convicted on Friday of murdering her mother, her brother and her young nephew.

With a crush of news and entertainment reporters monitoring her every move, Ms. Hudson, who rose to national fame from one of this city’s toughest neighborhoods, attended the trial, which ran nearly three weeks, and appeared as prosecutors’ first witness, saying she had always disliked William Balfour, now convicted in the case.

“I would tell her over and over again not to marry William,” Ms. Hudson testified about her sister, Julia, who eventually did.

Calling more than 80 witnesses, prosecutors said Mr. Balfour had shot and killed members of the Hudson family in their home in the Englewood neighborhood in October 2008 after growing jealous and possessive of Julia Hudson.

Mr. Balfour’s defense team had characterized the case as largely circumstantial, suggesting that the police hastily focused on Mr. Balfour in a rush to close a case that drew national headlines. Mr. Balfour, 31, faces life in prison.

Prosecutors said Mr. Balfour had been to the Hudson family home on the morning of the shootings, and witnesses said that he had previously been seen with the gun that was used. But no DNA evidence or fingerprints proved Mr. Balfour’s involvement, and defense lawyers told jurors that the work of Ms. Hudson’s brother, Jason — selling drugs, the defense team said — was more likely what led to the shootings.

The jury, six men and six women, deliberated during parts of three days, and had indicated not long before they announced their verdict that they were split. They were sequestered during deliberations in the high-profile case.

The daily machinations of the trial had little to do with Ms. Hudson’s celebrity, which was, nonetheless, ever-present. Reports on the trial noted her tears, her bowed head, her fourth-row seat, her departures from the courtroom and her clothes.

Ms. Hudson drew national attention with appearances on “American Idol” in 2004, then went on to win an Oscar for her role in “Dreamgirls.” In a way, the trial was a reminder of how much her life has been altered.

Ms. Hudson, who testified that she began singing at age 7 at a Baptist church here, no longer lived in her mother’s home in Englewood, a neighborhood troubled by violence and where she said her sister had worked many jobs, including at a Burger King and as a school bus driver. Not long before the deaths, Ms. Hudson told jurors, she had left signed, blank checks for her mother, Darnell Donerson, to pay for items like the family’s gas bill, had bought her sister a computer and had given her brother an S.U.V., apparently the same one that the nephew, Julian King, 7, was later found dead inside.

    Guilty Verdict in Murder Case That Involved Singer’s Family, NYT, 11.5.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/12/us/verdict-in-killing-of-jennifer-hudsons-relatives.html

Juveniles Don’t Deserve Life Sentences

March 14, 2012
The New York Times
By GAIL GARINGER

Boston

IN the late 1980s, a small but influential group of criminologists predicted a coming wave of violent juvenile crime: “superpredators,” as young as 11, committing crimes in “wolf packs.” Politicians soon responded to those fears, and to concerns about the perceived inadequacies of state juvenile justice systems, by lowering the age at which children could be transferred to adult courts. The concern was that offenders prosecuted as juveniles would have to be released at age 18 or 21.

At the same time, “tough on crime” rhetoric led some states to enact laws making it easier to impose life without parole sentences on adults. The unintended consequence of these laws was that children as young as 13 and 14 who were charged as adults became subject to life without parole sentences.

Nationwide, 79 young adolescents have been sentenced to die in prison — a sentence not imposed on children anywhere else in the world. These children were told that they could never change and that no one cared what became of them. They were denied access to education and rehabilitation programs and left without help or hope.

But the prediction of a generation of superpredators never came to pass. Beginning in the mid-1990s, violent juvenile crime declined, and it has continued to decline through the present day. The laws that were passed to deal with them, however, continue to exist. This month, the United States Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in two cases, Jackson v. Hobbs and Miller v. Alabama, which will decide whether children can be sentenced to life without parole after being convicted of homicide.

The court has already struck down the death penalty for juveniles and life without parole for young offenders convicted in nonhomicide cases. The rationale for these earlier decisions is simple and equally applicable to the cases to be heard: Young people are biologically different from adults. Brain imaging studies reveal that the regions of the adolescent brain responsible for controlling thoughts, actions and emotions are not fully developed. They cannot be held to the same standards when they commit terrible wrongs.

Homicide is the worst crime, but in striking down the juvenile death penalty in 2005, the Supreme Court recognized that even in the most serious murder cases, “juvenile offenders cannot with reliability be classified among the worst offenders”: they are less mature, more vulnerable to peer pressure, cannot escape from dangerous environments, and their characters are still in formation. And because they remain unformed, it is impossible to assume that they will always present an unacceptable risk to public safety.

The most disturbing part of the superpredator myth is that it presupposed that certain children were hopelessly defective, perhaps genetically so. Today, few believe that criminal genes are inherited, except in the sense that parental abuse and negative home lives can leave children with little hope and limited choices.

As a former juvenile court judge, I have seen firsthand the enormous capacity of children to change and turn themselves around. The same malleability that makes them vulnerable to peer pressure also makes them promising candidates for rehabilitation.

An overwhelming majority of young offenders grow out of crime. But it is impossible at the time of sentencing for mental health professionals to predict which youngsters will fall within that majority and grow up to be productive, law-abiding citizens and which will fall into the small minority that continue to commit crimes. For this reason, the court has previously recognized that children should not be condemned to die in prison without being given a “meaningful opportunity to obtain release based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation.”

The criminologists who promoted the superpredator theory have acknowledged that their prediction never came to pass, repudiated the theory and expressed regret. They have joined several dozen other criminologists in an amicus brief to the court asking it to strike down life without parole sentences for children convicted of murder. I urge the justices to apply the logic and the wisdom of their earlier decisions and affirm that the best time to decide whether someone should spend his entire life in prison is when he has grown to be an adult, not when he is still a child.

Gail Garinger,

a juvenile court judge in Massachusetts from 1995 to 2008,

is the state’s child advocate, appointed by the governor.

    Juveniles Don’t Deserve Life Sentences, NYT, 14.3.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/15/opinion/juveniles-dont-deserve-life-sentences.html

Death Penalty for 2nd Man

in Connecticut Triple-Murder Case

December 9, 2011
The New York Times
By WILLIAM GLABERSON

One of Connecticut’s most agonizing courtroom dramas came to an end on Friday as a jury voted to impose the death penalty on the second of two killers of three family members after an ordeal of violence and sexual assault that challenged suburban ideals of safety.

Lawyers for the second convicted killer, Joshua Komisarjevsky, 31, had waged an aggressive fight to avoid a capital sentence since Oct. 13, when he was convicted of the crimes, which drew national attention in 2007. But the jury in New Haven unanimously voted for capital punishment on each of the six capital counts he faced.

Mr. Komisarjevsky’s trial in Superior Court followed the trial of his co-defendant, Steven J. Hayes, who was sentenced to death last year. The two men burst into the home of the Petits in Cheshire, Conn., beat and tied up the father, Dr. William A. Petit Jr., and wreaked havoc for hours before setting the house on fire with the family’s two girls tied to their beds.

The crime and the long court proceedings, attended by Dr. Petit, the lone survivor, brought legal reforms, played a central role in the failure of an effort to repeal the death penalty and seemed to rivet the state until, in recent months, a kind of mass fatigue with the depressing details of the crime and its punishment appeared to set in.

“I believe God’s will has been done,” Dr. Petit said to a crowd outside the courthouse just after the verdict. But, he added, “The pain is there forever.”

One juror, Timothy Anderson, said jurors were sobbing on Friday as they reached the verdict. Mr. Anderson said he was the last to decide to vote for death, “but when you look at the whole thing, it’s so horrific.”

The defense lawyers presented a series of misfortunes that they said Mr. Komisarjevsky had suffered in his life as they worked to change perceptions of him that had been forged by revulsion at the killing of Jennifer Hawke-Petit, and her daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11.

Mr. Hayes was convicted of raping and strangling Ms. Hawke-Petit and killing the daughters, who died of smoke inhalation. At his separate trial, Mr. Komisarjevsky was convicted of the killings and a host of other crimes, including sexually assaulting the 11-year-old and making prurient photographs of her on his cellphone.

In weeks of testimony, the defense lawyers worked to cast Mr. Komisarjevsky as a damaged person worthy of life, though one that would certainly be lived behind prison bars.

The lawyers said that Mr. Komisarjevsky was sexually abused as a child, suffered mood disorders and head injuries, abused drugs and cut himself with glass, knives and razors, and that his evangelical Christian adoptive parents denied him proper care, relying instead on religion.

On Friday night, Mr. Komisarjevsky’s family issued a statement: “From the very beginning, we have spoken out about the horror of the crime and taken the position that whatever verdict the jury reached was the right verdict. With today’s jury decision, our view is the same. The crime was monstrous and beyond comprehension. There are no excuses.”

The killings dominated the state’s front pages and airwaves for so long that some in Connecticut said they had grown weary of Mr. Komisarjevsky’s trial..

Colin McEnroe, one of the state’s best-known columnists and commentators, wrote during the trial that he avoided articles about it because he felt he already knew what he needed to know about the case.

“It is not possible to have lived in this state since 2007 and not know the Petit case,” Mr. McEnroe said. “It enters our night dreams and day musings. There is no vaccine against it.”

 

Elizabeth Maker contributed reporting.

    Death Penalty for 2nd Man in Connecticut Triple-Murder Case, NYT, 9.12.2011,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/nyregion/
    joshua-komisarjevsky-gets-death-for-cheshire-killings.html

Doctor Is Guilty in Michael Jackson’s Death

November 7, 2011
The New York Times
By JENNIFER MEDINA

LOS ANGELES — Michael Jackson, among the most famous performers in pop music history, spent his final days in a sleep-deprived haze of medication and misery until finally succumbing to a fatal dose of potent drugs provided by the private physician he had hired to act as his personal pharmaceutical dispensary, a jury decided on Monday.

The physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter nearly two and a half years after Jackson’s shocking death at age 50. The verdict came after nearly 50 witnesses, 22 days of testimony and less than two days of deliberation by a jury of seven men and five women. The trial had focused primarily on whether Dr. Murray was guilty of abdicating his duty or of acting with reckless criminal negligence, directly causing his patient’s death.

Dr. Murray, 58, faces up to four years in prison and the loss of his medical license. He sat stoically as the verdict was read and did not react as he was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs. Judge Michael Pastor ruled that he should be held without bail until his sentencing, set for Nov. 29.

Jackson, who had become a star as a child in Gary, Ind., singing with his siblings in the Jackson 5, grew into one of the best-known performers in the world. Though increasingly eccentric in his later years, often living on a secluded California estate he called Neverland, Jackson always had a fervent core of fans and, despite scandals, his lavish lifestyle and persistent money woes, always seemed just a comeback away from a return to the top.

Hundreds of fans showed their devotion by gathering outside the downtown courthouse throughout the trial — many of them sporting Jackson’s signature single white glove. On Monday, they chanted “Justice, justice” and spent hours after the verdict dancing to his hits, from “Beat It” to “I Want You Back.” Huge crowds had also gathered outside the California court where Jackson was tried, and acquitted, on child molesting charges in 2005.

The singer’s parents, Joe and Katherine Jackson, and siblings La Toya, Jermaine and Randy were in the courtroom for the verdict. The family left the courthouse without speaking to the hordes of reporters gathered outside, simply saying they were “very happy” with the verdict and flashing a thumb.

Dr. Murray, a Houston cardiologist, was paid $150,000 a month to work as Jackson’s personal physician as he rehearsed in Los Angeles for “This Is It,” a series of 50 sold-out concerts in London that he needed to pay off hundreds of millions of dollars in mounting debts.

Testimony showed that Dr. Murray had stayed with Jackson at least six nights a week and was regularly asked — and sometimes begged — by the insomniac singer to give him drugs powerful enough to put him to sleep. Jackson, Dr. Murray told the authorities, was especially eager to be administered propofol, a surgical anesthetic that put him to sleep when other powerful sedatives could not. Testimony indicated that propofol, in conjunction with other drugs in the singer’s system, had played the key role in his death on June 25, 2009.

Prosecutors tried to paint Dr. Murray as a money-hungry physician who would do things no reputable doctor would do — including improperly and recklessly administering an anesthetic normally given only in a hospital. The full retinue of drugs given to Jackson while he was under Dr. Murray’s care was so beyond normal practice, prosecutors said, that it amounted to a “pharmaceutical experiment.”

For its part, the defense tried to portray Jackson as a man so desperate to make his comeback concerts a success that he was willing to take wild chances and grew terrified that he would not be able to perform to his own exacting standards without more rest and less stress.

The morning Jackson died, Dr. Murray told investigators during a recording played in State Superior Court here, the singer told him, “Just make me sleep; it doesn’t matter what happens.”

When Jackson died, he was more than $400 million in debt, but since his death, his estate has prospered, generating more than $310 million and paying off most of his debts.

The estate has struck several lucrative deals, including a movie, video games, a new recording contract and two productions by Cirque du Soleil.

Shortly after Jackson’s death, Dr. Murray told investigators that the pop star would routinely plead with him to administer more propofol, calling it his “milk.” The defense argued that Jackson gave himself the fatal dose of the drug. The Los Angeles County coroner ruled that Jackson’s death was caused by “acute propofol intoxication,” in combination with two other drugs in his system.

Two days after Jackson’s death, Dr. Murray told investigators that he had been using propofol almost nightly for two months to help the singer sleep.

In their closing arguments, prosecutors repeatedly invoked Jackson’s three children to a jury that included nine parents, saying that the singer wanted to perform, in part, so that they could see their father on stage. David Walgren, the deputy district attorney in charge of the case, described the frantic moments after Dr. Murray realized that Jackson was not responsive and as the pop star’s children watched him lie lifeless on his bed.

Prosecutors sought to show that Dr. Murray veered significantly from acceptable medical practice at nearly every turn: by administering the propofol, not having proper monitoring equipment and failing to call 911 right away, among other things. They said Dr. Murray had not kept any records of administering propofol but had taken time to record Jackson’s voice on his iPhone.

He did not tell the paramedics who arrived at Jackson’s home about the propofol, which prosecutors said showed that he knew he was responsible for the singer’s death. Just one day before the trial ended, Dr. Murray decided he would not testify.

Steve Cooley, the Los Angeles County district attorney, said that he hoped the trial would send a message to other “unscrupulous, corrupt” doctors who help fuel patients’ reliance on powerful drugs.

“In Los Angeles we see many examples of high-profile people losing their lives because of their addiction to prescribed medication,” Mr. Cooley said. “To the extent that someone dies as a result of their playing the role of Dr. Feelgood, they will be held accountable.”

Mr. Cooley said that he doubted that Dr. Murray would serve a full four-year sentence because of the state’s chronically overcrowded prisons.

In one of the most dramatic moments in the trial, prosecutors played the iPhone recording Dr. Murray made of Jackson toward the end of his life and the court heard the singer rambling about his dream of building the world’s largest children’s hospital.

“I’m going to do that for them,” Jackson is heard saying in slurred speech. “That will be remembered more than my performances. My performances will be up there helping my children and always be my dream. I love them. I love them because I didn’t have a childhood. I had no childhood. I feel their pain.”

When his voice trailed off, Dr. Murray waited several seconds before asking, “You O.K.?”

After several more seconds, Jackson answered, “I am asleep.”

Ben Sisario contributed reporting from New York,

and Ian Lovett from Los Angeles.

    Doctor Is Guilty in Michael Jackson’s Death, NYT, 7.11.2011,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/08/us/doctor-found-guilty-in-michael-jacksons-death.html

Jury Hears a Final Round of Finger-Pointing

in the Trial of Michael Jackson’s Doctor

November 3, 2011
The New York Times
By JENNIFER MEDINA

LOS ANGELES — Michael Jackson’s death was caused by a doctor who was more concerned with making money and protecting himself than caring for his patient, prosecutors said in closing arguments on Thursday in the trial of the man who served as the pop singer’s private physician in the final months of his life and is now charged with manslaughter.

After 22 days of testimony over six weeks, the trial of Dr. Conrad Murray came to an end with closing statements from prosecutors and defense lawyers, who painted dramatically different pictures of the legendary pop star and the doctor caring for him. The jury is expected to begin deliberations on Friday.

The defense lawyer, Ed Chernoff, said that Mr. Jackson was a man desperate to prepare for a series of 50 sold-out concerts in London and relied on a cocktail of drugs to keep him going. Mr. Chernoff argued that prosecutors were asking the jury to convict Dr. Murray for something that Mr. Jackson had done. The defense argues that Mr. Jackson self-administered the dose of the drug that killed him.

“We’ve been dancing around this for six weeks, maybe two years,” Mr. Chernoff told the jury. “If it were anybody else besides Michael Jackson — anybody else — would this doctor be here today?”

The Los Angeles County coroner ruled that “acute propofol intoxication” in combination with two other drugs in his system caused Mr. Jackson’s death.

David Walgren, a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney, said that Murray had “grossly corrupted” the doctor-patient relationship with Mr. Jackson and knew that his actions had led to his death.

“Conrad Murray sought payment for services rendered, the services rendered being the provision of propofol,” Mr. Walgren said. “It was an employer-employee relationship. Conrad Murray sought payment for services rendered, not for proper medical care, not for the sake of doing no harm.”

During the trial, the jury heard testimony from medical experts, as well as Mr. Jackson’s former aides and several of Dr. Murray’s former patients. One expert for the defense testified that Mr. Jackson was most likely addicted to drugs that made it difficult to sleep and caused his own death by injecting himself with propofol when Dr. Murray was out of the room. A prosecution witness said that the defense’s argument that Mr. Jackson injected the drug himself was “crazy.”

Two days after Mr. Jackson’s death on June 25, 2009, Dr. Murray told detectives that he had been using the surgical anesthetic propofol nearly daily for the last two months to help Mr. Jackson sleep. But he said that he had been trying to wean Mr. Jackson off the drug and had tried sedatives instead.

After those drugs did not work and he had spent 10 hours trying to fall asleep, Mr. Jackson begged for propofol, Dr. Murray told investigators.

Prosecutors said that this statement alone amounted to enough of an admission of gross negligence to convict Dr. Murray of manslaughter. But prosecutors also called several expert witnesses who testified that Dr. Murray lied to the police.

Before the closing arguments began, Judge Michael Pastor of the Superior Court of California instructed jurors that they had to come to a unanimous agreement on one of two theories in order to convict Dr. Murray on the charge of involuntary manslaughter: either that Dr. Murray was acting legally but in a criminally negligent way or that he failed to perform his legal duty as Mr. Jackson’s doctor.

Dr. Murray decided late in the trial that he would not testify on his own behalf. If convicted, he faces up to four years in prison and the loss of his medical license.

    Jury Hears a Final Round of Finger-Pointing
    in the Trial of Michael Jackson’s Doctor,
    NYT, 3.11.2011,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/04/us/prosecutors-say-doctors-greed-caused-jacksons-death.html

Casey Anthony Not Guilty

in Slaying of Daughter

July 5, 2011
The New York Times
By LIZETTE ALVAREZ

ORLANDO, Fla. — Casey Anthony, the young mother whose seeming heartlessness at the disappearance of her daughter transfixed America for three years, was found not guilty on Tuesday of killing the girl, Caylee Marie.

After nearly six weeks of testimony, a jury of seven women and five men rejected the prosecution’s contention that Ms. Anthony had murdered Caylee, 2, by dosing her with chloroform, suffocating her with duct tape and dumping her body in a wooded area. They did, however, find her guilty of lesser charges of providing false information to law enforcement officers.

In a sign that jurors had little difficulty reaching a verdict, the jury did not ask to review any evidence and reached a decision in fewer than 11 hours. Jurors, who were imported from the Clearwater area and had been sequestered for six weeks, declined to talk with reporters and returned home to Pinellas County.

When the verdict was read, Ms. Anthony, 25, who faced a possible death sentence, cried quietly, the relief made plain on her face. After the jury left the courtroom, she broke down and sobbed, hugging her lawyer, Jose Baez, tightly. She has spent about two and a half years in jail awaiting trial. She is expected to be released soon because she is not likely to serve any more time for misdemeanors. Ms. Anthony was also found not guilty of aggravated child abuse.

Her parents, George and Cindy, who lost a granddaughter and then listened in court as Mr. Baez blamed the family for Caylee’s death, sat stone-faced after the verdict was read. Prosecutors, who had entered the courthouse with broad smiles and to cheers, sat stunned.

The defense had argued from the start that Caylee drowned accidentally in the family swimming pool and that the death was concealed by a panicked George Anthony and Casey Anthony.

It was unclear if that version of Caylee’s death swayed jurors. But the circumstantial nature of the prosecution’s case seemed to be insurmountable. There was no direct evidence tying Ms. Anthony to the death of her daughter. Forensic evidence was tenuous, and no witnesses ever connected her to Caylee’s death. Investigators found no traces of Ms. Anthony’s DNA or irrefutable signs of chloroform or decomposition inside the trunk of Ms. Anthony’s car, where prosecutors said she stashed Caylee before disposing of her body. The prosecution was also hurt by the fact that nobody knows exactly when or how Caylee died; her body was too badly decomposed to pinpoint cause of death. And it permitted Mr. Baez, Ms. Anthony’s lawyer, to create a reasonable doubt in jurors’ minds — despite the prosecution’s relentless portrayal of her as a callous liar who sought to kill Caylee so she could lead a carefree life of boyfriends and bars.

“The best feeling I have today is I know I can go home and my daughter will ask me, ‘What did you do today?’ and I can say, ‘I saved a life,’ ” Mr. Baez said at a news conference.

Mr. Baez also denounced the death penalty, saying Ms. Anthony’s acquittal is an example of why “we all need to stop and look and think twice about a country that decides to kill its own citizens.”

This case was widely reported in real time through Twitter and cable television, and outrage over the verdict came swiftly as did criticism of the news media. But the public was equally captivated by the trial, with some people flying in to grab a hard-to-get seat in the courtroom.

Cheney Mason, Mr. Baez’s co-counsel, sharply criticized reporters and pundits for “media assassination” in maligning Ms. Anthony and sprinting to an assumption of guilt.

“I can tell you that my colleagues coast to coast and border to border have condemned this whole process of lawyers getting on television to talk about cases they don’t know a damn thing about,” Mr. Mason said.

Outside, Lawson Lamar, the state attorney for the Ninth Judicial Court, praised prosecutors for their meticulous work but added that it was a tough trial because it was a “dry bones case,” a reference to Caylee’s decomposed state, with “no smoking gun.”

Caylee was last seen June 16, 2008. Her remains were found Dec. 11 in a wooded lot near the Anthony home. Ms. Anthony failed to report Caylee missing for 31 days and created a tangle of lies, including that a baby sitter kidnapped Caylee, to cover up the absence.

The defense conceded Ms. Anthony’s lies, but said they happened for one reason: she had been sexually abused by her father and had been coached to lie her whole life.

Prosecutors argued all along that Ms. Anthony killed her child so she could carouse with her boyfriend, go clubbing and live the “bella vita” — beautiful life — as her tattoo, done after Caylee’s disappearance, proclaimed. They used jailhouse recordings of Ms. Anthony and photographs of her reveling with friends to show she was clearly not grieving.

One prosecutor, Jeff Ashton, called it “absurd” that Mr. Anthony, a former homicide detective, would find Caylee dead in the swimming pool and, rather than call 911, cover up the drowning, wrap dead Caylee’s face with duct tape and dump her body.

“It is a trip down a rabbit hole into a bizarre world where men who love their granddaughters find them drowned and do nothing,” Mr. Ashton said.

Mr. Anthony, who had testified tearfully during the trial, denied abusing his daughter and finding Caylee in the swimming pool.

Prosecutors failed to offer evidence or testimony that showed Ms. Anthony was actually a bad or negligent mother.

From the start of the trial, Mr. Baez, who began his law career in 2005 and three years later landed Ms. Anthony as a client, was often pilloried for his risky opening argument — the drowning and sexual abuse theories — and his failure to bolster that defense during the trial.

Mr. Baez delved lightly into the idea that Caylee drowned and said nothing more about the sexual abuse after the first day of the trial. Judge Belvin Perry Jr., the presiding judge who also heads the Ninth Circuit Court, barred Mr. Baez from mentioning the abuse accusation during closing statements because there was no evidence to support his claim.

Yet Mr. Baez successfully hammered away at the nearly 400 pieces of evidence that were recovered, including Ms. Anthony’s car. He also accused prosecutors of relying on faulty science to bolster their case and labeled the state’s work “fraud.”

As the trial continued, Mr. Baez cast Mr. Anthony as the villain who covered up the drowning and allowed Ms. Anthony to take the blame. And he detailed what he viewed as the Anthony family’s dysfunctional behavior.

The sheriff’s office also faced criticism for failing to find Caylee’s remains in August 2008, when a meter reader, Roy Kronk, reported a suspicious item for three consecutive days. On the third day, deputies met the reader at the crime scene, where he pointed to the area from a distance. Mr. Kronk testified that deputies found nothing and were dismissive. Caylee’s body decomposed over six months.

In closing statements, Mr. Baez reminded jurors that the burden of proof rested entirely with prosecutors and pleaded that they keep their emotions in check during deliberations.

“This case should not be decided for or against anyone because you feel sorry for anyone or are angry at anyone,” Mr. Baez told the jury.

    Casey Anthony Not Guilty in Slaying of Daughter, NYT, 5.7.2011,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/06/us/06casey.html

Cheshire Case Jurors

Speak on Death Verdict

November 8, 2010
The New York Times
By WILLIAM GLABERSON

NEW HAVEN — Day after day since Sept. 13, they sat in the jury box. They had to look at photographs of children who were burned while tied to their beds. They sat feet from grieving family members.

On Monday, the jurors had their verdict for the defendant, Steven J. Hayes, who had wreaked havoc at the Petit house in Cheshire, Conn. It had almost been expected from the start of the home-invasion trial: Death by lethal injection.

As the jurors began to talk publicly about their verdict on Monday night, they said they were certain of it and unified. They said there had never been a deep division on the panel and that the three and a half days of deliberation were to solemnly consider when capital punishment was warranted and then to work through the complexities of the pages of legal questions they had to answer.

But several of them said in interviews that sitting in the Cheshire home-invasion case had been a harrowing experience, thinking for weeks about the two parolees who broke into a suburban home in the middle of the night and killed a mother and her two daughters, beat and tied up the girls’ father and committed countless other offenses.

“It was a challenge to me to see if I have the courage and the strength of character,” said Diane N. Keim, 59, a special-education teacher from Madison. “Other than what you see in movies, I have not seen children burned.”

Herbert R. Gram, 77, also of Madison, said it was the hard-to-hear facts of the home invasion by two intruders with disturbing criminal pasts and the horrifying crime-scene photographs that made the case for capital punishment.

“I’ve seen a lot, and been a lot of places,” Mr. Gram said. “I’ve certainly seen death before.” Then he paused. “This was not easy. There was nothing easy about it.”

Some jurors mentioned that it was impossible to be in the courtroom day after day and not wonder, as they looked at Mr. Hayes, how many more people like him were out there willing to break all the rules and ruin people.

Elizabeth Burbank, 45, an interior designer from New Haven, said she could not help wondering how safe she and the people she loved truly were. “The idea of being invaded while you’re asleep, when you’re vulnerable — we can’t help but worry about it now,” she said.

She used to work in a prison, Ms. Burbank said, and she thought she had a thick enough skin to handle this case. But, she said, “Nothing can ever prepare you for this kind of thing.”

The daily inundation in topics most people do not have to think about took a toll, said Delores A. Carter, a retired health care worker from Hamden. “It was life changing,” she said. “You see everything in a whole new light after you’ve been through something like this.”

As the weeks of testimony went on, the toll on the jurors grew. “The weight just got heavier and heavier,” said Ian Cassell, 35, of New Haven, who was the jury foreman in the penalty phase of the trial.

By the time they had agreed on the death verdict, “all the jurors were really emotional,” Mr. Cassell said. It was a verdict based on the law, he said. “No one is happy. Nothing is better. Nothing is solved.”

The jurors said that reporters had completely misinterpreted the notes they handed court officials during deliberations on Friday and Saturday that seemed to suggest some of them were leaning toward accepting a defense argument that Mr. Hayes should be spared because of a defense claim that he was mentally impaired at the time of the crime.

They said those notes had been purely hypothetical, as they tried to work through confusing legal instructions about the many questions they were required to answer.

They said the jurors worked agreeably, and that three or four seemed particularly upset early in the deliberations at the prospect of voting for an execution. But they said they spent some of Friday and much of Saturday talking philosophically about when capital punishment was warranted.

Mr. Gram said the conversation veered broadly and included discussion of whether society had the right to take a life. In the end, he said, all the jurors agreed that if there was ever a case in which the death penalty was appropriate, the Cheshire case was it.

The sentiment was unanimous, he said. “It was just so heinous and just so over the top and depraved. Here is a case where somebody doesn’t deserve to remain on the face of the earth.”

After the verdict, most of the jurors met with Dr. William A. Petit Jr., who was beaten by the intruders and tied up while his wife and daughters were tormented and killed. After some of the jurors asked for the meeting after the verdict Monday, court officials quietly arranged for it in an out-of-the-way spot in the court building where the jurors and Petit family members had crossed paths for weeks.

Ms. Keim said the meeting was emotional, with jurors hugging members of the family, and Dr. Petit and members of the extended family thanking the jurors for the grueling task they had undertaken.

Ms. Keim said that on the worst days of the trial she had often had a sensation that she would never be able to do what she wanted to do for the Petits and their daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, who were killed after the worst night of their lives.

In the jury box, Ms. Keim said: “I just wanted to hold the girls. I wanted to take whatever they experienced before they died and take it away. But it wasn’t in my power.”

Ms. Keim said she would not forget something one of the girls’ grandmothers had said in the jurors’ meeting with the family members. The elderly woman told the jurors, “We’re so sorry we had to put you through this.”

Robert Davey and Elizabeth Maker contributed reporting.

    Cheshire Case Jurors Speak on Death Verdict, NYT, 8.11.2010,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/09/nyregion/09jurors.html

Jurors Vote for Death

in Conn. Triple-Murder Case

November 8, 2010
The New York Times
By WILLIAM GLABERSON

NEW HAVEN — A jury in Connecticut voted on Monday to impose the death penalty for a long-time criminal convicted for his role in a home invasion in Cheshire, Conn., that left a mother and her two daughters dead. The panel had deliberated just more than three full days.

The jurors stood in the jury box, some looking drawn, as the clerk of the court read through the long verdict form they had filled out. Some members of the victims’ family rested their heads on the benches in front of them. The defendant, Steven J. Hayes, sat motionless at the defense table.

The 2007 crime horrified, fascinated and repelled from the start. It was called one of the worst in Connecticut history and was compared with the grisly family murder that was the centerpiece of Truman Capote’s account of a 1959 family killing in Kansas, “In Cold Blood.”

The details were stark: two habitual criminals invaded the quiet suburban home of a doctor and his family after spotting them in a shopping center parking lot the day before. In a night and morning of unimaginable terrors, they beat and tied up the doctor, forced the mother to withdraw $15,000 from a bank, before sexually abusing her and her youngest daughter, then strangling the mother and setting a blaze that killed her two daughters and blackened the home.

The killings brought a searching review of criminal justice and corrections practices in the state and, particularly during the recent election, came to be the prism through which the state viewed a debate about the future of the death penalty.

Mr. Hayes, a parolee at the time of the 2007 crime, has spent much of his adult life as a prisoner.

Connecticut provides for execution by lethal injection. But because of appeals, death penalty lawyers said it would probably be many years before Mr. Hayes faced execution, if he ever does. A serial killer, Michael Ross, was executed in Connecticut in 2005 after he decided to forgo further appeals, but he was the first inmate executed in New England since 1960.

Mr. Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky, who has yet to be tried, entered the home of the Petit family in a bucolic Cheshire neighborhood on July 23, 2007.

By the time they left with a squeal of rubber from the family’s stolen minivan, the family’s two daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, as well as the mother of the family, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, were dead in a house that had been set ablaze with gasoline the intruders had spread.

More than three years later, the trial — which began on Sept. 13 — featured graphic details of the beating of the father, Dr. William A. Petit Jr., who survived, as well as descriptions of arson, children tied to their beds, the forced trip to a bank where the mother vainly tried to placate the intruders by withdrawing $15,000, and sexual assaults of Ms. Hawke-Petit and the younger of the Petit girls.

But it also featured a catalog of arguments by the defense to try to defeat a potential death sentence. The claims included assertions that Mr. Hayes “can’t live with himself,” and was suicidal and remorseful. The defense lawyers also brought out testimony portraying Mr. Hayes as a klutz of a criminal, while a witness called by the defense described Mr. Komisarjevsky as “the devil,” a comparison the defense lawyers fostered through weeks of testimony.

Mr. Komisarkevsky’s prison journals, read into evidence at the request of Mr. Hayes’s lawyers, made him a central character of Mr. Hayes’s trial, though he was never present. The journals presented a chilling view of Mr. Komisarjevsky as a man who thrived on the excitement of the crime and had hoped to kill himself and Mr. Hayes by crashing into a police roadblock not far from the Petit’s blazing home.

In excruciating detail, Mr. Komisarjevsky described beating Dr. Petit and sexually assaulting 11-year old Michaela. He is expected to be tried next year.

The trial was an emotional journey for the jurors, who were sometimes tearful as they reviewed photographs of the burned bodies and heard testimony about matter-of-fact confessions made both by Mr. Hayes and Mr. Komisarjevsky. Each man said the other had taken the night and morning on an unexpected path toward violence that had not been planned.

Mr. Hayes claimed Mr. Komisarjevsky busied himself trying to send cell-phone photographs displaying the child he had abused to his friends during the crime. Mr. Komisarjevsky said Mr. Hayes’s rape and strangulation of Ms. Hawke-Petit “brought both of us to a whole different level.”

The story of the crime “will break your hearts,” the chief defense lawyer, Thomas Ullmann, told the jurors in his opening statement at the start of the trial.

    Jurors Vote for Death in Conn. Triple-Murder Case, NYT, 8.11.2010,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/09/nyregion/09cheshire.html

Shahzad Gets Life Term

for Times Square Bombing Attempt

October 5, 2010
The New York Times
By MICHAEL WILSON

The defendant came to Federal District Court in Manhattan on Tuesday ready to ladle out several minutes of anti-American justification for his act of terrorism in Times Square. But the judge, Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum, best known of late for presiding over Martha Stewart’s trial, came ready, too.

She repeatedly interrupted the defendant, Faisal Shahzad, to spar with him over his interpretation of the Koran, his invocation of a Muslim warrior in the Crusades and, above all, the relevance of any of it to the life sentence that hung over him like the dozen United States deputy marshals who guarded the prisoner in court.

And after the judge formally sentenced Mr. Shahzad to life in prison, she left him a parting shot: “I do hope that you will spend some of the time in prison thinking carefully about whether the Koran wants you to kill lots of people.”

The six or eight minutes or so of back and forth brought a bit of drama to the endgame of a case that, as nerve-rattling as it was at its inception, with the discovery of a potentially lethal bomb in Times Square on May 1, had drawn to a close with the sentencing on Tuesday.

The hearing was a part-sentencing and part-scolding, and the latter started before the former. Judge Cedarbaum looked at Mr. Shahzad, seated between lawyers, his beard thick and his hair long under his white skullcap, and said, “I think you should get up.”

Mr. Shahzad, 31, rose. He seemed to have aged in the last five months from the boyish man who was arrested aboard a jet that had been cleared for takeoff at Kennedy Airport.

He asked the judge for 5 or 10 minutes, then launched into a soliloquy that was at times rambling, at times threatening and delivered with the crinkly-eyed grin of a man who acted as if he could not be happier than where he was at that moment.

“This is but one life,” he said. “If I am given a thousand lives, I will sacrifice them all for the sake of Allah, fighting this cause, defending our lands, making the word of Allah supreme over any religion or system.”

He made his one and only reference to his arrest by claiming, for the first time, that his rights had been denied. Law enforcement officials have said that immediately following his arrest, on May 3, Mr. Shahzad cooperated, but he said otherwise on Tuesday.

“On the second day of my arrest, I asked for the Miranda,” he said, referring to the required notification of his right to counsel. “And the F.B.I. denied it to me for two weeks” and threatened his wife and children, he said. The judge, prosecutors and defense lawyers stayed silent as Mr. Shahzad, who has mounted no substantive defense in his case and who pleaded guilty to all charges against him on June 21, continued to speak. His lawyer, Philip L. Weinstein, had no comment on the statements after the hearing.

Mr. Shahzad attacked the American military forces “who have occupied the Muslim lands,” and said that attacks like his attempted bombing would continue.

“Brace yourselves, because the war with Muslims has just begun,” he said. “Consider me only a first droplet of the flood that will follow me.”

He went on about the war and about the “fragile economy” that he said would soon prove unable to sustain the troops, when Judge Cedarbaum interrupted and asked, “Do you want to comment in any way in connection with sentence?” He said he was getting to that, his motivations, when the judge asked, “Didn’t you swear allegiance to this country when you became an American citizen?”

He smiled like a boy caught in a fib, and said as much: “I did swear, but I did not mean it.”

“You took a false oath?”

“Yes.”

“Very well. Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

“Sure,” he began, and went on to say, “Blessed be” Osama bin Laden, “who will be known as no less than Saladin of the 21st-century crusade, and blessed be those who give him asylum.”

The judge stopped him again. “How much do you know about Saladin, as you called him?”

He is known in the Middle East as Salahuddin al-Ayubi, but commonly known in the West as Saladin, the Muslim leader who took Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187. He is remembered in biographies as being a lover of peace who waged war reluctantly.

“He didn’t want to kill people,” the judge told the defendant.

“He liberated — ” Mr. Shahzad continued.

“He was a very moderate man,” Judge Cedarbaum said. Mr. Shahzad spoke more about the war in Iraq and said, “If you call us terrorists, then we are proud terrorists, and we will keep on terrorizing until you leave our land and people at peace.”

He finished, and it was time for the sentencing by Judge Cedarbaum. “Although happily, the training you sought in making bombs was unsuccessful and you were unsuccessful in your effort to kill many Americans,” she said, the facts of the case “require that you be incarcerated for life.”

She began going through the 10 separate sentences he faced: “I sentence you to life in prison,” she said.

“Allahu akbar,” he replied. (“God is great.”)

“I understand that you welcome that,” the judge said.

Mr. Shahzad was handcuffed and led away.

    Shahzad Gets Life Term for Times Square Bombing Attempt, NYT, 5.10.2010,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/06/nyregion/06shahzad.html

Convictions on 16 Counts

in Triple-Murder Case

October 5, 2010
The New York Times
By WILLIAM GLABERSON

NEW HAVEN — A former parolee with a long history as a petty criminal was convicted of capital crimes on Tuesday for his part in a nighttime home invasion in Cheshire, Conn., three years ago that left a woman and her two daughters dead. The jury deliberated less than one full day.

The defendant, Steven J. Hayes, who, the testimony showed, described his eager anticipation of the crime with an “LOL” — laughing out loud — text message hours before taking part in murder, rape, kidnapping and assault at the home of the Petit family, was convicted of 16 of 17 crimes in all; he was acquitted of arson.

Six of the crimes he was convicted of make him eligible for the death penalty. The same jury that sat during the three-week trial must soon determine, in a penalty phase that could last a month, whether Mr. Hayes is to be sentenced to death. The penalty phase is to begin on Oct. 18.

“There is some relief, but my family is still gone,” Dr. William A. Petit Jr., whose wife and two daughters were killed, said after the verdict. “It doesn’t bring them back. It doesn’t bring back the home that we had.”

The testimony in Judge Jon C. Blue’s courtroom in State Superior Court here showed that Mr. Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky, a friend from a Connecticut halfway house for parolees, entered the house on July 23, 2007; beat and restrained Dr. Petit, now 53; and wreaked havoc, including the rape and strangulation of Dr. Petit’s wife, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48. The two daughters, Michaela, 11, and Hayley, 17, died of smoke inhalation in a fire the intruders were accused of setting.

The news that there was a verdict came to the sixth-floor courtroom with a quiet knock from the jury room door about 12:25 p.m.

In a case featuring extensive evidence, including confessions from the defendant, there was never much suspense. Still, as the families of Dr. Petit and his murdered wife filed into the room, there was tension.

After a few preliminaries, the foreman rose and began answering the court clerk’s questions by repeatedly saying, “Guilty.” He spoke without a tremor, and without notes. The answer was the same until he reached the 16th of the 17 counts, this one for arson. “Not guilty,” he said.

The jurors, who may not speak publicly until the penalty phase of the case is complete, offered no explanation.

Finally, the foreman announced a final “guilty” for the last count, the assault of Dr. Petit with a baseball bat.

Mr. Hayes, 47, stood between his two lawyers, smaller than both of them. He was convicted of the murders of all three victims, kidnapping, burglary, the rape of Ms. Hawke-Petit and all six of the capital felony counts he faced.

The judge sent the jurors home with instructions: “Think of yourselves as jurors in the middle of a trial.” Then the marshals handcuffed Mr. Hayes, and he was taken out through a side door.

Dr. Petit fought back tears as he huddled with the chief prosecutor, Michael Dearington. Then, moments later, he emerged from the courthouse into a chill drizzle with members of his family and his wife’s family lined up behind him.

He was asked how he had the strength to keep going through the court ordeal. Speaking calmly, and with his father clutching his arm tightly, he looked around the crowd and said that each of them would do the same thing “if your family was destroyed by evil.”

The acquittal on the single arson count seemed to perplex the defense lawyers, Thomas J. Ullmann and Patrick Culligan.

Little more than two hours after they started deliberating on Monday, jurors sent a note asking the judge to define what it meant in the law to start a fire, and whether the pouring of gasoline would be considered starting a fire. Testimony suggested that Mr. Hayes bought gasoline in plastic containers the morning of the killings and, in a jailhouse confession to another inmate, he said he had poured gasoline “on the stairs” in the Petit home.

But it was unclear how much of the gasoline may have been spread by Mr. Komisarjevsky, who still faces trial. The chief prosecutor told the jury that the evidence suggested Mr. Hayes had started the fire as the two ran from the house.

    Convictions on 16 Counts in Triple-Murder Case, NYT, 5.10.2010,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/06/nyregion/06cheshire.html

Defendant Ignited Fire,

Cheshire Prosecutor Tells Jury
 

October 1, 2010
The New York Times
By WILLIAM GLABERSON

NEW HAVEN — A prosecutor at the trial of one of the two men accused of invading a home and murdering a woman and her two daughters contended on Friday for the first time that it was the defendant, Steven J. Hayes, who ignited the fire that killed the girls.

In his closing argument, the prosecutor, Michael Dearington, reminded jurors of testimony that Mr. Hayes ran from the house following the other suspect, Joshua Komisarjevsky.

“The last one out is the one who lights the fire,” Mr. Dearington said.

In a courtroom darkened so jurors could see slides of the victims and their home in Cheshire, Conn., which was ruined by an arson fire after a home invasion, rape and murder in 2007, Mr. Dearington repeatedly emphasized that no matter how much of a role Mr. Komisarjevsky had in the crime, Mr. Hayes played a crucial role and personally committed many of the acts involved.

Mr. Komisarjevsky has been a central focus of Mr. Hayes’s trial, though he has not been in the courtroom.

The two men face the possibility of the death penalty. Mr. Komisarjevsky is to be tried later.

Mr. Dearington, speaking unemotionally but somberly, reminded jurors that soon after his arrest Mr. Hayes told an officer that “things got out of control.”

“It wasn’t ‘things,’ ” he continued. “It was two people acting together.”

Mr. Dearington also reminded the jurors that Mr. Hayes admitted to having had sex with and then killing the mother of the family, Jennifer Hawke-Petit.

“Hayes had sex — having sex is not the right term — brutally raped” her, the prosecutor said.

In his summation, Mr. Hayes’s lawyer, Thomas J. Ullmann, offered a defense that seemed geared toward saving his client from the death penalty, but not establishing his innocence, while putting the blame on Mr. Komisarjevsky.

Mr. Ullmann conceded many of the charges against his client, including those that he raped and killed Ms. Hawke-Petit.

Speaking softly and occasionally shaking his head at the acts his client committed, he also said Mr. Hayes had committed arson, burglary and larceny.

And Mr. Ullmann conceded that Mr. Hayes took part in the kidnapping of all four members of the family, including the two girls, Michaela, 11, and Hayley, 17, who died from smoke inhalation, and their father, Dr. William A. Petit Jr., who was beaten but survived.

But Mr. Ullmann said that Mr. Komisarjevsky was the one controlling events; he portrayed Mr. Hayes as someone who never could have committed the crimes.

He said Mr. Hayes had not known that Mr. Komisarjevsky would change what he said had been their plan: break in, tie up the family, take money and get out.

Instead, Mr. Ullmann argued, Mr. Komisarjevsky changed the plan first by beating Dr. Petit and then by raping Michaela.

“The psychopath in this case is Joshua Komisarjevsky, not Steven Hayes,” Mr. Ullmann said.

“He should pay the price for what he did,” Mr. Ullmann argued about his client, “but not for what he did not do.”

Connecticut law generally requires what lawyers call “death plus” for a crime to warrant capital punishment.

As a result, Mr. Hayes could be sentenced to life in prison for killing Ms. Hawke-Petit, but committing a murder during the course of the rape would be a capital offense.

Mr. Ullmann argued that the rape of Ms. Hawke-Petit that Mr. Hayes confessed to might have been separate from his later strangulation of her.

Killing Michaela would make Mr. Hayes eligible for the death penalty because it is a capital offense under Connecticut law to kill a person who is younger than 16.

Mr. Ullmann devoted a good deal of his remarks to arguing that Mr. Komisarjevsky had a motive to kill the child: to cover up his sexual assault.

The 12 jurors and 2 remaining alternates were attentive to both arguments. In keeping with the reserved tone of the lawyers, they appeared unemotional.

A few of them nodded as lawyers for both sides pieced together narratives from what has often been disjointed, emotional testimony during the three-week trial.

Deliberations are to begin on Monday after the judge, Jon C. Blue of State Superior Court, gives the jurors legal instructions.

If Mr. Hayes is convicted of capital offenses, the same jury will hear a separate penalty phase of the trial.

The lawyers for both sides acknowledged the wrenching nature of the case.

Mr. Dearington displayed a family photograph of Ms. Hawke-Petit and her daughters for the jury on a large screen. But he referred to other photographs in evidence, like those of burned bodies.

He thanked the jurors for enduring “what has been indescribable evidence.”

Mr. Ullmann said the “the tragedy of this incident has affected us deeply — all of us.”

When he claimed that Mr. Hayes had killed Ms. Hawke-Petit “at the behest of” Mr. Komisarjevsky, Mr. Hayes, who was slumping at the defense table, did not stir.

In the end, Mr. Dearington argued, it did not really matter precisely which intruder took which action. Both were responsible, he said.

And, he said, both men had a problem because of the series of crimes they had committed.

“The solution was to destroy the house,” the prosecutor said to the jurors, “and, you may find, the people in it.”

    Defendant Ignited Fire, Cheshire Prosecutor Tells Jury, NYT, 1.10.2010,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/02/nyregion/02cheshire.html

Life Sentence

Closes Chapter in Arizona Shootings

July 30, 2009
Filed at 3:49 a.m. ET
The New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

PHOENIX (AP) -- A sentence of life in prison for one of two men convicted in a series of random nighttime shootings closes a significant chapter in a case that unnerved metropolitan Phoenix residents in 2005 and 2006.

A jury decided Wednesday to spare Samuel Dieteman from the death penalty, unlike his partner in the Serial Shooter case, Dale Hausner. Authorities say the two preyed on pedestrians, bicyclists and animals in attacks that ended in August 2006 when both men were arrested at the apartment they shared in Mesa.

Hausner received six death sentences in the case earlier this year.

Dieteman, who never asked for leniency and was a key witness against Hausner, thanked the court for treating him like a human being after the verdict was read Wednesday.

''I'm truly sorry for the pain that I've caused to many, many people,'' said Dieteman, 33.

Dieteman met Hausner in April 2006 -- about nine months after the Serial Shooter attacks began, and Dieteman's defense attorneys painted him as being Hausner's follower.

Paul Patrick, a victim of the shooting spree who nearly died when Dieteman shot him as he walked down a street in June 2006, was in the court for the verdict and said he agreed with it.

''It's not a cause to celebrate; a mother just lost a son, and children lost their father,'' he said of Dieteman's family. ''No hatred for the family. Too much time has been wasted on that.''

Patrick said if there is such a thing as closure for him, the verdict is ''the closest thing to it.''

Phoenix police spokesman Sgt. Andy Hill, who also was in court, said the verdict was the culmination of four years of pain and suffering for the victims in the case and their family members.

''This is a closure,'' he said. ''The verdict, we think is just. Without the forthrightness of Sam Dieteman coming forward we might not have had a verdict today.''

Dieteman, who had been charged with murdering two people and attacking 14 others, had admitted to fatally shooting 20-year-old Claudia Gutierrez-Cruz in Scottsdale in May 2006 and assisting in the deadly shooting of 22-year-old Robin Blasnek in July 2006 as she walked from her parents' home to her boyfriend's house in Mesa.

Testimony at Dieteman's sentencing trial included a written apology from Dieteman to Patrick, in which he said he would make ''no cries for mercy.'' He also said he regretted his actions, including not turning in Hausner to authorities when he first learned of the shootings.

''There's so many things I would change back then,'' he told jurors.

Ulysses Fuentes, one of the jurors who decided to spare Dieteman's life, said he initially wanted to sentence him to death.

''I felt that what he had done was just irresponsible and there was just no excuse for that,'' said Fuentes, a 19-year-old customer service representative of Phoenix.

He said he didn't feel sympathy for Dieteman. ''Mercy would be a better term.''

Doug Budner, the jury foreman, said he also wanted the death penalty at first.

''The way I was brought up was an eye is for an eye, but as you go into the jury room, then you start seeing evidence unfold in front of you, you have to really listen and really dissect all the information out there and from there make an educated decision,'' said the 53-year-old aircraft mechanic of Phoenix. ''We know we came up with the most lawful decision.''

Prosecutors had sought the death penalty for Dieteman. They painted him as a drifter who was a willing participant, pulling the trigger and serving as Hausner's lookout.

Investigators said their big break came when one of Dieteman's drinking buddies, Ron Horton, called police to say that Dieteman had bragged about shooting people. ''They called it 'RV'ing.' Random Recreational Violence,'' Horton told The Associated Press in a 2006 interview. Horton died last year.

During Hausner's trial, Dieteman said Hausner professed a hatred for prostitutes and homeless people as they looked for victims in areas frequented by streetwalkers. Dieteman said Hausner never explained why he wanted to shoot people.

In describing one shooting, Dieteman said he and Hausner found humor at the sight of one of their seriously injured victims, who held his stomach and appeared angry.

The Serial Shooter case was one of two serial murder investigations that put Phoenix-area residents on edge during the summer of 2006. Police attributed 23 more attacks, including nine slayings, to an assailant dubbed the Baseline Killer.

    Life Sentence Closes Chapter in Arizona Shootings, NYT, 30.9.2009,
    http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/07/30/us/AP-US-Serial-Shootings.html

Verdict in MySpace Suicide Case

November 27, 2008
The New York Times
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER

LOS ANGELES — A federal jury here issued what legal experts said was the country’s first cyberbullying verdict Wednesday, convicting a Missouri woman of three misdemeanor charges of computer fraud for her involvement in creating a phony account on MySpace to trick a teenager, who later committed suicide.

The jury deadlocked on a fourth count of conspiracy against the woman, Lori Drew, 49, and the judge, George H. Wu of Federal District Court, declared a mistrial on that charge.

Although it was unclear how severely Ms. Drew would be punished — the jury reduced the charges to misdemeanors from felonies, and no sentencing date was set — the conviction was highly significant, computer fraud experts said, because it was the first time that a federal statute designed to combat computer crimes was used to prosecute what were essentially abuses of a user agreement on a social networking site.

Under federal sentencing guidelines, Ms. Drew could face up to three years in prison and $300,000 in fines, though she has no previous criminal record. Her lawyer has asked for a new trial.

In a highly unusual move, Thomas P. O’Brien, the United States attorney in Los Angeles, prosecuted the case himself with two subordinates after law enforcement officials in Missouri determined Ms. Drew had broken no local laws.

Mr. O’Brien, who asserted jurisdiction on the ground that MySpace is based in Los Angeles, where its servers are housed, said the verdict sent an “overwhelming message” to users of the Internet.

“If you are going to attempt to annoy or go after a little girl and you’re going to use the Internet to do so,” he said, “this office and others across the country will hold you responsible.”

During the five-day trial, prosecutors portrayed Ms. Drew as working in concert with her daughter, Sarah, who was then 13, and Ashley Grills, a family friend and employee of Ms. Drew’s magazine coupon business in Dardenne Prairie, Mo.

Testimony showed that they created a teenage boy, “Josh Evans,” as an identity on MySpace to communicate with Sarah’s nemesis, Megan Meier, who was 13 and had a history of depression and suicidal impulses.

After weeks of online courtship with “Josh,” Megan was distressed one afternoon in October 2006, according to testimony at the trial, when she received an e-mail message from him that said, “The world would be a better place without you.”

Ms. Grills, who is now 20, testified under an immunity agreement that shortly after that message was sent, Megan wrote back, “You’re the kind of boy a girl would kill herself over.” Megan hanged herself that same afternoon in her bedroom.

Although the jury appeared to reject the government’s contention that Ms. Drew had intended to harm Megan — a notion underlying the felony charges — the convictions signaled the 12 members’ belief that she had nonetheless violated federal laws that prohibit gaining access to a computer without authorization.

Specifically, the jury found Ms. Drew guilty of accessing a computer without authorization on three occasions, a reference to the fraudulent postings on MySpace in the name of Josh Evans.

Legal and computer fraud experts said the application of the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, passed in 1986 and amended several times, appeared to be expanding with technology and the growth of social networking on the Internet. More typically, prosecutions under the act have involved people who hack into computer systems.

“Keep in mind that social networking sites like MySpace did not exist until recently,” said Nick Akerman, a New York lawyer who has written and lectured extensively on the act. “This case will be simply another important step in the expanded use of this statute to protect the public from computer crime.”

Other computer fraud experts said they found the verdict chilling.

“As a result of the prosecutor’s highly aggressive, if not unlawful, legal theory,” said Matthew L. Levine, a former federal prosecutor who is a defense lawyer in New York, “it is now a crime to ‘obtain information’ from a Web site in violation of its terms of service. This cannot be what Congress meant when it enacted the law, but now you have it.”

Ms. Drew, who showed little emotion during the trial, sat stone-faced as the clerk read the jury’s verdict and left the courtroom quickly, her face red and twisted with rage.

Her lawyer, H. Dean Steward, said outside the courthouse that he believed the trial was grandstanding by Mr. O’Brien in an effort to keep his job, with the coming change in the White House.

“I don’t have any satisfaction at all,” Mr. Steward said of the verdict.

Judge Wu scheduled a hearing on the request for a new trial for late December.

Since the story surrounding the suicide became public last year, Mr. O’Brien has discussed with his staff how his feelings as a parent motivated him to bring the charges against Ms. Drew. He alluded to those feelings on Wednesday at a news conference.

“This was obviously a case that means a lot to me,” he said.

The case has been a collection of anomalies. Judge Wu appeared ambivalent regarding some key issues at the trial, like whether any testimony about Megan’s suicide would be allowed (he did allow it) and how to rule on a defense motion to throw out the charges (he had not ruled as of Wednesday).

Judge Wu was appointed to the federal bench less than two years ago, and it is difficult to establish his sentencing record. But Mr. Akerman, the computer fraud expert, said jail time was common even for first-time offenders in computer fraud cases.

“If I were her,” he said of Ms. Drew, “I would not be celebrating over the Thanksgiving weekend.”

Tina Meier, Megan’s mother, said in a news conference after the verdict that she hoped Ms. Drew would serve jail time, and that she felt satisfied.

“This day is not any harder than the day when I found Megan,” Ms. Meier said. “This has never been about vengeance. This is about justice. For me it’s absolutely worth it every single day sitting in that court hoping there was justice.”

    Verdict in MySpace Suicide Case, NYT, 27.11.2008,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/27/us/27myspace.html

Baseline Killer Suspect Gets 438 Years

December 15, 2007
Filed at 6:02 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

PHOENIX (AP) -- A man accused of being the Phoenix Baseline Killer was sentenced to 438 years in prison Friday for the sexual assaults of two sisters. Mark Goudeau still faces trial for the slayings of eight women and a man in 2005-2006, and faces a possible death sentence if he is convicted. He has pleaded not guilty.

The 43-year-old former construction worker was sentenced for his September conviction on charges of raping one woman and sexually attacking another as they walked home from a park.

During the two-month trial, both sisters identified Goudeau as their attacker. DNA evidence also linked him to the rape.

Goudeau has maintained his innocence, and told Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Andrew Klein that what happened to the two young women was horrible, ''but I had nothing to do with it.''

Klein said before handing down the sentence that Goudeau must have two ''diametrically opposed'' personalities, one calm and respectful in court and the other sociopathic and brutal.

One of the victims told the judge Friday through an interpreter that she still wakes up crying at times: ''I will hope for him to never get out.''

The Associated Press has not identified the woman because she is the victim of sexual assault.

Prosecutors had said earlier that Goudeau faced a maximum of 285 years in prison. But Deputy County Attorney Suzanne Cohen proved a prior violent record in court Friday that made him eligible for the higher sentences.

Goudeau is suspected of being a serial predator known as the ''Baseline Killer,'' named for the south Phoenix street where many of the early attacks took place.

He is the first of three suspected serial killers to go on trial for a rash of random attacks that terrorized the Phoenix area for more than a year. All three were arrested last year.

Dale Hausner and Samuel Dieteman were arrested in the so-called ''Serial Shooter'' case in August 2006 and are expected to go on trial next year. Hausner faces seven murder counts and Dieteman is charged with two. Their trial is expect to begin next year.

    Baseline Killer Suspect Gets 438 Years, NYT, 15.12.2007,
    http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Serial-Predator.html

Convicted child molester gets 800 years

Posted 2/10/2007
1:03 AM ET
USA TOday
AP
 

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — The former roommate of one of the nation's most prolific child molesters was sentenced Friday to at least 800 years in prison for sexually abusing three boys.

Fred Everts, 36, was convicted last year of molesting the youngsters, ages 3, 9 and 11. He was sentenced to 800 years to life.

Police discovered the crimes two years ago while investigating Dean Arthur Schwartzmiller, who authorities say may have molested hundreds of youngsters over decades and kept detailed logs on the children.

Schwartzmiller, 65, was sentenced in January to 152 years in prison for abusing two 12-year-old boys. He and Everts had met in prison on earlier molestation charges and eventually moved in together in San Jose.

Steve Fein, who prosecuted both men, said Everts admitted molesting about 40 children, including his 3-month-old biological son. He asked for the maximum sentence of 1,175 years to life.

Everts' sentence was compounded under California's three-strikes law because of two felony convictions in Oregon in 1993 for sodomy and sexual abuse on his young stepson.

In asking for leniency, defense lawyer Steven Woodson asked the judge to disregard the previous two felonies and consider his client's admission to the crimes and cooperation with investigators.

    Convicted child molester gets 800 years, UT, 10.2.2007,
    http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-02-10-serial-molester_x.htm

Courts Struggle for Jurors

July 27, 2007
Filed at 2:43 p.m. ET
The New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
 

Madeline Byrne was making a quick trip to the grocery store to buy some cheese when a sheriff approached her car in the parking lot and slipped something through her open window.

Byrne didn't get the cheese, but she did get a jury summons.

The 64-year-old woman was ordered to report for jury duty a little more than an hour later at the Lee County courthouse in Sanford, N.C. When Byrne protested, the sheriff told her: ''Be there or you'll be in contempt.''

''I wasn't too happy,'' said Byrne, one of at least a dozen people handed summonses at random in March outside a Food Lion and Wal-Mart.

Courts across the country have been going to extraordinary lengths in recent years to get people to report for jury duty -- a cornerstone of democracy and a civic responsibility that many citizens would do almost anything to avoid.

Experts say the shirking of jury duty has been a problem as long as anyone can remember, and it is unclear whether it has gotten any worse in the past few decades. But according to one study, fewer than half of all Americans summoned report for duty, in part because of apathy and busy lifestyles.

''Everybody likes jury duty -- just not this week,'' said Patricia Lee Refo, a Phoenix lawyer who chaired the American Jury Project, an effort by the American Bar Association to increase jury participation.

Among other efforts around the country to boost participation:

-- In Los Angeles County, officials have put ads promoting jury service on the court system's mail trucks. They read: ''Jury Service: You Be the Judge.''

-- In New York state, occupational exemptions to jury service have been eliminated, so doctors, lawyers, firefighters, police officers and even judges can no longer get out of jury duty.

-- In Florida, court officials use a poster of Harrison Ford, star of the movie ''Presumed Innocent,'' to encourage people to report for jury duty. The poster was part of a 2005 public service campaign developed by the ABA. ''If a picture of Harrison Ford helps us be a more democratic society, then I'm all for it,'' said Greg Cowan, a court official in Leon County, Fla.

-- In Washington, D.C., judges have summoned no-shows to court, where they must explain why they missed their date or face up to seven days in jail and a $300 fine. In Tulare County, Calif., sheriffs go to the homes of no-shows and hand them orders to appear in court to explain themselves.

-- Around the country, some courts have tried to make jury service less burdensome by raising daily fees paid to jurors, limiting jury service to one day or one trial, and reimbursing jurors for parking costs.

Nationally, about 46 percent of people summoned for jury duty show up, according to a survey of jury improvement efforts conducted by the National Center for State Courts and published in April. It was the organization's first such survey.

Many of the rest did not show up or were excused or disqualified for a variety of reasons, including medical or financial hardship, or employment in a job exempt from jury service. Or, they never received their jury summons because it was mailed to an outdated address.

Ann Blakely, the clerk of Superior Court in North Carolina's Lee County, said sending out sheriffs to find jurors at random is done very rarely, and only when a judge is about to begin a case and there are not enough jurors.

''Not again in my lifetime, I hope,'' she said. ''We got a lot of complaints from people. You do not make friends like that.''

Some people struggle mightily to get out of jury duty. Earlier this month, a Cape Cod, Mass., judge reprimanded a potential juror and reported him to prosecutors after he tried to get out of jury service by saying he was ''not a fan of homosexuals and most blacks'' and was ''frequently found to be a liar, too.''

In Manhattan, about 33 percent of those summoned show up the day they are called -- up from 23 percent in the mid-1990s, before widespread reforms were put in place, including the elimination of all occupational exemptions and the use of five different lists to pick potential jurors from, including voter registrations, licensed drivers, taxpayers, unemployment and aid recipients, said Anthony Manisero, statewide jury manager.

In Boston, about 24 percent of the people called for jury duty in 2006 completed their service before the end of the year -- an improvement from less than 20 percent in the mid-1990s, before the city began updating its address lists.

Nevertheless, the juror shortage in Boston has become so acute that court officials are worried they may run out of jurors before the end of the year.

An increase in the number of homicides in Boston and the use of special grand juries to investigate violent crimes have eaten into the prospective juror list.

The city also has a large number of immigrants, who are exempt from jury duty, and college students, who move so frequently that their summonses are often sent back as undeliverable.

The problem appears to be worse in urban courts, where the population is more transient and address lists can quickly become outdated. But rural and suburban areas also have problems with reluctant jurors.

In Tulare County, Calif., where the trial of two brothers accused of murdering five people in a bar had to be delayed a day because not enough prospective jurors showed up, Superior Court Judge Lloyd Hicks said the warning letters and visits from the sheriff are making a difference. He said the no-show rate has declined from about 56 percent to 39 percent since the crackdown began about a year ago.

''It had been a common problem because people were aware that nothing would happen to them,'' Hicks said. Now, people are calling in to schedule their jury service after watching their neighbors get a visit from the sheriff, he said.

    Courts Struggle for Jurors, NYT, 27.7.2007,
    http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Reluctant-Jurors.html

Utah man gets six years to life for killing wife

Tue Jun 7, 2005
1:33 AM ET
Reuters
By James Nelson

SALT LAKE CITY (Reuters) - A Utah man who confessed to killing his pregnant wife to try and cover up his own lies about his education and plans to become a doctor was sentenced to six years to life in prison on Monday.

Mark Hacking, 29, who appeared in court hand-cuffed and wearing a bullet-proof vest amid tight security, broke down in tears, saying he was "tormented" by the killing.

He pleaded guilty in April to shooting his wife Lori while she slept and then throwing the body into the garbage.

"She was the greatest thing that ever happened to me, but I killed her and put her and my unborn child in the garbage. And I can't explain why I did it," he said in a hearing before the sentence was handed down.

The sentence was the only one that Judge Denise Lindberg could hand down under state guidelines but she called Hacking "the poster child for dishonesty."

Lindberg said a parole board would determine how long Hacking would serve but said she would recommend he stay in prison a "very, very long time."

The murder drew international attention when Lori Hacking, 27, was reported missing July 19 by her husband who told police she had never returned from a morning jog.

Police quickly focused on Mark Hacking as a suspect.

Shortly before the murder Hacking had told friends and family he had been accepted to a medical school. Records later showed he had not graduated from college.

In October police found Lori Hacking's badly decomposed body in a landfill. They were unable to determine if she was pregnant at the time of her death, a factor that deterred prosecutors from seeking the death penalty.

Lori's mother, Thelma Soares, told the judge since her daughter's death she had received correspondence and gifts from concerned people in every state in America and 63 nations.

"Mark's infamy extends well beyond the borders of Utah," she said. "He killed my daughter and grandchild and then threw them in the trash with the intent that they never be found and that I never know what happened to them. Those acts constitute the very epitome of depraved indifference."

"I can't think of one good reason why Mark should ever walk free again," Soares told the judge.

Several members of the Hacking family made statements to the judge including Mark's brother Scott Hacking. "We will continue to love Mark and pray for him," he said.

    Utah man gets six years to life for killing wife, R, Tue Jun 7, 2005 1:33 AM ET,
    http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2005-06
    07T053318Z_01_N06390779_RTRIDST_0_USREPORT-CRIME-HACKING-DC.XML

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