Sex, Drugs & Murder -- Inside a D.C. Homicide Trial

© 1996 Martin Kimel

[Note:  I have changed most names -- MK]

Like the jack-in-the-box woman nearby who kept popping to her feet to tell the judge why she shouldn't serve, I had thought about getting out of jury duty as quickly as possible. But I had fumed too much at some recent court

verdicts to justify depriving the system of someone I felt (modestly) was both smart and fair.

From the start, it was clear that this criminal trial was going to be nothing like that of O.J. Simpson. Unlike Simpson, George Edward Jones, the defendant before me facing a murder charge, had neither fame nor money. There were no jury consultants, no questionnaires to sift potential jurors. Jury selection had gone swiftly, almost randomly. It was thus that I was transformed -- much to my surprise -- from a practicing lawyer to Juror No. 10.

Without celebrities, star attorneys or even the local news media present, it was just another first-degree murder trial in D.C. Superior Court. Just one of the 399 homicides that took place in the nation's capital in 1994, the same year that Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were slain in California. But if the setting of Southeast D.C. lacked the glitter of L.A., the Christmas '95 trial would bring together a disparate group of District citizens to hear a shockingly lurid, yet in many ways tragically typical, story of shattered inner city lives.

We -- the four white men, three black men, four black women, Asian woman and two alternates constituting the jury -- took our assigned seats in the jury box, clutching the notebooks that had been distributed by the court clerk.

Overhead, about half of the courtroom's light bulbs were burned out.

Michael Brittin, a seasoned prosecutor in his late 30s, spoke in a calm, measured voice, as he gave the government's opening statement. The evidence would show, he told us, that an 18-year-old woman, Ella Steele,

had been shot three times in the head at about 2:50 a.m. on December 12, 1994. Her cousin, Prince Taylor, was staying at her apartment that night, and he was also shot. Mr. Taylor survived and would later identify the assailant as the Defendant, George Edward Jones, who usually went by his middle name.

We were promised more evidence. Ballistics results would tie the murder weapon to the Defendant, said the prosecutor. Semen from vaginal swabs taken during the autopsy of Ms. Steele would match that of the Defendant.

Finally, when arrested later that week, Mr. Jones confessed to killing Ella Steele and to shooting Prince Taylor.

Ferris Bond, an affectedly folksy defense attorney whose very short tie represented either a terribly subtle stratagem or just plain bad taste, reminded the jury that the government had the burden of proof and that his client was presumed innocent. He emphasized that Mr. Jones had been arrested by the Prince George's County, Maryland police and suggested that his client had confessed out of fear and intimidation. Bond also said we would hear testimony about a friend of Ella's who was 5'7" -- much shorter than the 6'4" Defendant -- and implied that it was this shorter man who was the true killer. Bond admitted that Mr. Jones and Ella had been "close, in many ways," but said that he had not done the crimes and that George Jones, his wife and child had suffered greatly over the past year.

Strangely, though, Bond did not hit the government's greatest weakness: his client's lack of a clear motive.

                                              * * *

Brittin and his more junior colleague, Tim Heaphy, had started the prosecution's case with the events following the murder, introducing the tearful testimony of Ella's mother. (She had received a 3 a.m. call from Ella's friend the morning of Dec. 12: "Miss Priscilla," the woman said, "there's been shooting in Ella's apartment . . . .")

Our next morning was devoted to the murder weapon. The prosecution called Vera Morton, a secretary in her 50s who had discovered a still-loaded gun discarded in front of her place of work on Minnesota Ave., SE. To keep passing school children from picking up the revolver, she stood by it in the freezing December cold for an hour and half until her employer arrived. A firearms expert also treated us to an everything-you-always-wanted-to-know lecture about nine-chamber, .22-caliber, double-action revolvers. He testified that bullets found in a can at the Defendant's home were consistent with residues recovered at the murder scene.

Now the prosecutors were focusing on what had happened during a party at Ella's apartment before the murder.

Blue Bulls and Blunts

Wearing blue jeans, a sweater and a gold cross, Tanya Hall, an unemployed 25-year-old, described Ella Steele as "nice, fun to be around, smart." Hall and the father of her child, her then-boyfriend Jerome, had gone to Ella's apartment the night of Sunday, December 11. After a pleasant evening of smoking "blunts" (marijuana cigars) and drinking "Blue Bulls" (potent malt liquor), Ella had told Tanya she was going to drop off her boyfriend Henderson and pick up a guy named Edward.

Sporting a shirt emblazoned with the "Nike" logo, Jerome Proctor, a man of 30 with a receding hairline, followed his ex to the stand. Jerome had what prosecutors call "baggage." Assistant U.S. Attorney Heaphy, who resembled a young Al Gore, quickly elicited his witness's multiple convictions for possession or attempted distribution of PCP and cocaine, ensuring that the jury first heard of Proctor's criminal record on direct examination.

Jerome had accompanied his "young lady," (his "female," at one point in the testimony) to the get-together at Ella's that night. Self-confident and surprisingly engaging, Jerome made strong eye contact with the jury as he

proudly explained his particular technique for rolling blunts.

"Other people may do it different," he said. "But this is how I do it."

He had rolled two blunts that night, which he, Prince, Ella and Tanya had shared. As a self-proclaimed "marijuana smoker," he testified that he had been upset at the weakness of the marijuana he had brought to Ella's apartment.

Although the point seemed almost gratuitous, the prosecutors had undoubtedly discussed it with the witness before trial, as the defense would raise the issue of whether Prince had been too high to i.d. the murderer.

During the evening, Jerome continued, he had handed Ella her phone book so she could call an "Edward," and he heard Ella mention Edward's name a couple of other times. In fact, at Ella's request, he had rolled a blunt for Edward, who had not yet arrived.

Despite defense lawyer Bond's attempts to suggest that Jerome had struck a deal with the government in connection with his sentencing the next day for cocaine distribution, Jerome would not be shaken on cross examination.

Unlike Lance Ito, Judge Harold L. Cushenberry was moving the trial along briskly. By mid-morning of our fifth day, we had already gone through jury selection, opening statements, and the direct- and cross-examinations -- and sometimes even re-direct examinations -- of no fewer than 12 witnesses.

Nor was this a case where a defendant had the resources to put a crime lab on trial. The government read a stipulation which the judge instructed us to accept as uncontroverted: Vaginal swabs taken from Ella Steele's body during the autopsy contained semen from the Defendant.

Have Teddy Bear, Will Testify: An "Ear Witness" to Murder

The government called Alicia McNeil to the stand. She wore a bright red jacket and had long braids pulled back behind a black headband. Though she was only 25, her face was drawn and creased.

Even more odd, this prematurely aged young woman was carrying a white teddy bear.

She explained that her baby, born in September, had passed away, and that the stuffed animal had been one of her child's toys. It made her feel more secure, she said, and she testified with the teddy bear sitting upright in her lap.

Her testimony, however, was not for the innocent.

Under Heaphy's direct, Alicia testified that she had been a close friend of Ella. She had met Edward, whom she identified as the Defendant, on three separate occasions when he was with Ella, and Alicia knew his voice.  Alicia also testified that she had seen Ella count out $1000 in cash less than a week before "the incident."

Heaphy then directed Alicia to the early morning of December 12. At 1:30 that morning she got a call from Ella, which was not unusual. Using her speaker phone, Ella had said that Prince was asleep on the living room sofa and that she had "male company."

"Did she say who?" asked Heaphy.

"No," said Alicia. "We had a little game we played -- Guess Who was at Ella's House."

"And you had to guess what man she had over?"

"Yes."

I exchanged glances with the juror to my left, Hannah Chang (I have changed the names of my fellow jurors), a physician and married mother of two. This was too much for our middle-class sensibilities.

The witness proceeded to testify that Ella had initially given the hint that the man's name started with a "D," but then she later called him "Edward." Once, Alicia testified, she heard Ella say, "Edward, what are you

doing?" Another time, she heard, "Be quiet for a minute, Edward."

"And did you hear anyone correct her?" Heaphy asked.

She hadn't.

At one point in the wandering conversation, Alicia testified, the man got on the phone -- it was Edward's voice -- and asked her to come over.

"Did he say why?" the prosecutor asked.

Alicia paused for several seconds, her face contorting. She started crying and covered her face with her hand.

"He wanted to have sex with me," she said.

Alicia declined the invitation.

The witness had "no doubt in my mind" that she had been speaking with the Defendant.

What happened then? Heaphy asked.

Alicia explained that Ella had asked her to call Henderson because Alicia had a three-way telephone. (Henderson had described himself in earlier testimony as Ella's boyfriend.) Alicia made the three-way connection, listening in but not giving away her presence. She did not hear Edward speak.

"What, if anything, could you hear?" The prosecutor asked.

"They [Ella and Edward] were having sex," Alicia testified.

Using the speaker phone, Ella had called her "boyfriend" Henderson so that he could hear her while she had sex with another man.

"Did she often call you while she was having sex?" Heaphy asked.

"Too many times to count," Alicia responded, the teddy bear still on her lap, mute.

Henderson eventually hung up, but Alicia remained on the line with her friend so that they could discuss Ella's sexual encounter with Edward.

Then, according to Alicia, there was a ten minute silence, during which she could hear the sounds of a Nintendo game.

Alicia testified she heard a crashing sound, then a gunshot. Then Ella cried, "OH MY GOD, 'LEICIA!" Three more shots followed, and after about a minute, two more shots.

"I stayed on the line for about 10 to 15 minutes, waiting for the person to say something, but someone hung up the phone," Alicia said. She then called her sister-in-law to tell her what had happened. And then she phoned Ella's mother, while her sister-in-law dialed the police.

On cross, Bond turned to Alicia's statement that Ella had said the man's name began with a D. "Was that D, as in Danny?" he asked.

"I don't know a Danny." Alicia answered.

"As far as you know, did Ella know a Danny?"

No.

"And didn't Ella say that she had just known the man with her for a short time?"

"Yes," Alicia said.

"And didn't you testify that Ella had known Edward for a long time?"

Yes, Alicia answered, but during that conversation she heard the name Edward a couple of times, and she insisted she had also recognized his voice when he spoke to her.

"Did Ella work?" Bond asked the witness.

Not that Alicia knew of.

"But she had $1000 in cash in her closet?"

"A week before the incident," Alicia answered. "She always had money. Ella was never broke."

Bond persisted. "How did she earn a living?"

"I can't answer that."

"You knew her well enough to listen to her having sex on the speaker phone and you don't know?"

As far as Alicia knew, Ella was unemployed at the time.

"Who's Peanut?" Bond asked out of the blue.

"Objection."

"Sustained," said the Judge, a distinguished-looking man with graying hair.

We had not heard the name before.

After the trial, I would learn that "Peanut" (ne Richard Gibson), a former boyfriend of Ella, had been arrested in Ella's apartment the very night before the murder for pulling a knife on Prince. Judge Cushenberry had suppressed the evidence, as Gibson had a pretty good alibi: he had been in jail on the assault charge the night of the murder. Subsequent to his release on that charge, Gibson would be jailed in connection with a robbery-killing.

"When a woman uses the word 'crucial' about a man, does that mean that he's very good in bed?" Bond asked Alicia McNeil, continuing his cross.

"Yes."

"Artistic?"

"I didn't say 'great' -- 'good,'"

We laughed, as did spectators in the gallery.

Did Ella say that Edward was "crucial" that night?

"Yes."

I was puzzled. Having worked hard to raise doubt that the Defendant had been in Ella's apartment that night, Bond now seemed to be confirming it.

The prosecution used the re-direct to good advantage. They established that Ella had usually tried as part of the game to mislead Alicia by feeding her incorrect clues as to the man she was with. Alicia had never heard Ella Steele mention anyone named Danny. And Alicia had absolutely no doubt that the Defendant was the man with Ella that night.

Excused, the witness collected her snow-white teddy bear and left the courtroom.

Brittin called Prince Taylor to the stand. The stocky 28 year-old cousin of Ella Steele had gone through high school. He said that they had been raised together, "like brother and sister." At the time of Ella's murder, Prince had been staying over at her place about five nights a week. The man spoke in a flat voice, without emotion.

Prince was a good friend of Tanya Hall and he had invited her and her boyfriend over to Ella's place the night of the murder. They had pizza and beer. Jerome, Tanya and Ella also smoked marijuana, but he didn't, limiting himself to two Blue Bulls and "two to three sips of cognac." Indeed, he stated flatly that he did not use marijuana. He had smoked a different drug the night before, but not that night.

Prince also testified that Ella had been looking for her phone book that night in order to call a friend named Edward. She left with the others at about midnight, having said (out of the presence of "boyfriend" Henderson)

that she was going to pick up an "Edward."

What happened then? asked the prosecutor.

Prince said he had stretched out on the living room couch, listening to music. His cousin returned a little later, accompanied by a guy, whom she introduced to Prince as Edward. The two men shook hands, then the man and his cousin went into the bedroom.

Prince said he was awakened by Ella screaming, "Oh my God!" He saw her running from the bedroom to the living room. She was wearing only her bra.

"As I was coming up off the couch, I was shot in the head," Prince said. "I seen fire come out of the gun."

Asked by the prosecutor to do so, he pointed to the scar on his forehead.

What happened then? prompted Brittin.

"I fell to the floor. As I was trying to get up, I was shot again in the head." The gunman had put the muzzle to the back of his ear, Prince testified, extending his thumb and forefinger in the shape of a pistol and positioning it beneath his ear in demonstration.

"Can you tell the ladies and gentlemen of the jury what that felt like?" the prosecutor asked.

Prince began to cry, covering his face with a hand. Soon, he was sobbing. Judge Cushenberry declared a recess.

Fifteen minutes later, Prince had composed himself. Knowing that a gunshot beneath the ear into the brain would kill, he continued, he had jerked his head as the gun went off. The bullet grazed his neck, and was later recovered from the sofa. He played dead. Only later did he realize he had also been shot in the arm.

His assailant stood beside the Christmas tree in the living room for a while, according to Prince, then went back into the bedroom and then into the hallway. Upon seeing the man leave through the front door, Prince testified, he jumped up and locked the front door to the apartment, trapping the gunman in the building's hallway. (The building's front door could only be opened from the inside with a key, which the gunman did not have.) Prince then ran to the bedroom to call the police, but he couldn't get a dial tone. (It turned out that Alica was still on the line.)  Prince ran out the backdoor.

"Hollering for help," he ran up Q Street. "I thought I was going to die," he said. "Blood was everywhere."

Bond began his cross examination at 4 p.m.

Had the witness only had two beers and two to three sips of cognac that night?

"Yes."

And no cocaine or marijuana that night?

"No."

Bond handed Prince Gov't's Exhibit 11, his medical records from the morning of Monday, December 12. According to the records, Prince had told the hospital staff that he had ingested "crank [sic], beer, cognac and marijuana laced with cocaine," but that he had denied using PCP.

"Crank" Prince testified, must have referred to "crack," and he had never told the doctors and nurses that he had used crack or marijuana. What he had said, he testified, was that he had used powdered cocaine laced with PCP Saturday night, but not on Sunday night. Marijuana, he added, was not one of his "drugs of choice."

"Oh?" said Bond, fairly salivating at the opening provided. "What was -- What were your 'drugs of choice'?"

"Cocaine and PCP," answered Prince, without a trace of embarrassment.

The E.R. records were mistaken, Prince asserted. He allowed, however, that he had just been shot three times and did not perfectly remember everything that had happened at the hospital.

Bond then attacked Prince's identification of the Defendant, establishing that he had first described the assailant to the police as 5'11- 6', with a slim build and medium complexion. Bond also elicited the facts that, when Ella came running from her bedroom, Prince had been focusing on Ella, and then on the gun pointed at his own face.  How, Bond demanded, if Prince had been "playing dead" on the floor, had he managed to get a good look at the gunman?

"I never closed my eyes," said the witness.

Bond wisely left that answer alone.

Bond asked what Ella had done for a living. Prince said he didn't know exactly, that she had worked at a "restaurant or something like that." Ella's mother had testified just days earlier that Ella had worked

full-time doing commercial "maintenance cleaning."

Finally, Bond asked whether Prince knew anybody named Danny. He didn't.

The Confession

Having introduced the identifications of Edward at the murder scene by eyewitness Prince Taylor and "ear witness" Alicia McNeil, in addition to the evidence of the Defendant's semen, the prosecution turned to the police and detectives who arrested Edward at the home of his wife's parents in P.G. County four days after the murder, only nine days before Christmas.

Broad-shouldered, baby-faced Robert Alder, the case's lead detective, explained in detail how he and his colleagues had read Edward his Miranda rights and obtained his consent to answer questions without an attorney present.

The boyish detective continued that he had informed Edward that they were investigating the shooting of Ella Steele.

"What did he say?" asked Brittin, pacing the courtroom.

"He said he didn't know a Ella Steele," replied the witness.

What happened then? asked the prosecutor.

"We told him that we found his name and phone number in the victim's personal telephone book."

And what, if anything, did Mr. Jones say? prompted the prosecutor.

"He said he did know her."

Confronted with evidence obtained from the search of his parent's house linking the murder weapon to him (including a receipt for the gun), Edward changed his story and admitted that he had been at Ella's apartment the night in question. According to Alder, the Defendant told the detectives that Ella had driven him there shortly after midnight on Dec. 12, that there had been a "male lying on the couch," and that he (Edward) had gone to the bedroom with Ella. He also told the police that Ella had called Alicia and another person named Hennessey or Henderson, and that he (Edward) and Ella had then engaged in sex. Edward stated that he had found a gun under her bed and moved it to another location. He had been nervous because he thought that Ella and the male on the couch were going to try to rob him. He fired the gun at her and at the male on the couch.

Alder continued his testimony in unemotional, formal, declarative sentences: "He indicated that he had purchased

the gun in Maryland and given it to Ella Steele. He stated he threw the gun on Minnesota Avenue while running from the scene. He stated he had to break the glass to get out [of Steele's apartment building] and that was how he'd actually injured his right hand."

"Did he say anything else?" asked Brittin.

"He said he was sorry it had happened and he'd lost a friend," said Alder. "He said he was going to call the police but he didn't have a quarter."

I looked over at the defense table. Edward still showed no emotion.

The prosecutor then elicited testimony from Alder that he had spoken with the Defendant for about an hour in a normal, casual tone, that there had been no intimidation, "no pressure or threats," no expression of pain, and no evident confusion or uncertainty on the part of Jones.

After the hourlong interview, the detectives told Jones that they wanted to take a written statement, and he agreed. "I wrote as he spoke," testified Alder. Government's Exhibit 31, a copy of the statement, was introduced

into evidence and each juror was given a copy.

The statement pretty much rehearsed what we had just heard, adding details such as that another man had been in the car when Ella picked Edward up. This unidentified man had been dropped off close to Ella's apartment, and the statement never mentioned him again. According to the statement, Ella had called Edward three times that day, asking him to come over. That night, she repeatedly asked him for money, and he had been afraid that she and Prince -- whom the statement described as high -- were planning something.

Why, then, had the Defendant slept with the decedent that night?

Ella had told him to undress, and "I figured if I had sex, she wouldn't do nothing to me," the statement read. "We also had oral sex because that's what she was into. She asked me to do it and I figured that would at least get me home."

Alder finished reading the statement. The Defendant sat stoically. The Judge announced a lunch recess.

I expected a ferocious cross. Bond, however, started off badly, unsuccessfully trying to establish that the police had handcuffed the Defendant's injured hand to his chair. Nor did Bond score big by getting the detective to testify that he had not asked Edward why he was waiving his rights. The sandy-haired defense lawyer fared somewhat better in getting out the facts that the police had not taped the interview or statement and had not asked follow-up questions regarding the unidentified man in Ella's car.

But Bond, an experienced trial lawyer, occasionally hurt his cause by failing to stick to leading questions on cross-examination. "Any indication of motive?" he asked Alder.

"I didn't ask him why he felt he needed to use a gun to get out of the house," the detective answered.

The government rested. It was now time for the Defense's case-in-chief, where Bond would put on his witnesses and the prosecution would assume the role of counter-puncher.

Bond's first witness was Jonathan Moore, a 23-year-old man wearing a prison jump suit. As he took the stand, a marshal immediately swung into position behind the witness, hardly inspiring confidence in the testimony we were about to hear.

Moore was currently residing at Lorton prison, but he testified he was living across the street from Ella's apartment building at the time of the shooting. Washing his clothes at a laundromat on Minnesota Ave. between 4 and 5 a.m., he saw "a dude running down the street," about 5'7" to 5'9", with brown skin. The man had been running toward towards the area where the gun was later found. Moore testified that he had never seen the Defendant before, and that the Defendant was not the man he saw that night.

Heaphy handled the government's first cross. In rapid succession, Moore admitted that he had been convicted for carrying a pistol without a license, bail jumping, possession of cocaine and possession of a prohibited weapon.

You testified that the man you say you saw that night was running away from you? Heaphy asked.

"Not running away from me," Moore answered, to much laughter.

"But in a different direction?" Heaphy clarified.

The prosecutor then got the witness to concede that he hadn't paid close attention to the man he saw. In addition, he never got closer to him than about 25 feet. Finally, Moore never saw the man's face.

On re-direct, Bond got the witness to say that the closest he got to the running man was 10 to 12 feet.

An Unexpected Witness; Explaining the Confession

The Defense then dropped the Big One.

It was calling George Jones.

Wearing a brown sweater over which rested a plaid shirt collar, George Edward Jones took the stand. (He had mixed and matched his limited wardrobe during the trial, alternating between both the shirt and sweater, the shirt alone and the sweater with no shirt.) Edward testified that he had grown up in Southeast, at 1811 Burke Street, which was in Anacostia near the D.C. Armory. The Defendant's speech was hard to understand, made worse by his speaking so that his lips almost touched the microphone.

Edward had made it to the twelfth grade, but had not graduated from high school. At one time, he had worked at a Safeway.

The Defendant, whom Bond religiously called "George," said he had known Ella Steele since early 1991. This would have made her about 15 when they met.

"Ella and I was into checks and credit card fraud," Jones blurted out quickly, to the shouts of objection from the prosecution. Judge Cushenberry allowed the testimony.

According to Edward/George, Ella had asked him about a gun store. Ella had wanted him to get the false i.d. cards recovered from his parents' house to buy guns for a "crew" on the ironically named Good Hope Road.  The Defendant testified that he had bought three Tec-9 machine guns and three 9 millimeter pistols for her. In addition to the cost of the weapons, the crew paid $250 to Edward and $350 to "Ella per gun. Edward also testified that he bought a .22 caliber gun for Ella's protection. Ella, he continued, had bought a can of bullets

for someone named "David."

Bond directed his client's attention to the night of Sunday, December 11.

Ella had called him at midnight and told him that she would pick him up in twenty minutes. According to Edward, there had been a guy in the car with Ella. He was 5'7" or 5'8", wearing a down coat, but larger than

Edward "weight-wise." It wasn't Henderson. Ella called the guy in the car "Danny," the Defendant testified.

The three of them went into Ella's apartment. She asked Edward for some money, but he told her he didn't have any. The guy on the couch [Prince] was asleep. Ella said he was "all f---ed up."

Edward testifed that Danny and Ella went into Ella's bedroom and talked. Danny "left out" of the bedroom for the kitchen, and Ella told Edward that she owed Danny money for marijuana. Edward repeated that he had no money.

Edward testified that Ella called a girl named Alicia and a guy named Hennessey. Ella had ended the call with Alicia, before she had intercourse with Edward, telling her girlfriend that she was "about to get some." The two women continued the phone conversation later, he said.

According to Edward, Ella again asked him for money, explaining that she worked for a guy named Peanut, a gangster who was also her new boyfriend. Danny, Ella said, was an "enforcer" for this drug crew operating from Good Hope Road.

The Defendant testified that he had feared trouble and went to the bathroom to clean himself up and get dressed to leave. When he emerged from the bathroom, Danny was standing in the bedroom, his arm gripping Ella.

"You think I'm playing?" Danny supposedly had told Ella angrily, moving his hand around her neck. "I ain't playin' with you!"

At this point, Edward testified, he came to Ella's aid, pushing Danny to the ground. When Danny got up, however, he was holding a gun. Edward ran out of the apartment into the building's foyer, breaking the window to

climb out of the locked door. He ran, he testified, straight up Minnesota Ave.

The day before he was arrested, Edward continued, the Good Hope crew threatened him. "They wanted me to take the beef for what happened in the apartment," he testfied, referring to the shootings of Ella and Prince.

Otherwise, he said, they would kill him.

This, the Defendant explained on the stand, was why he had told the police that the guy in Ella's car had been dropped off before reaching the apartment and had not mentioned him again.

"Have you since been threatened?" Bond asked his client.

"Yes," he answered. He had also seen people in the courtroom who knew "what I was talking about."

For his finale, Edward was asked whether he had killed Ella Steele.

"No. I didn't kill Ella Steele," he said, betraying little emotion.

And Prince Taylor?

"I didn't shoot Prince Taylor," he declared.

A Brutal Cross

It was late in the afternoon, but Judge Cushenberry would not give the prosecution the evening to prepare its cross examination.

Brittin wasted no time setting the tone for his cross examination.

"Let's get back to basics," he said to Edward. "Do you know the difference between truth and a lie?"

"Ooo--Oooh!" a woman's voice rang out from the back of the courtroom.

"Yes," said the Defendant, quietly.

"Do you remember taking an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth here today?" Brittin asked, just bristling with righteous indignation.

"Yes."

Brittin showed the Defendant the exhibit of the blown-up Maryland driver's license bearing Edward's image but in the name of a mentally slow family friend. "You told that authority you were Charles Heighligh, correct?"

"Yes, sir."

"You lied then, didn't you?"

"Yes, sir."

And the address you gave them, that was a lie, too, wasn't it?

It was.

And the same was true as to the given date of birth?

"Yes."

"And you lied to make some money, right?"

"For my family," Edward said.

"You lied to make some money, right?" the prosecutor persisted.

"Yes," Edward conceded.

Brittin then ran through similar questions regarding a false i.d. Edward had obtained in the name of Heighligh from some Columbia Identification "outfit," establishing that Edward had lied deliberately.

"You chose to lie?"

"Yes."

"For money?"

Edward leaned closer to the mike. "Yes."

On his three separate trips to buy guns, Edward had also lied about his identity in his face-to-face dealings with the gunstore salesman. The Defendant had lied on his application to purchase a registered firearm. He had done so for money, he acknowledged. Edward had also bought an electronic pager under a false name, though it had been later

disconnected for lack of payment.

Brittin turned to the Defendant's hand, which Edward had, in fact, injured breaking out the window in Ella's building the night of the murder. Treated later that day, he had, however, lied to the emergency room physician, claiming that he had cut the hand on a chain-link fence.

"But you testified on direct that this fellow, Remy, didn't threaten you till later, until the day before you were arrested, true?" asked Brittin.

"Yes," said Edward, still showing no emotion.

He also admitted that he had told his sister Natasha he had cut his hand helping a woman retrieve her keys from a locked car and told his wife yet a third story. He hadn't wanted to get them involved, he said.

Brittin also cast doubt on the testimony concerning the payment for purchasing the guns.

He turned briefly to the statement the Defendant had given the police. Edward resisted the suggestion that Detective Alder had treated him well during the interrogation.

"Him and that officer, they wasn't nice at all," Edward testified. He went on to say that he had asked for a lawyer twice, but had been ignored. He hadn't understood his rights, he said.

Brittin wheeled. "Are you telling this jury that you've never heard those rights before?" he demanded.

"Objection," shouted Bond.

"Sustained," said the Judge quickly.

After more questioning, though, Edward conceded that he had understood his rights, as read to him by the detectives. He also acknowledged that he had told the police initially that he did not know Ella Steele and that he had lied to them about his being at home when the shooting occurred.

Brittin directed the Defendant's attention to December 1994. Edward had been unemployed for several months. His bank statement showed all of $11.47.

Edward did not know what Danny, the crew's enforcer, had been doing while he and Ella were having sex, making phone calls, and playing Nintendo.

After pushing Danny and running out of the apartment building, Edward ran up White Place, then onto Minnesota Ave., down the Sousa Bridge and home, he said.

"You ran out of the house on 21st Place and didn't think about calling the police?"

"No," the Defendant answered. "She'd take him to where I was and they'd get my people."

Was it a coincidence, the prosecutor asked, that you ran up Minnesota, and the gun winds up on Minnesota?

Edward asked to see the Exhibit of the enlarged street map.

Brittin placed the exhibit on the easel between the witness stand and the jury box.

"Did you go as far as Pennsylvania?" Brittin asked.

As most of the other witnesses had done, Edward stepped down from the witness stand to point to the map.

Judge Cushenberry instructed him to point from the witness stand, implying a concern about courtroom safety.

The Defendant got back into the witness box. In response to further questioning, Edward testified that he had taken a route that did not take him past the marked recovery site of the revolver.

"Now that you've had a chance to look at the map, you're changing your route?" Brittin asked, sarcastically.

Who was Peanut? Bond asked his client on re-direct.

Edward testified that Peanut was Ella's new boyfriend, whom he had met once. Peanut was "short, with a bald head."

"I want to be fair, but I don't recall any cross on Peanut," Judge Cushenberry interjected, thereby ending that line of questioning.

Edward testified that there had been a meeting near a Taco Bell on Addison Road the day before he was locked up. Someone named "David" had arranged the meeting. The Defendant's story was that Peanut said that Ella had gotten a friend of his locked up. Peanut also said that money for the marijuana hadn't been paid, and he indicated that the crew had given Ella more money to go to the gun store, which she had pocketed.

The crew asked Edward whether he would "take the beef for the crime."

"Why did you deal with these people?" Bond asked.

"I needed the money, for my son. To get an apartment again."

Edward testified further that he had left Danny's name out of the written statement because Danny would have killed his family.

There was no re-cross. The attorneys gathered at the bench for a discussion, during which the Judge turned on a "white noise" machine so the jury couldn't hear.

The Defense rested.

Closing Arguments

It was about 10:30. The courtroom was pretty much packed, with many of the former witnesses present to hear the closing arguments. To my surprise, the less experienced Heaphy handled the prosecution's closing.

He began by approaching the jury box, and thanking us earnestly for having paid close attention to the testimony.  Having worked his audience a bit, he then recounted the prosecution's version of the story, tying the key testimony together, frequently illustrating his points with marked exhibits attached to plaster boards.

"He confesses to the police, but he doesn't really take the beef." Heaphy said, referring to Edward. "He goes halfway." "Why does he change his mind? All of a sudden he has a change of heart. He has no reason to change his story. The pressure hasn't gone anywhere," said the prosecutor, alluding to the alledged danger still facing Edward's family.

As to the charge of assault with intent to kill, the younger prosecutor argued, there could by no doubt of the gunman's intent given that his first shot hit Prince in the forehead and that the third shot was fired from beneath the man's ear.

Now, we wish we could prove motive in this case, Heaphy said, confronting the government's weakness. "We can't," he admitted. "But we don't have to." The prosecution did, he said, have possible reasons for the murder. He gave only one, though: Edward was in desperate straits, and Ella Steele had money. Alicia testified that she had seen Ella with $1000 the week before the murder. Prince Taylor said he had seen Ella count out $300

the day before.

"Who is Danny?" asked Heaphy, noting that the supposed "enforcer" had waited for Edward and Ella to have sex and then let Edward escape without firing a shot at him.

"Danny," the junior prosecutor concluded, "is a figment of the Defendant's imagination."

Heaphy's performance had taken about an hour. We did not know it, but his house had been burglarized the night before this, his biggest closing ever.

Heaphy -- who came off as a somewhat stiff technocrat -- and defense lawyer Ferris Bond couldn't have been more different. Wearing a three-piece suit, Bond fairly strutted up to the jury box for the defense's closing. "The government is asking you to speculate," he said. And this case was rife with reasonable doubt.

"Matlock," as the woman who would be our future foreman called the folksy attorney, then told a story involving tomcats and mice in boxes to illustrate the concept of reasonable doubt, which he labeled "a doubt you can have a

reason for."

This case, he said, has a "great big gaping hole."

The police, he said, didn't ask Edward follow-up questions regarding the story he told them. "Detective Adler", he said, botching the first of many names, was tired, he had been up "three nights in a row -- and I'm glad we have such dedicated police officers -- but he was exhausted and he wanted to close the case. He rushed to judgment," said Bond, perhaps trying to remind the jury of Johnnie Cochran.

Ella, Bond reminded us, had friends on Good Hope Road, alluding to the area where gangs operated.

Bond acknowledged Prince Taylor's suffering, expressing sympathy for what he had gone through before discrediting the victim's testimony. "Prince Taylor would have you believe he was sober as a judge when this

happened," Bond said, to laughter. "He was high."

The defense lawyer then proceeded with his version of what had happened: "George Jones," he said, received three calls from Ella Steele on December 11. She told him she would pick him up, he said. Bond reminded us that Henderson, whom he called "that rather slow young man," testified that Ella had dropped him off home. He paused for effect. "Henderson Brown lived off Good Hope Road," he said, adding that Ella dropped off Henderson and picked up some individual before arriving at George Jones's home.

"We heard testimony from Alicia McNeil that she and Ella played 'Who's in the house with Ella,' that night, as they had so many times. Ella told Alicia that the man's name began with a D, and was a new acquaintance. Do ya remember that?" he said to the jury, nodding his head at us, trying to get us to nod back. This was to become a mantra. Neither of Ella's descriptions fit the Defendant, he said.

Danny, the enforcer whom Ella picked up near Good Hope Road, didn't kill George Jones because he had no beef with the Defendant, explained Bond.

He challenged Prince Taylor's in-court identification of the Defendant, and hammered at Prince's initially picking the wrong photo out of the photo array. (At first, Prince had narrowed his choice down to two pictures and had selected the wrong one.) Moreover, Prince Taylor -- who was "high as a kite" -- had been shot and was playing dead so how could he have gotten a good look at the gunman? Prince Taylor, he concluded, was simply "mistaken" about who shot him.

Bond moved on to Jonathan Moore, whom he referred to as "the young thug who testified in front of you," explaining that "you take your witnesses where you find them." The important thing, he argued, was that Moore

didn't know George Jones, and had no reason to lie for him. Moore testified that from 10-12 feet he saw a man of about 5'7" or 5'8", Bond said. "Do ya' remember that?" the lawyer repeated, looking directly at us. He nodded his head.

George Jones testified that Danny was about 5'7" or 5'8" and was broader than Jones was, Bond continued.

"Both George Jones and Ella got involved with people who carried guns," said Bond. "Peanut was all tied up with this." No one, he pointed out, knew what Ella Steele did for a living.

Maybe Ella didn't mention Danny's name to Alicia, he said. "She was afraid. Like George Jones was, still is.  You heard that George Jones invited Alicia over; why would he do that if he meant to kill Ella?" There was, moreover, no motive, he argued, for the Defendant to have killed Ella Steele.

Digressing, the defense lawyer empathized with everyone's wish to "do away with violence among our young culture." Sending an innocent man to jail, however, would not accomplish that goal, he appealed.

Turning to Edward's written statement, Bond highlighted the Defendant's shaky signature, arguing that Edward had been terrified, implying that he would have signed anything put before him. And, he reminded us, George

Jones testified that he had asked the detectives for an attorney but they had kept asking him questions nonetheless. In his fatigue, Alder had rushed to judgment.

Bond paused. 'Based on THEIR OWN WITNESSES," he said, "they've got the wrong man on trial."

Bond told another folksy story, this one about his wife's cooking. Its point was if you have to think twice after leaving the house whether you have left on the gas oven, you have a reasonable doubt.

He noted that he wouldn't get another chance to speak with us, though the prosecution would, because it had the burden of proof. Clasping his hands together imploringly, he asked us to reflect honestly. If we did so, he said, he was confident that we would find reasonable doubt and return a verdict of "not guilty."

He had taken slightly under an hour. It had been a pretty slick performance.

Brittin rose to do the government's rebuttal closing argument. He wanted to discuss three points: (1) honesty, (2) what the Defendant was asking us to believe and (3) how to decide this case.

"George Edward Jones is a liar," Brittin said flatly. Then in an unusually loud voice, he added, "It's A FACT."  The prosecutor then rehearsed the lies that Edward had admitted on cross.

"This man has an ease with lying, a facility for lying.

"Now, what does he want us to believe?" Brittin had moved on to point two of his outline. "He wants us to believe that Danny committed this crime. The story on its face isn't believable," he said. "Danny was a silent man. No one

but the Defendant heard him. Not only was he silent, he was an invisible man," he added sarcastically.

A woman in the gallery was nodding her head.

Brittin noted that Prince Taylor had been sufficiently clear-headed to survive the assault and lock the assailant out of the apartment. "Prince Taylor didn't see Danny," he said. "Alicia doesn't hear Danny." Brittin was on a roll.

"Not only is Danny invisible and silent, but he must be the most accommodating and kindly hit man around. The Defendant and Ella go to the apartment and -- not necessarily in this order -- they have sex, play Nintendo, call Alicia, call Henderson, and they spend a good long time on the phone with Alicia, while Danny waits patiently outside the bedroom. And then he chose to kill her and he leaves an eyewitness." In addition to being silent and invisible, he must have been a bad hit man, noted Brittin. "The tale," the prosecutor said, "doesn't withstand the test of human experience."

He then turned to Edward's statement, in which the Defendant admitted to shooting Ella and Prince. The prosecutor reminded us that when he took Edward over the statement on cross, the Defendant had only taken

issue with a few minor points.

"Now," he continued, "the Defendant says, 'He threatened me. I didn't really waive my rights.' He's not even sure if he was threatened by Detective Alder or by Danny -- yesterday it was 'Remy' who threatened him. Well, ladies and gentlemen, you heard the testimony of Detective Robert Alder. And I'd ask you to put them side by side: Who are you going to believe: Edward Jones, an admitted liar, or Detective Alder?

As for motive, Brittin said that only two people knew what happened in that bedroom and why. "Ella knows what happened -- she's dead, and we can't bring her back. The Defendant knows what happened and he's not

saying now."

Brittin walked over to the defense table, where Edward and his counsel were seated. "This man," said the lead prosecutor, thumping his palm on the table in front of Edward, "who Mr. Bond just put his arm around," he added quickly, "is a murderer."

He was angry, indignant. It was a far different approach than Marcia Clark had employed in the Simpson case, where she projected sadness when declaring the celebrity defendant guilty in closing arguments.

"How do you go about deciding this case?" Brittin asked. "Now, I know it's the Christmas season, and we all want to think well of our fellow man and have forgiveness in our hearts. But don't let the Christmas season affect you.  This man has been zealously represented by skilled counsel. He's had a fair trial with a judge who was appointed by the President of the United States and who was confirmed by the Senate."

"You have a wealth of experience," he said, facing the jury box. "You have a cook, a secretary, a paralegal, an analyst with an environmental group . . . ." He had memorized each of our occupations, and was repeating them

back to us. ". . . You have a physician, for goodness' sake, an attorney . . . ."

His tactic worked. I felt flattered.

"No doubt some of you are individually very bright," he said, looking at us. "Collectively, though, you have tremendous wisdom." He asked us to apply that wisdom to all the evidence that had been presented and come back

with a guilty verdict on all counts.

It was an impressive, finely polished performance.

After lunch, Judge Cushenberry began his instructions by reminding us of the oaths we had taken as jurors. He then began reading the instructions, which explained the difference between direct and circumstantial evidence,

stating that the law did not regard one kind of evidence as better than the other. "Reasonable doubt" meant "a doubt based upon reason;" it was that which would make "a reasonable person hesitate, but not based upon

guesswork." The judge then ran through the elements of the specific crimes charged against Edward.

The Jury Picks a Foreman

We filed into our by-now familiar, windowless jury room, which was furnished with a worn, ugly green carpet, a large table, two bathrooms and a water fountain. Above the table, a sign read, "Not responsible for lost or stolen articles."

At 3:45 p.m, we began our deliberations. We had to pick a foreman. As the only lawyer in the group, I thought someone might put my name forward.

"Pick me! Pick me!" said Carmen, a talkative 29-year-old insurance agent, with a self-conscious laugh. "I want to be foreman."

Okay, you're the foreman, we said.

We had just selected someone who had earlier thought (mistakenly) that we were sitting on a grand jury. Carmen was, by far, the most enthusiastic juror on our panel, perhaps the most enthusiastic juror in the entire courthouse.  She was loving the experience.

"They ask us to say if we know someone," Carmen had said to us a few days earlier, referring to the Judge's admonition to inform him if we recognized any of the witnesses from outside the trial. "Like I'm going to say this late in the game. My mother could sit up there [on the witness stand] and I wouldn't know her," she declared.

People started speaking all at once, about different pieces of testimony and evidence, talking over one another.  Richard, a bearded 27-year-old environmentalist, said we needed to do things in an orderly way. We went around  the table.

To my amazement, Carmen, our foreman by default, was leaning towards acquittal.

"I believe part of what Edward said," she declared. Carmen also doubted that, contrary to Det. Alder's statement, he had not taken Edward's confession verbatim. "This boy talks only street language," she said, and one phrase in particular seemed too grammatically sophisticated.

"Edward and Henderson are idiots," Carmen continued. "She [Ella] was working them." Carmen also had trouble with Alicia's testimony about 10 minutes of silence on the phone.

Though her point about the language was perceptive, I was worried that our nominal leader could have found Edward's story at all credible.

It was almost 4:45, the end of our day. "Let's try to wrap this up tomorrow," someone said.

"This man's life is on the line," answered Dorothy, a 45-year-old administrator with the federal government.

Ellen, a secretary in her mid-thirties, started flipping through the autopsy report. "She was a big girl!" Ellen exclaimed. In fact, the autopsy report described Ella as "obese," 5'8" and 266 pounds.

We were stunned. Most of us had pictured Ella as a slim and alluring.

The court personnel's holiday party was roaring as we walked to the building's exit. From the upper floors, the electric slide was blasting, "It's electric!" A woman in front of me danced a few steps, and laughed.

Judgment Day

9:30 a.m., Friday, December 22.

We were waiting for everyone to arrive. Bob, a man in his fifties, was looking at the blow-up of Edward's gun-store receipt. The courtroom clerk carried in a boxful of exhibits wrapped in cellophane. They looked like Christmas gifts.

Wearing a "Guess USA" black, white and red sweat shirt, Carmen told us that she couldn't "disregard the Defendant's case." Then, as foreman, she said that, before being excused from the jury, our retired minister (who

had nodded off at one point) had suggested that we all say a prayer before deliberating. At her suggestion, we all joined hands and had a moment of silence.

Ellen said that she hadn't slept the previous night. We took our responsibility seriously, but it was hitting Ellen the hardest. Edward reminded her of her son.

We went around the table again.

Ellen had a series of questions: Why was there no blood on the gun? Why would Edward kill Ella right after having sex with her? Why would he kill her with Alicia on the phone?

Police, she said, had stopped her for no reason, and once even threw marijuana into her car. They could have gotten Edward to sign the statement even if it weren't true. She was still undecided.

I was sitting to Ellen's right and went next. The evidence against Danny, a supposed enforcer, being in the apartment was overwhelming, I said: Why would he not have killed Ella when it was just the two of them alone

in Ella's car, instead of picking up a large man (Edward was 6'3" or 6'4" and over 200 lbs.) and then killing her with both Edward and Prince Taylor (who himself wasn't small -- Jeanie generally referred to him as "Fat Boy") in the apartment? And why would this hit man wait for almost two hours to do so? Didn't he have better things to do between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m.? Finally, even if Prince had been high that night, he wasn't so out of it that he would have seen Edward and Ella enter the apartment and yet not even noticed a third person with them. If Danny didn't kill Ella, I asked, who did? And why hadn't Bond's opening statement explained that Edward had confessed in order to protect his family?

Our environmentalist found the evidence against Edward "pretty damning," citing Edward's gun magazine with the murder weapon circled, the receipt for the murder weapon in Edward's file, and Prince Taylor's identification of

Edward as the killer.

Henry, an older black gentleman, said he couldn't place a fourth person at the murder scene. "It all comes back to Edward," he concluded.

Jeanie said she had changed her mind overnight, when she stopped focusing on motive but concentrated on whether he had committed the crime. "As for my heart, I have lots of questions," she said. "Why would he do it?" But then she asked, "Why would she [Ella] keep bullets at his [Edward's] house if he said he gave the gun to her for her

protection?"

Jeanie shifted to speculate on facts outside the evidence, something we all found irresistible.

"Why didn't he have nobody to support him?" she asked, noting that Edward's wife had been a no-show and that his sister Natasha had not been back in court since her testimony.

Maybe his wife was angry with him for his cheating, I suggested. Others said that it wasn't easy sometimes to get off from work.

"I think he did it," Jeanie said. "No doubt."

Our physician, who had brought in oranges for everyone the day before, was also in the guilty camp.

Wearing a loud purple shirt, Bob, who was with some special police -- he wouldn't specify which force -- said that a .22 was not an assassin's weapon, nor would an assassin have used any pellet bullets. Bob said he "totally threw the D-guy out of it."

Like others, however, he had thought up a scenario to provide a motive. In Bob's version, the incoming phone call that Ella took while on the line with Alicia changed everything. (I didn't even remember hearing testimony

about such a call.) "Everything got quiet after that," he said. He thought that Ella had "violated the code" of her criminal colleagues and that Edward was instructed over the phone to kill her. "What I'm looking at is this,"

Bob continued, "He didn't go there to do it, but he was chosen." That, he said, was why the murder and shooting were so botched.

Carmen said that Bob had provided the only explanation so far that made her think that the Defendant might be guilty. She went on to say, however, that she believed Edward's story and that there had been some sort of gun

deal involving Danny, Ella and Edward. She believed that Danny was waiting in the house while Edward was in the bedroom with Ella, that he got fed up after waiting so long, went in and killed her.

Also, she asked, why would Edward, a street-smart guy, have thrown the gun someplace in plain view instead of disposing of it once he got home? And why didn't he dispose of the gun ownership papers?

After a break, we resumed at noon and voted. Ellen and Carmen voted "unsure," the rest of us "guilty." Carmen reiterated that she really believed what Edward said.

I understood what trial lawyers meant by the unpredictablity of jurors. What would have happened had we known about Peanut's arrest for allegedly threatening Prince with a knife the night before the murder?

Jeanie speculated that Edward "might have bought guns for the crew. Maybe she [Ella] didn't give him the money she owed him. You ain't going to volunteer information unless they have some proof," said Jeanie,

explaining why some witnesses may not have told us everything they knew about the criminal goings-on that night.  "We're not here to question on why not."

Suddenly, Carmen reversed herself. "Okay, guilty!" she said. "I believe it was Edward running the guns. Why didn't he bring in Charles Heighligh [to testify about his giving his birth certificate to Ella so that she and

Edward could get guns]?"

"You're serious?" asked Richard, the environmentalist.

"Now my scenario is Ella owed him some money for the guns," continued Carmen. "Why does he have the paperwork and not Ella?"

We now had 11 guilty votes and one undecided.

The one undecided, Ellen, said that she was "real sympathetic and emotional."

"All the evidence pointed straight to him," said Jeanie. "It's just the emotions."

Ellen's eyes began welling up.

"When I looked at him, he was guilty as heck. Like a major criminal," said Carmen, flatly contradicting what she had said to us at the trial's start. "'This nigger did this,' I thought," she said, using a word that blacks usually do

not use in the presence of whites. "But when he gave his version, I believed him."

Judge Cushenberry knocked and came into the jury room, wearing his judicial robe. Security had tightened now that we were deliberating. A marshal would be by to take us to lunch.

On the way down to the cafeteria, Ellen whispered to Bob and me that she wondered whether Carmen's quick conversion indicated that our foreman had been playing a game. Our lone holdout was very upset.

Coming back into the jury room after lunch, we passed Edward's father, sitting in the courthouse corridor, wearing the same blue parka he had on when he testified. He had been sitting there all day, and would, it turned out, die not long afterwards.

We devoted the post-lunch session to trying to answer Ellen's questions. She was troubled by Alicia's use of the "D [for Danny] word," and didn't understand why Edward would have killed Ella while Alicia was listening in on the phone.

Jeanie became more dynamic, not responding directly to Ellen's questions, but speculating further as to what had really happened, trying to reconcile his statement to the police with what may have actually happened.

About that guy in the car when Ella picked up Edward, she said, why did he come? "Maybe they did the deal in the car and they were going to split the money. Maybe she [Ella] thought, 'I was going to swindle [Edward].'"

Jeanie continued: "Maybe she took the money out of his pockets. Maybe she said, 'Oh my God, 'Leicia,' trying to knock his little butt out of the bed. Maybe she was going to give the money to Fat Boy on the couch," she said, referring to Prince.

Richard: "He [Edward] comes out of the bathroom and the money's missing."

Carmen asked why the gun was left on the street.

Edward panicked, Dorothy suggested.

Then Jeanie turned to Ellen's earlier question. "He might not have known she was on the phone. If she ain't said a word, he thought Girlfriend was already hung up," referring to Ella's friend, Alicia.

It was a plausible scenario, explaining what may have been half-truths in Edward's statement.

Ellen asked for someone to give her the facts that established guilt.

Our enviornmentalist ticked off the points.

Hannah went over to a posterboard with photos of Ella's living room and insightfully pointed out that that the not-to-scale diagram of the apartment made it appear much larger than it actually was. As a result, the likelihood that Prince could have failed to notice someone else in the apartment was incredibly small.

We took another vote around the table. Ellen agreed that the Defendant was guilty. It was 2:30 on the Friday before Christmas.

We started to digress. Carmen, who seemed to view the trial as a made-for-TV-movie, said that her only disappointment was not having gotten to see autopsy photos.

Ellen started to waver. "With all the information given. . . I'm just a big softy . . . . I just hate saying those words."

She said them a little later, though. "He's guilty," Ellen sighed, "but he's so young."

Hannah countered that Edward was a 23, not 15.

Our foreman, Carmen, asked whether we had all gotten out our concerns. We had.

I read the Judge's instructions on first-degree murder aloud. They required pre-meditation and deliberation. We went around the room. Bob voted for second degree murder. Ellen passed. Everyone else said "first."

I read the instructions for second degree murder, which did not require pre-meditation and deliberation.  Pre-meditation, however, did not require long-term planning, or that the Defendant had gone to Ella's with the

plan of killing her. Hannah said that one bullet fired at Ella could have been done without pre-meditation and deliberation, but that shooting her twice more, and putting the gun to beneath her ear at point-black range to do so,  had to be pre-meditated and deliberate killing. Bob changed his vote.

It was back to Ellen.

"I'm just a softy at heart," she repeated.

"Ellen, honey...." said Carmen, sweetly.

Ellen agreed it was first degree murder.

We then turned to the assault with intent to kill charge, finding the two shots to Prince's head sufficient proof to

convict.

When we were done with the two more minor counts, Carmen filled out the verdict form, solemnly checking with the

group as she did so.

We ended with another silent prayer.

Finally, we were ushered into the courtroom, lining up for the last time by jury number. "Madam Foreman," said the Judge, "have you reached a unanimous verdict?"

Carmen stood. Yes, your honor."

The judge asked for verdict.

"Guilty," said Carmen, in a clear, strong voice.

A woman sobbed in the audience.

The Defendant showed no emotion. Neither did the prosecutors, whom I half expected to exchange high fives.

"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for your service," said Judge Cushenberry. "You are excused. Have a Merry Christmas."

We filed out quickly. In the juror room, we exchanged phone numbers, hugged or shook hands, and wished each other a good holiday. "I need a strong drink," someone said.

We had once again reached unanimity.

                                              * * *

Edward still has not accepted responsibility for the crimes.

"They say I killed this female, but I was in the wrong place at the wrong time," he told the probation officer who prepared his Presentence Report.

Noting what he called "overwhelming evidence" of guilt, the probation officer wrote that "the community needs to be protected for as long as possible from the proven dangerousness of the defendant."

The 23-year-old received a mandatory sentence for first-degree murder of no less than 35 years without possibility of parole. Convicted of this and assault with intent to kill, Edward could, in theory, be in for life.

His recommended treatment plan:

1. Therapeutic counseling for the violent offender.

2. Reality therapy.

3. Motivational therapy.

4. Self-esteem counseling.

Edward has filed a notice of appeal.