It's Halloween weekend, full of fright and dark night.
What's the scariest thing that ever happened to you in Court?
An alert reader sent us this:
We will start:
We were crossing examining a tragic young man who had flipped in a murder case. He pled to life and was the shooter in a store robbery. Our client was not the shooter, but because this was northern Florida, and we were from Miami, they flipped the shooter against our client and ....were seeking death....when such things were allowed.
In the beginning of our cross, to set the stage, we started with questioning on the fact that he had pled to first degree murder and there were two possible penalties- life with a 25 year min man (which was the law back then) or death. This was as much to show the jury what would happen to our client if they convicted him, as anything.
We asked a few simple questions about this, looked down at some notes, and heard a commotion and looked up and the witness was not in the witness chair.
He had fainted dead away and was on the floor. The scene was so surreal and we had not seen the witness go down, that it gave us a start when we looked up from our notes. Not the scariest of stories, but a start.
Post script: Jury hung and we pled to second and 17 which were the guidelines back then.
We will print your scary stories.
4 comments:
Testimony in the federal Yahweh trial had some pretty gory details.
A government witness was asked to testify to the sounds and words he heard when one of the Yahweh victims was being beheaded in a rock quarry in the Everglades. After making some pretty awful guttural sounds, the witness stated he heard the defendant accused of the beheading say " damn this blade is dull".
This happened at night in the quarry located on the road driving out towards Metro West. I think of that poor victim every time I visit someone at Metro West especially if I'm there after dark.
One time a female defendant who was being taken into custody lost control of her bowels in Stacy Glicks courtroom, wearing a dress. Certainly scary for the poor custodian that was called in after everyone else fled the courtroom.
Scariest court moment ever ? - Death penalty trial. The Verdict form check box didn’t say “… sentenced to __ life __ death, but rather, “… sentenced to death __ yes __ no.
I forgot that, and when I heard the Clerk read “… sentenced to death ….”, and then pause before finishing “no”, they almost had to carry ME out !!
Had a second-degree murder trial in which the defendant was accused of shooting the victim, injecting bleach into the victim's veins, living with the corpse for a few days, then dismembering the body and disposing of the various parts around the county including the lower extremities in the horticulture waste that was scheduled to be picked up that day. Anyway, the police found the torso wrapped in a tarp in a plastic bag under a bridge.
At trial, the state introduced the tarp, over objection due to the smell of the tarp that was in a sealed box for a couple years. In introducing it, the ASA and an investigator unfurled the tarp and "shook it out" in the courtroom causing bits of "material" to be thrown off of the tarp into the air. The stench was heinous, the tiny bits went all over the well, and the courtroom had to be cleared. A mistrial was denied and the trial resumed in another courtroom the next day. The courtroom had to be disinfectied by a biohazard team. And the 2nd DCA PCA'd.
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