Posted on 09/17/2003 5:43:38 AM PDT by Born Conservative
2 jurors held out giving Tooley death penalty |
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A man who served on the jury that found Larry Tooley guilty of first-degree murder said he deeply regrets that the panel failed to sentence the defendant to death. "I am very, very disappointed," said the juror, a 43-year old Mountain Top resident. "It will bother me for the rest of my life." Tooley, 46, of Wilkes-Barre, was convicted last week of shooting to death 16-year-old Casey Zalenski during a burglary of the victim's Franklin Township home on Nov. 8, 2002. The jury was unable to reach a unanimous decision Monday on whether Tooley deserved to die for his crime, so the defendant was automatically sentenced to life in prison without parole. A pair of jurors, each with a different reason, spared Tooley's life. "One of them had an aversion to the death penalty, and the other believed defense counsel's story about what a hard life the defendant had," said a juror. "We tried really hard to convince them that the evidence - the sheer horror of the crime - was enough to warrant death." In his opening statement during the penalty phase of the trial, defense Attorney William Ruzzo reminded jurors repeatedly that they alone had the power to order the death of another human being. "You've already sentenced him to death by imprisonment," Ruzzo said of Tooley. "Now you must decide whether the state kills him with your permission, or if he dies in prison after living a lonely life." Ruzzo also asked jurors not to "tinker with the machinery of death." The panel member who agreed to discuss the verdict said both dissenting jurors were set in their opinions. "The decision just carried with it an awesome weight," he explained. "I know one of them truly struggled and was visibly upset. We just couldn't convince them. I will regret it until the day I die." The juror said the decision to convict Tooley of first-degree murder was much easier. "He basically executed a 16-year-old boy," he noted. "The third shot, after the victim was lying on the floor near death, made it even more heinous." The juror said the testimony of the victim's younger brother, Tommey, as well as that of expert witnesses, had a tremendous impact on the jury's decision that there was "no reasonable doubt" that Tooley was the killer. "For the sake of the Zalenski family, I wish we could have convinced those two jurors," he said. "The only consolation is that at least he will never see daylight again." The last time a Luzerne County jury reached a death penalty verdict was in December 1994, when Michael Bardo was sentenced to death for molesting and brutally killing his 3-year-old niece and dumping her body in Solomon Creek. Bardo remains incarcerated awaiting appeals. |
For a little background, he and his girlfriend went to a house in a rural area to rob it (the girlfriend had been a babysitter for the family). 2 of the kids were home (it was during the school year; not sure if they skipped school or were sick). Tooley was upstairs, and the girlfriend heard gunshots. She came upstairs and found Tooley standing over the 16 year old; he said to her "I had to put 3 hollowpoints into him". The other brother escaped out of a window before Tooley got to him.
I thought on a DP case the jurors had to be open to the possibility of sentencing the perp to deathrow...? Sounds like this juror was opposed to capital punishment in any case and did not give a verdict on the merits of this case.
I used to support jury nullification. Now I think it's childish, immoral, deceitful, and wrong.
That's what I thought. If this juror said he, or she, wasn't opposed to the death penalty . . . then proved to be against it during deliberations, I would think some kind of action is warranted against him.
Of course, I'm from Texas. According to Amnesty International, we're nothing but naked savages running around with shrunken heads dangling from our . . . uhhh . . . our . . .
persons who are automatically opposed to the death penalty under any circumstances--are the persons who are stricken from sitting as jurors in capital cases.
Now, the original article says (and this is vaguely worded, IMO) there was someone on the jury who had "an aversion" to the death penalty. If that is a simple reluctance, it's no harm, no foul, I think. However, if by "aversion" they really mean "automatically opposed to the death penalty under any circumstances" then I think they should have been stricken from sitting as juror.
My point was that if a juror did not have an open mind on the death penalty, and was going to vote against death no matter what (though perhaps willing to vote to convict), then it is a bit like jury nullification. They are supposed to decide on the merits -- but perhaps on this aspect, they had a closed mind and wanted to circumvent what others perceived to be justice. YMMV.
But I am glad they at least voted to convict.
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