Posted on 10/24/2017 7:49:38 AM PDT by Blue House Sue
A Florence attorney died Saturday after collapsing in court during the closing arguments of a murder trial.
The Florence-Times Daily reports Jean Darby, 64, died at Eliza Coffee Memorial Hospital. She collapsed during the murder trial of Alfonso Jarmon in Florence.
Witnesses said Darby was in the middle of her closing arguments Thursday when she seemed to stumble, then caught herself on the jury box before collapsing.
Law enforcement officers in the courtroom rushed in to try to revive her. After the jurors had been taken to the jury room, one juror, a registered nurse, came back out to begin CPR on Darby.
The jury on Friday found Jarmon guilty after about 30 minutes of deliberation in the April 26, 2016 shooting death of 77-year-old Charles Hugh Perkins in Florence. During the trial, three eyewitnesses testified to seeing Jarmon shoot Perkins in the head.
(Excerpt) Read more at al.com ...
Don’t closing arguments come before the verdict? I would think that this would have been the sentencing phase.
“If I’m lying, may God strike me dead.”
Ms. Darby was appointed. Most murder cases in Alabama, and certainly here in Lauderdale County are defended by appointed lawyers.
The taxpayers of the state of Alabama pay for their defense and if they ever get out of prison the legal fees are part of their fines; which generally are never paid.
‘the Alabama court system is in woeful financial shape.’
Relevance to this case?
Found guilty on Friday, this was on Saturday, must have been punishment phase.
I kinda suspected she was court appointed.
Which tells me that Alabama will pay her estate for her fees.
If any word wasn’t true, may God strike me dead...
Good one :)
The ultimate closing argument...
>>Have to be a really good (and alive) attorney to beat that.
OTOH - I was on a jury where the prosecutor had the defendant standing, holding a holster “like a gun” - showing “how you shot the gun”.
There were STILL sympathetic super geniuses on the jury whose knee-jerk initial reaction was “he’s being prosecuted because of racism”.
Thanks to Logic, Reason, the sane members of the jury - we still managed to render a guilty verdict for 1st degree murder.
That was over a decade ago.
In today’s Jury pool? YMMV.
But she could have dropped dead standing in her kitchen waiting for the teakettle to boil.
The relevance is that it was tried in the Alabama court system and trials are expensive. In my opinion The judge thought that the Defendant was not prejudiced by Ms. Darby’s collapse and the Defendant got a fair trial, so he let it go to the jury. The Appeals court may find otherwise.
Again IMHO if retried he will be convicted again. It was a horrific crime, as all murders are but this one really bothered me because it was an elderly, defenseless victim.
25000 lawyers drowned inthe atlantic ocean
A GOOD START
Since she was in the middle of her closing argument, I believe this will be reversed on appeal and sent back to the trial court for a new trial. The fact that one of the jurors came out and tried to perform CPR is another reason for a mistrial. The judge should have saved everyone the time and declared the mistrial from the bench, but nobody made the motion since the one person who would have made it was dead. Another reason to set it aside. Also, the defendant is entitled to counsel at all stages of the proceeding and that would include the part where the Court reads the final instructions to the jury. The final instructions follow closing argument, so the defendant was unrepresented then.
There are many, many reasons this case is going to be reversed and sent back for a new trial. I am surprised the judge let the proceedings go forward.
The judge took a big risk by sending the case to the jury.
It was possible that the jurors could have gone into deliberation and found that psycho not guilty.
Truly a closing statement.
“The relevance is that it was tried in the Alabama court system and trials are expensive.”
The financial solvency of the state should in no way negatively impact a defendant’s rights.
I would have thought the judge would declare a mistrial
Why did the jury need 30 minutes to decide? /s
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