Juries in Chesterfield County
There have been three recent murder jury trials in Chesterfield County (that I know of). I saw part of each:
Commonwealth v. Javon Singleton:
Tyrone Singleton's testimony, under direct examination by Assistant Commonwealth Attorney David Rigler, was devastating. About half way thru the direct Mr. Rigler started asking questions which would implicate Javon and Tyrone just shut down. You could have cut the silence in the courtroom with a knife. The kid wasn't refusing to testify because he was being a jerk - he was just so emotional that he could not answer. After attempts both with and without the jury present Dave took a smart tack and starting asking questions which were away from the sensitive questions and once the kid started talking led him back to the tough questions. The kid paused and then, with a lot of emotion, told how his brother admitted guilt. It was the gold standard as far as testimony goes.
Unfortunately, for the prosecution at least, the prosecution team followed that with an absolutely ridiculous professional snitch. He came out with his hair spiked up and testified in a manner which I would describe as slick, casual, humorous, loud, and DUMB. On a gold standard this guy was tin. Every bit of ground the prosecution had gained disappeared. Then it got even worse when the defense attorney stood up and basically got the guy to admit that he was a professional snitch and had gotten benefits time and time again from testifying. But the snitch swore up and down that he didn't have any expectation of getting anything this time: he was just testifying from the goodness of his heart. He testified on about 4 facts which might have been helpful but he was so bizarre that his evidence and the kid's were overwhelmed.
Javon Singleton was convicted of a class 1 misdemeanor.
Commonwealth v. Justin P. Dejarnett:
In this trial the government tried to convict a Dejarnett for giving a methadone pill to another kid. The other kid then went and drank to excess, took Xanax, and took the one methadone pill. After he fell asleep the kid's system became so depressed that he stopped breathing and died. Chesterfield then charged the last three people who were involved in the chain of trade/sale with killing the kid. The two furthest removed cooperated and took deals. Mr. Dejarnett, who actually gave the pill to the kid, fought it in a jury trial.
The prosecutor's case was in trouble from the beginning. The prosecution's own expert witnesses could not testify that the one methadone pill was the cause of death. The best they could say was that the the combination of all the junk the kid had in his system caused the death. I was surprised that it even survived the motion to strike. It survived on a felony murder theory with Judge Gill stating that it should go to the jury in order to decide "foreseeability."
I wasn't able to see the end of the trial but I'm told that the jury took less than 20 minutes to return a not guilty plea.
Commonwealth v. Shirtorya Christian:
This courtroom was full when I tried to go in and watch part of this. The prosecution was after first degree murder and David Whaley got them down to second degree. The jury still recommended 38 years.
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