Jury Duty

[Grits and Shins]

Billy Jack Crutsinger sentenced to death

Billy Jack Crutsinger appeals

He is lonely in jail

 

 

My wrap up

 

For those that don't have access to the main board ...

 

Link

 

Let me see if I can remember everything.

 

Billy Jack Crutsinger age 48 has indeed had a very hard life. He was the baby in his family and had 5 siblings, 3 of which were retarded and / or handicapped in some fashion. His father was an alcoholic and was run over and killed by an automobile. Billy Jack was driving the car that was involved in an accident that resulted in one of his sister's deaths ... he was not at fault. One of his brothers became very ill and it was Billy Jack that discovered him dead. He quit school and got married at 18 because he got his 15 year old girl friend pregnant. The baby died in the hospital 2 days after birth. Shortly after he cleaned out their home and left not seeing his first wife until 20 some odd years later. He married a 16 year old either that same year or the next. Their first child drowned in his in-laws swimming pool at 16 months. His second child died at 16 when the stint in his neck exploded in a car wreck (he was already dying from lymphoma).

 

Yup been a hard life for Billy Jack.

 

Very early on Billy Jack demonstrated violent tendencies, most especially when he had been drinking ... he liked to prey on the weak within his circle. He beat the s.hit out of all of his girl friends and wives (and there were many) except for his very first wife, whom he abandoned. He especially liked to knock down his pregnant wives, sit on their bellies and choke them until they came close to passing out. One of the girl friends he lived with had a 4 year old son at that time. He like to hold his head under water while he was bathing until he almost passed out ... he also like to pick him up by the hair and cover his mouth and nose until he would almost pass out. He killed this boys pet rabbit in front of him (this boy is currently serving time for assault). He liked to choke his women and developed a liking for knives as well at one point holding a knife to his current wives neck and telling her he could cut her neck and not bat an eye. He served time for bodily injury to his elderly mother.

 

In March of this year he was living with his wife of 11 years and her son (who just got out of jail on a robbery charge). He has lived with them off and on for the 11 years periodically getting kicked out because of his alcoholism. The son finally got fed up and kicked him out.

 

On April 6th Billy Jack walked to the home of 2 elderly woman for which he had previously done work (met one at a church where he did work). He then brutally murdered them stabbing each more than 6 times (one 6 and one 9 I believe) and cutting them as well. One of the women was stabbed in the back twice. He slit their throats in a cudegra (sp?) fashion to make sure of their deaths. In the process of committing the crime he cut his hand and bled all over the house. After committing the crime we walked to the front door and locked it, went in to the bedroom and stole the purse of one of the woman, walked to the kitchen for a towel and took the car out of the garage.

 

He then used the victim's credit card to go out to eat, buy new shoes and buy a bus ticket to Galveston.

 

The women were discovered in their home 2 days later (Tuesday) by their god daughter. The detectives that arrived on the scene noticed that there were several messages on the answering machine. One of those messages was the victim's credit card companies inquiring about the irregular use of her credit card. They determined that the card was being used in Galveston. The credit card had been used to rent a room at a motel. The Galveston police were called and began to investigate ... the Fort Worth police began the drive to Galveston (this was now Wednesday the 9th).

 

The Galveston cop go the hotel ... he's not there. He is described as a white male that arrived and left in a yellow cab. There is a potato chip bag in the room with remenants of chili and cheese in the bag. The cops check out 2 close convenience stores and discover that a man did recently purchase a chili cheese dog and chips ... his credit card was denied and he paid cash. He is described as a white male 20-30 wearing a yellow shirt. They contact the yellow cab company and talk to a driver that says he took a while male in a new white crab shack t-shirt, jeans and new shoes to a particular bar ... and the guy claimed to be from Dallas Fort Worth. The Galveston cops are now canvassing all the bars identified by the cabbie and in the surrounding area. While at one bar a bar tender from a bar already visited calls the cops and says the man is there but he is a white male, in a white Joes Crab Shack t-shirt, blue jeans, new tennis shoes, 200-250 pounds, a pot belly and wavy gray hair in his 30-40s. One of the cops remembers seeing him at another bar but eliminated him because he wasn't 20-30. So he goes back to bar and confronts the man.

 

He introduces himself and asks this man that exactly fits the description of the man from Fort Worth suspected in a double homicide and suspected of credit card abuse his name. He is given a false first name and no last name. He asks again and the guy refuses. The cop arrests him for failure to identify.

 

This is a central issue in the case.

 

Because they take him to the police station and after finally identifying himself (he gave false information twice more) the Fort Worth police show up. Billy Jack asks to talk to the Fort Worth police and subsequently gives a full confession (on tape) and consents to buccle swabs for DNA matching. In the confession he tells the cops where his bloody clothes are and where the keys to the stolen car are (on the roof of a gas station).

 

Needless to say the DNA was a perfect match.

 

When the prosecution rested I was pretty sure I was going to vote guilty. But then the defense called a prosecuter and talked to him about the "illegal arrest". When the defense got done with him I was very concerned that I would not be able to vote guilty because we would have to eliminate the arrest and subsequent evidence gathered like the confession and DNA samples. The prosecutors had secured a search warrent later to get DNA from the defendant and it probably was going to be enough ... but the defense was trying to convince us that this second search warrant was illegal as well as it did not establish probable cause. But then the prosecutor ripped the defense's witness a new one and offered a more credable expert witness that supported the arrest and even if the arrest was illegal supported that the taint of any illegal arrest was attenuated. There are 4 things to consider if the taint was attenuated:

 

1) Was the defendant mirandized ... yes many times.

2) The time period between the tainted arrest and the confession. This one was a hard one to judge because it could go either way and gets the smallest weight when considering the 4 factors.

3) Intervening circumstances. The fact that the defendant asked to speak to the Fort Worth police and voluntarily confessed was HUGE.

4) Did the officer flagrantly do something to get the confession. No the arrest was made in good faith and did not cause the confession.

 

The 12 of us came to relatively quick decision in determining he was guilty ... there was a large preponderance of evidence including DNA and his confession.

 

Then the punishment phase began. The hard issue here is that we had to decide if the defendant was a danger to society. If yes he would get the death penalty (unless there were mitigating factors) ... if no he gets life in prison with no possibility of parole for 40 years. Our initial vote was 11-1 and unanimity is required to vote yes (10 votes was sufficient to say no). After 2 hours of deliberation we decided that he has a long history of violence and likes to prey on the weak ... he showed no remorse at any time and it was unlikely that his behavior would change simple because he was incarcirated.

 

I never took my responsibilities lightly in this case and despite my convictions on the death penalty it was a kind of scary actually following through and sentencing somebody to death. I was real concerned with issue 1 in the punishment phase and gave it a lot of thought and gave serious consideration to life versus death.

 

It was an interesting experience that I would not really want to go through again.

 

[edit]

The defense also tried to persuade us that it was society's failure that resulted in Billy Jack committing this murder. He was treated wrong by the educational system and by his loved ones and nobody tried to help poor Billy Jack. They also pushed hard on the alcoholism saying that he only became violent AFTER drinking (sometimes after only ONE beer).

 

It was easy for the jury to vote NO on any mitigating factors.

 

After we rendered our decision emotions were raw and the Judge came into our room and "de-briefed" us allowing us to ask any question. This was VERY helpful.

 

We started the trial last Monday (9-22) at 1:00 and finished today (9-30) at about 1:00. It took us about 15 minutes or so to find him guilty but we talked for just under an hour for the appearance of "due consideration". It took us 2 hours to decide his fate.

-----------------

 

Do I think we made the right decision ... most definitely yes.

 

Am I "happy" with the decision? Yes. However, I will add that it is not and was not a decision that I came to lightly or without great thought. I tried to balance my belief in the death penalty with being objective and fair minded. The most difficult part for me was trying to assess his future threat to society. Could I legitimately decide that he was a threat to continue his long pattern of violence while confined in a maximum security facility. Especially since I don't particularily care about inmates that might hurt other inmates. I had to be able to decide YES here in order to asses the death penalty. If I couldn't decide yes here then despite favoring the death penalty I would have had to vote for life. I (we) decided that he has a long establish pattern of violence and the simple fact that he was incarcirated would not alter his behavior. It may take longer to for the violence to show up but eventually it would.

-------------------------------

 

The defense told us over and over that "when sober he's a kind and gentle man". Other than the testimony of his loved ones that also testified that he beat the s.hit out of them, we had absolutely NO evidence that he had ever done anything kind to anybody.

 

Some of the testimony was heart wrenching and on more than one occassion the women of the jury were in tears.

 

The judge told us that he would expect him to actually be executed in 5 years or so ... much quicker than I would have expected.

 

And it was at times definitely hard not to laugh at loud at the defense as they tried to pull the "he's had it so hard" crap over on us.

 

At one point he even phrased it that we would be "killing Billy Jack".

Edited February 11, 2008 by Grits and Shins

[Grits and Shins]

A couple of thoughts.

 

Obviously I was serving on a capital trial. I can't remember how alternates were handled ... my first thought was that we didn't have any present but that doesn't make sense. As I rack my brain it occurs to me that we may have had 2 or 3 alternates that were present for the entire trial and dismissed when the trial concluded and we began deliberations.

 

The FIRST thing that I learned was NOT to drink my customary 52 ounce soft drink in the morning. Breaks were few and far between and I was in some SERIOUS pain that first day waiting for a bio break. As a matter of fact I curbed my daily consumption of ALL liquids because I didn't want to be sitting in the rather small jury box having to take a piss.

 

It was interesting to observe the legal process at work. It is a lot different than the law and order shows you see on television. I wouldn't particular be interested in doing it again ... and because we returned a death sentence it is probably not likley I ever will have to serve on a major trial again.

[Hat Trick]

I have never been called for jury duty.

 

me either, and I want to be called, everryone tells me I'm nuts

[Skilly]

Well, my jury duty is completed. As I had mentioned previously, I was initially brought in as an alternate. On the first day of trial, they told me that one of the regular jurors called in sick or something, and so I was sworn in as a permanent juror. The other alternate indeed had to sit through the entire trial and at the end, was dismissed while we deliberated. Sucks for him, because he couldn't ask any questions or put his opinions in.

 

First off, I want to say that I actually enjoyed doing this, and it felt good to be part of the process.

 

I'm too tired to want to rehash all the details at this time, but here are a few of the participants:

 

Defendant, male, charged with disorderly conduct (fighting) and three counts of impeding or hindering an officer.

Defendant's mom---arrives in a wheelchair for testimony one day, then seen walking into the courthouse the next day.

Defendant's ex step-father---the victim of the fight who takes the stand for the defense, but is so drunk / old / out of it that he can't remember his address.

Defendant's girlfriend---makes videotape of defendant's body bruises, allegedly from police, but somehow fails to get his head or face in the video.

Cop with a taser.

Some more cops.

Defendant's brother---allegedly fell down stairs, hurting himself and requiring an ambulance.

Husband of defendant's mother---Ironically, had absolutely nothing to do with this case, most likely due to the fact that HE WAS FOUND DEAD IN HIS BEDROOM--after all the night's events had taken place. Actually, this was sad. He simply passed away while sleeping.

 

Defendant's story, the short and sweet of it:

In a period of 5 hours one night, both his brother and his ex- step-father fell down some stairs, and they had to go to the hospital for injuries. The step father's only injury was a broken nose. The cops arrived on scene 3 times and hasseled him, then arrested him the third time and dragged him away and beat him.

 

What most likely happened:

Dude beat up his brother, then punched his step dad, was drunk and belligerant, and resisted arrest.

He got taken to jail, where admittedly the cops went over the line with the ole' taser. 4 times is a bit much. This was where we decided that the count of interfering with an officer didn't apply, and so on that count we found him not guilty. But all the other counts, he was guilty.

 

My thoughts on the whole trial process:

If you get arrested, you'd better figure out a way to hire your own lawyer, because a public defender simply does not have enough time to make your case a priority. They presented exhibits in which the members of the family's names were MISSPELLED!! We weren't allowed to listen to the 911 calls that started this whole mess, because neither the State or the defense decided they were important enough to enter. If we would have had that, we could have decided one way or another who was telling the truth and who was lying. Oh, and speaking of lying, it's amazing that people can get up in front of a court, raise their right hand, and tell such incredible lies with no evidence to back them up.

All in all, the jury I was on treated this case very professionally and with the respect it deserved, and I was proud to do it.

[yo mama]

I've been summoned many times. But as soon as the suits trying the case find out that I'm an attorney one side or the other has always used a peremptory challenge to punt me. Honestly, I wouldn't mind serving.

[rocknrobn26]

I've been summoned many times. But as soon as the suits trying the case find out that I'm an attorney one side or the other has always used a peremptory challenge to punt me. Honestly, I wouldn't mind serving.

 

They treat teachers the same way.

[loaf]

I was in on jury duty here. Arson case. we found him not guilty on charge or intentionally harming some dude but guilty to the arson. we don't know the sentencing

[Pope Flick]

Well that makes a lot more sense now.

 

 

Will you use the spanking gremlin on me next time? TIA.

[cdrudge]

The FIRST thing that I learned was NOT to drink my customary 52 ounce soft drink in the morning. Breaks were few and far between and I was in some SERIOUS pain that first day waiting for a bio break. As a matter of fact I curbed my daily consumption of ALL liquids because I didn't want to be sitting in the rather small jury box having to take a piss.

I've been called up a few times and actually just got called up again a week or two ago. I've only sat on a jury once though. And like you, I learned about the no-liquids thing pretty quickly. It was on the second day of a personal injury trial and I went across the street to a Blimpie's Sub shop. I got a large drink (32 oz IIRC) and had one refill. When the trial resumed, I started having some minor discomfort about an hour in. By 5:30 or so when we went for deliberations I was almost in tears. My eyeballs were floating and I could barely walk for fear of an accident. There was a short hallway that seperated the deliberations room and the courtroom and the bathroom was off of that hallway. I was the last juror in line and only the baliff was behind me and as I was closing the door I heard him chuckle that "Someone had to go..."