Thursday, October 29, 2009
Jury discussion spills into today in Floyd attack
The defense's closing argument suggested insanity, but a prosecutor called it "checkmate."
The Roanoke Times | File June
A Roanoke County jury acquitted Jeffery Martin Young (right), shown with attorney Neil Horn, of hit-and-run and involuntary manslaughter in June.
Previous coverage
FLOYD -- Jurors met nearly four hours Wednesday but were unable to decide whether Jeffery Young should be found guilty of attacking a woman in a grocery store parking lot in early 2008.
Young, 32, is charged with malicious wounding in connection with the attack on Ciera Sowers Boyd.
He also faces one count of assault on a law enforcement officer and two counts of obstruction of justice because of a confrontation he had with officers who showed up to investigate the incident at Slaughters' Supermarket on Jan. 30, 2008.
Young's lawyers, Fred Kellerman and Neil Horn, haven't denied that Young struck Boyd with a car, then beat her over the head with a log and a club as she walked through the supermarket parking lot to begin her shift as a produce clerk.
Instead, they have maintained that Young was insane at the time. One psychologist has testified that she believes he was insane; another has testified that she does not.
Jurors will resume their deliberations this morning.
In addition to having options to find Young guilty or not guilty of each charge, the jury also may find him guilty of unlawful wounding instead of malicious wounding, or not guilty by reason of insanity.
"Why in the world would Jeff have behaved the way he behaved?" Kellerman asked jurors during his closing argument Wednesday, the second day of testimony in the case. "There's no motive here. No rational thought."
He said it didn't make sense that Young seemed to ignore two loaded guns that deputies pointed at him, but dropped the club and knife he was holding and lay on the ground when pepper spray was used.
Floyd County Commonwealth's Attorney Stephanie Shortt told jurors the opposite is true. She said Young knew he was outnumbered and gave up to save his life.
Shortt reminded jurors that Young had been a champion chess player in high school.
"The defendant is still playing chess, but at this moment he's in checkmate," she said.
After hearing testimony from 22 witnesses for nearly eight hours Tuesday, jurors heard from only two witnesses for about half an hour before closing arguments began Wednesday. Young did not testify.
Wednesday's testimony focused on an incident in July 2006, when Young severed his left hand with a chain saw. He drove his Jeep to a Blue Ridge Parkway visitors center with the hand in a cooler, Officer Pete Schula, a U.S. Park Ranger, testified. It was reattached.
The chain saw was found with its throttle tied open, Schula said. Young claimed he had an accident while cutting firewood.
His lawyers implied that it was not an accident. They had planned to have Young's mother read to jurors a verse Young had highlighted in the book of Mark in his small Bible: "And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off ... "
Judge Howe Brown, a retired judge from Fairfax County who is hearing the case, didn't allow Roberta Young to read the verse, saying the defense couldn't prove it was connected to the incident.
Young had been charged with involuntary manslaughter and hit-and-run in connection with the death of lawyer Thomas Farrell but was acquitted at a June trial in Roanoke County Circuit Court.
Farrell was struck by a vehicle and killed while on an early morning jog near his home two days before the incident at Slaughters'.
Prosecutors had no eyewitnesses and lacked physical evidence tying him to the scene.
Jurors deliberated for nine hours before finding Young not guilty in that case.
