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American Morning

Jury to Decide Fate of Boys Accused of Killing Father

Aired September 06, 2002 - 07:06   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: About three hours from now, a Florida jury is due to get its instructions from the judge and to begin to decide the fate of Alex and Derek King, two young brothers accused of murdering their father. They are being tried as adults, and prosecutors in the closing argument urged jurors to judge them by their actions, not their ages.

Defense lawyers say Ricky Chavis, a convicted child molester, is the real killer. Chavis has already been tried separately for the same crime. That verdict is sealed.

Mark Potter has the very latest from Pensacola. Good morning, Mark.

MARK POTTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Paula.

At 9 o'clock local time, the judge will instruct the jury on the law, and the jurors will begin their deliberations. They have a difficult choice to make between two theories of the case.

The prosecutor says that Alex and Derek King, now ages 13 and 14, beat their father to death with a baseball bat, then set their house on fire. In closing arguments, the prosecutors said that in their confessions last November, the boys provided details that only the killers would know.

DAVID RIMMER, PROSECUTOR: Derek knew too many details about the position of the body. Remember Officer Sanders (phonetic) that said Derek demonstrated for us exactly the position the body was in, with the legs crossed, the feet propped up on the couch in front of him. Even down to the coffee cup and where it was positioned on the side of his body. Now again, does your common sense tell you that Chavis would give all these details? Would it be necessary for Chavis to give all these details? Wouldn't that be risky?

POTTER: Now, later the boys were to recant their confession. The defense says that they were set up and manipulated into confessing by 40-year-old Ricky Chavis, a family friend who was accused of having sex with the younger boy, Alex.

The defense theory is Chavis committed the murder, and in their closing statements, the defense attorneys said there is no credible evidence linking Alex and Derek to that very bloody crime scene. JAMES STOKES, ALEX KING'S ATTORNEY: There were nine different stories that Ricky Chavis told concerning this. But the latest and greatest version that he is telling has the boys, within minutes of having done this, crawl across the back seat of Chavis's car and crawl into the trunk And yet there was not one strand of DNA found in that trunk. There was not one piece of evidence, physical evidence, that was found in there.

POTTER: There will be separate verdicts for each of the two boys. If convicted, they will face automatic life prison terms.

Paula?

ZAHN: Mark, thanks so much. We will be checking in with you throughout the day to see where they go on these deliberations.

For more on the murder trial now, we check in with CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin.

All right. We just heard a little bit of the prosecution's argument, and the defense's argument. If you're a juror, who do you believe.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: What's so tough about this case is, as a juror, I think you want to believe the kids, because who is your -- You want to believe that the child molester did it, not the kids. I mean, you know, just -- Who's more sympathetic?

The problem is, there's just a lot more evidence against the kids than there is against Chavis.

ZAHN: Well, the bat has never been found.

TOOBIN: The bat has never been found, and the good point...

ZAHN: Doesn't that leave a little bit of doubt...

TOOBIN: Well, sure.

ZAHN: ...in juror's minds?

TOOBIN: Well, I mean, the bat is not the most difficult thing in the world to get rid of.

But the best argument, I thought, that the defense made yesterday was, where is the corroborating evidence? One point they kept raising, and we saw a little of it here, was why isn't there any fiber, blood evidence? And there was good testimony in the trial about, you know, how violent this must have been. Why didn't the kids have blood on them if they did it?

Good argument. Who knows if the jury will believe it?

ZAHN: Let's hear a little bit more of that argument, because Alex's lawyer started to talk about the manipulation by Chavis, the convicted child molester, and Derek's lawyer pointed to some evidence here. Let's listen.

RIMMER: Derek knew the details. Derek knew -- knew exactly where the cup was positioned and the position of his father's body was found. Derek is the perpetrator.

ZAHN: Well, actually what I was referring to, there was a little piece, further on in the testimony, where the lawyer said there was no blood found on their clothes, there was no blood found on their shoes. In fact, there was no physical evidence at all tying these boys to the crime.

TOOBIN: And that's the best argument. That's -- that's a very good argument; I don't know if it's the best argument.

But, you know, the prosecution, they're -- we heard it there. That's their strongest point, is that the confession is so detailed, that they knew details that no one else would know. That's a very tough argument to get around, and juries like confessions, for better or for worse.

ZAHN: What is the possibility of two separate verdicts for the two little boys?

TOOBIN: You know, I -- I mean, I can't say for sure. I think that's very unlikely. I think they -- they rise and fall together. There really was no evidence in the trial that suggested one was guilty but the other wasn't. You know, sometimes juries compromise in peculiar ways, but that -- that strikes me as very unlikely.

ZAHN: But is there anything about the instructions that the judge will give that will help us better understand the direction this jury might take?

TOOBIN: You know, I think the jury instructions in a case like this are pretty straight forward. There's -- There are no mysterious issues here; it's, you know, whoever -- Did they beat him over the head with a bat or not? And if yes, guilty. If no, not.

ZAHN: In closing, though, you said the possibility was raised that you could get the boys and -- and then we find out in the sealed verdict that Chavis has already been convicted.

TOOBIN: Well, see, that's the thing that makes this trial so bizarre, is that you could have...

ZAHN: Three people convicted.

TOOBIN: ...three people convicted with the guarantee that either one or two of them are innocent. And that's where I think the -- the -- I mean, what if -- the -- I hope I'm being clear about this.

ZAHN: Yeah, you are. It is -- It's ridiculous.

TOOBIN: It's -- It's -- I don't believe an appeals court would allow anyone to go to prison with inconsistent verdicts like this, much less for life without parole. I mean, the thing I can't get over is you look at those kids, and a guilty verdict means those kids die of old age in prison.

ZAHN: Well, you're three for three with all your predictions.

TOOBIN: Well, I haven't predicted this one.

ZAHN: Let's see where you are. Depending on how long these deliberations go. Thank you. CNN's legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin.