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American Morning

If King Brothers Convicted, Appeal Likely

Aired September 06, 2002 - 09:49   ET

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

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: We are going to take you back to Pensacola, Florida where a murder case is just about ready to go to the jury and the judge about 10 minutes from giving instructions to the jury.
Let's go to Mark Potter for a preview of what they are likely to hear -- Mark, if you want to, at the top, why don't you remind us of what these two young men, teenagers, are accused of doing.

MARK POTTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. They are teenage boys, ages 13 and 14, and at the time of the crimes, they were 12 and 13. They are accused of, by the state of Florida, of killing their father. It is a first degree murder charge. They are accused of plotting, and then carrying out a most gruesome crime, beating him to death with a baseball bat, and then setting the house on fire in an attempt to hide the evidence.

The defense claims that they didn't do it, that they were set up and manipulated into a false confession by a family friend, Ricky Chavis, who is also a convicted pedophile and who is accused of having sex with one of the two boys. That's the dilemma that will face this jury. There are two very distinct theories of this trial. They are going to have to wrestle with that. The state says the boys did it, that when they confessed, they provided a lot of detail, too much detail to not be involved. The defense says no, it was this other man who did it, who made them confess falsely to cover him. And they say that the state does not have any credible forensic evidence to link the boys to this very bloody murder scene.

This is going to be a tough one for this jury. And at the core of it is the very difficult decision about what it do with two boys, who, if they are convicted, will go into the prison system for the rest of their lives -- Paula.

ZAHN: And tell us a little more about the verdict that was sealed in the case of Ricky Chavis, who tried for this murder as well.

POTTER: Yes, that takes us down another very difficult road, and a most unusual case here. Ricky Chavis was indicted and tried separately on the very same charges that are facing the young boys. He too, in a separate case, was charged with beating the boys' father to death, Terry King. He was tried last week. There was a verdict, but the verdict was sealed, we do not know what it is, and it will not be announced until we have the verdict in this case, the second case, involving the two boys. The reason for that is the judge did not want to taint this trial by having the verdict from that trial read publicly. ZAHN: I know, Mark, that this case has inflamed a lot of passions down there. What do local folks have to say about this?

POTTER: Well, it is certainly topic A with everyone that we have talked to. Everybody has an opinion, and you can get all sides by just talking around. One thing that we have determined in talking to people here at the courthouse is that this is definitely bound for an appeal, one way or another. There is the likely -- I don't know if it is likely, but the prospect that you could have one man convicted of the same crime as the two boys. If they are all convicted, you have the prospect of someone who, by just definition, was not involved, falsely convicted, and of course, that will head to appeal.

ZAHN: Mark Potter, thanks so much. We will be checking in with you throughout the day, and keep our audience on top of the coverage of this trial. Thanks so much.

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