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CNN Saturday Morning News

Teenage Brothers Guilty of Killing Dad to Appeal

Aired September 07, 2002 - 07:05   ET

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

CHARLES MOLINEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: Let's get more now on the teenage Florida brothers found guilty of murder for the killing of their dad, and the news a family friend has been found not guilty in the case. The boys' lawyers say it is not over. They plan to appeal.
CNN's Mark Potter has been following the story in Pensacola.

Mark, some surprises.

MARK POTTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. And Charles, today Alex and Derek King are awaiting their sentencing date of October 17. According to the prosecutor, they could get anywhere from 22 years to life in prison. He says if they get the minimum and behave while in prison, they could actually get out in about 18 years, which would put them in their early 30s.

They were originally charged with first degree murder and arson for allegedly beating their father to death with a baseball bat and setting their house on fire. But after five hours of deliberations, the jury returned lesser verdicts.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID RIMMER, PROSECUTOR: This -- certainly sad, you know, it's unfortunate. There's really no winners, you know, in when that -- when this kind of thing happens. And -- but the jury did the right thing, and I'm proud of them. I have absolutely all respect for the verdict, and I'm happy with it. I think it was the right verdict under the circumstances.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

POTTER: Now, after their arrest, the boys confessed to murder to the police, but later said -- recanted those confessions (audio interrupt), they claimed later, and in the trial that the actual killer was 40-year-old Ricky Chavis, a family friend and a convicted pedophile.

Chavis was tried separately on the same charges. His verdict was sealed until the verdict came in on the boys' case. As it turns out, when his verdict was read, the Chavis jury found him not guilty of all charges. The prosecutor said that these were the correct verdicts.

Now, some of the boys' relatives, including their mother, seemed stunned by these verdicts. But their paternal grandfather said that he was struck during the trial by the boys' lack of emotion and hopes now that they can be rehabilitated. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILBUR KING, BOYS' GRANDFATHER: I hope that we get a lighter sentence, that they'll be rehabilitated, and that someone would sit down and talk to them, and they can finish their education. And that maybe they won't have to stay all their life in prison. And when they come out, that they can live decent lives in this world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

POTTER: This morning, "The Pensacola News Journal" reported that the jurors in the boys' case actually believed that Chavis committed the murder, that he wielded the baseball bat, and that the boys helped him by getting -- helping him to come into the house. That's why they were convicted of second-degree murder.

The jurors reportedly were aghast when they learned that the other jury -- jurors had acquitted Chavis.

The prosecutor, however, says that while he believes that Chavis may have encouraged the boys, he does not believe, he still does not believe that Chavis actually committed the murder.

Charles, back to you.

MOLINEAUX: OK, thank you, Mark Potter in Pensacola.

Legal experts had questioned the prosecutor's decision to put the boys on trial for killing their father while also prosecuting another man for the same crime.

Let's talk some more about this with Kendall Coffey. He's a former U.S. attorney and a legal analyst for CNN.

Good morning, and thanks for being with us.

We're hearing these reports today that Derek and Alex's jury were surprised that Ricky Chavis was acquitted, and that, in fact, the expectation that he would be convicted played into their role to just convict the boys of second-degree murder.

What does that tell you about the way this case was pursued?

KENDALL COFFEY, FMR. U.S. ATTORNEY: Well, it's one of the many troubling things about the case, because the jury in the case of the two young boys got some idea of what was going on but didn't have the whole picture of the first trial, so what do they end up doing? Speculating, and reaching a wrong conclusion.

One of many reasons why this whole process of having prosecutors try different defendants on completely inconsistent theories was just fundamentally wrong. It was wrong in the sense of fairness, and it was certainly wrong in the sense of a prosecutor's duty to not hedge bets, not place bets on two different horses in the same race.

But a prosecutor's supposed to decide who's guilty, present the case based on that. That didn't happen here, and it's very, very troubling.

MOLINEAUX: What does that tell you about the strategy that they tried over basically parallel trials?

COFFEY: Well, I suppose the prosecutor's view was, I can't be completely sure who did it. I've got inconsistent evidence. So I'll let the jury decide.

But let's look at what a prosecutor's duty here is. You're not the emcee at a beauty contest, where you're going to let some panel decide who the winner is and who the loser is. You are representing the state of Florida seeking justice.

And so while the strategy from the prosecution's standpoint may have paid off, because, hey, he got somebody guilty, from the standpoint of our system of justice, this was wrong, and this was not a happy day for the state of Florida.

MOLINEAUX: Well, now, the boys had pretty much confessed, then they said, no, Chavis did it and they were going to take the rap for him. How does that kind of a 180 go over with a jury?

COFFEY: Not well, and certainly, had the prosecutor approached this from day one and said, We've got a confession here, I believe the confession the first time, not the story that they came up with five months later, that would have been legitimate.

But instead, the prosecutor tried to present basically completely inconsistent theories to two different juries. And I think in the process, apparently, according to what's being reported by Mark Potter and the local newspapers, may have contributed to jury confusion.

Certainly doing it in this way does not contribute to clarity and to getting the right and fair result.

MOLINEAUX: OK, Ricky Chavis was acquitted. The King brothers were convicted. Their lawyers are promising that they are going to appeal. Does this dual trial-dual verdict approach give them any grounds?

COFFEY: Well, it's going to -- it's not easy, in the sense that had there been convictions in both cases, obviously you would have had inconsistent results. That would have given the defense team in the case of Alex and Derek King a clear path to the appeals court.

Here, what they're going to argue is that this was a violation of due process, to put their clients to trial when the prosecutor was arguing out of the other side of his mouth a completely different factual scenario.

And secondly, let's look at one of the things that happened in the first trial. The prosecutor presented both boys as witnesses for the prosecution, establishing the guilty of Ricky Chavis. That is not simply a prosecutor's ability to stand back and say, Believe whoever you want. When a prosecutor presents witnesses in the state's case, the prosecutor is vouching for those witnesses, is saying, in effect, I believe that you should believe them.

And so I think that that issue too is going to be a significant one that could play into an appeal down the road.

MOLINEAUX: OK, thank you very much, former U.S. attorney Kendall Coffey, good to have you with us this morning.

COFFEY: Thanks, Charles.

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