Re: Steven Smith 15yrs old Ordered to Stand Trial as a Adult in the Murder of Wyatt Campbell
Posted by:
Come on
()
Date: August 18, 2011 04:27PM
Posted by: Angry Parents
Date: August 18, 2011 03:51PM
Yeah right, it was a set-up, didn't have a golf club, etc., but you know the truth.
THEN why in the hell weren't you a witness on behalf of your friend?!?
Why in the hell didn't you help the prosecuting attorney?!?
Why in the hell come on here and keep saying YOU know the truth and everyone else are lying?!?
Parent(s) my ass!
On October 14, in a time period identified between 9:30 p.m. and 10:15 p.m., Taylor drove Campbell to Rose Hill to drop him off. First, though, they stopped at the 7-Eleven in the Rose Hill Shopping Center so Taylor could buy Campbell cigarettes. According to Taylor, Campbell didn't have his identification on him, and he looked too young to buy without one.
Go and read:
Posted by: Good Grief
Date: August 14, 2011 06:48PM
A mountain of recaps. Oh! what the hell let me post for your convenience:
Posted by: Recap ()
Date: July 09, 2011 02:41PM
'If They Called the Cops, I'm Screwed': Fight Participant Testifies in Rose Hill Murder Trial
Correction: This article originally stated that Wyatt Campbell said, "If they called the cops, I'm screwed." Randy Taylor actually said that at trial, and the article has been corrected to reflect that. Kingstowne Patch regrets the error.
Randy Taylor, 21, testified that he was hanging out with Campbell the night he died, and later joined him in a fight.
Taylor's testimony preceded accusations from the defendant's attorney that he would lie on the stand to cover up an alleged drug-dealing relationship between Taylor; Campbell; and a third man who drove Campbell to the hospital after the fight and, according to the defense, participated in it.
Patch is currently declining to identify the third man because he is being accused of crimes, and it's not clear yet whether he is a minor. Tony Perez-
These accusations were made with the jury outside the room because Judge Brett A. Kassabian had excluded mention of alleged drug dealing, ruling that drugs were not involved in Campbell's death.
On October 14, in a time period identified between 9:30 p.m. and 10:15 p.m., Taylor drove Campbell to Rose Hill to drop him off. First, though, they stopped at the 7-Eleven in the Rose Hill Shopping Center so Taylor could buy Campbell cigarettes.
According to Taylor, Campbell didn't have his identification on him, and he looked too young to buy without one.
As the two pulled up to the 7-Eleven, Taylor said, the defendant's older brother approached Campbell, still in the car.
"Did you get my brother?" Taylor testified hearing the man ask Campbell. According to a witness statement to police, Campbell and two other boys, pretending to be police officers, had robbed the defendant and some of his friends.
Taylor then said the defendant's older brother punched Campbell in the side of the head. Asked by Greenberg to explain how the brother punched Campbell, Taylor offered to demonstrate.
"I'm going to play it out just like Hollywood for you, man," he said.
With the defendant still in another car, Campbell and the older brother began yelling at each other.
"It was just like the heat of the moment," Taylor said. "Everybody was talking crap."
Taylor didn't want to fight in front of the 7-Eleven for several reasons: he was on probation for a felony offense, he knew the store had surveillance cameras, and there was a small amount of marijuana in the car.
"People are going to call the cops there," he testified.
Taylor tried to maneuver his car out of the parking lot. After being initially blocked by the defendant's brother, he succeeded, and drove to Campbell's grandmother's home, in a nearby apartment complex. Taylor said it was clear the encounter with the defendant and his brother was not finished.
"An example needs to be set," he testified.
Campbell and Taylor began walking from Campbell's grandmother's home to a sidestreet behind the 7-Eleven, a distance of about a block-and-a-half.
Greenberg pressed Taylor on whether Campbell was carrying a golf club, because a broken golf club was found at the scene of the crime. Taylor said he never saw what Campbell was carrying, because Campbell was behind him the whole time.
Taylor eventually conceded that Campbell was in front of him when they returned to the 7-Eleven to find out if the police had been called.
If they called the cops, I'm screwed," Taylor said at trial, then added that he just wanted to know. He said he still did not see if Campbell had a golf club.
Soon after that, the two friends met with the brothers behind the convenience store. Taylor punched the older brother, who he says was aiming a toy gun at him. The brother responded by hitting Taylor with the gun.
"It was one of my longer fights," Taylor said.
Meanwhile, Taylor said, he saw the defendant on top of Campbell, then fighting with Campbell against a fence. Still, Taylor said he didn't see much of the other half of the fight.
"It's like television," he said. "All you're seeing is your opponent."
Eventually, another friend of Campbell's arrived. While the defense maintains this third man helped throughout the fight, Taylor said that he couldn't remember how long his friend, who is about 6 feet tall, weighing between 250 and 300 pounds, according to Taylor, was there.
As the fight ended, this third man took Campbell to the hospital. Although Taylor said he never saw the defendant stab Campbell, he testified that Campbell seemed short of breath.
"This n**** hit me in my lung," Taylor recalled Campbell saying to him as he left, using a racial slur.
After the fight, Taylor said, he went to a friend's house, changed clothes, and went to the hospital. Greenberg, in arguments with the jury out of the room, said that Taylor had used the time after the fight to hide a safe containing marijuana.
The defense seized on several seeming discrepancies between Taylor's testimony at the trial and earlier statements to police.
Taylor initially said he only talked to the third man, briefly, at the hospital, but when confronted by a call between him and the man after the fight, he acknowledged that they talked briefly.
Taylor also did not have an explanation for why his phone was found in the third man's car at the hospital.
It's a mystery to me, too," he said.
Taylor was asked whether Campbell usually carried a knife. An officer at the hospital found a spring-loaded knife in Campbell's personal effects.
I never knew him to carry a weapon," Taylor said. "He carried a utility knife."
Several other witnesses testified in the afternoon. Devinder Singh, the owner of the Rose Hill 7-Eleven, testified about his store's surveillance camera.
Homicide detective Stephen Needls also testified about the custody of the video tape from the night that was given to police. No video was shown in the trial.
Detective John Tuller, a crime scene investigator with FCPD, testified about the scene in the hospital where Campbell died from his wounds. Tuller showed the shirt Campbell had been wearing in the hospital: a white polo shirt with blue stripes, about half of it stained with what looked like blood.
Investigating the car that took Campbell to the hospital, Tuller said, he found several blood stains and a wooden-handled knife with no blood on it.
FCPD homicide Detective Eric Dean, the lead investigator on the case, also testified about getting a DNA swab from the defendant's mouth.
Finally, Detective Michael S. Lamper testified about various pieces of evidence that he saw at the crime scene, including blood stains and the broken golf club.
Defense Calls Victim's Grandmother, Brother in Murder Trial
It was a day for expert witnesses, foggy memories, and disputed testimonies as the prosecution rested its argument and the defense began calling witnesses in the second day of a Rose Hill teen accused of murder.
Tony Perez:
The defense, after pointing out that Perez was on felony probation on the night of Campbell's death, asked Perez whether he participated in the fight.
According to the defense's theory of the fight, Perez helped Campbell and Taylor fight the defendant and his older brother. The prosecution holds that Perez was not involved.
"You know you're under oath right now?" defense attorney Cary Greenberg asked Perez after he denied involvement in the fight.
Medical Examiner:
According to Dr. A Wayne Williams, Campbell received 12 stab wounds on his body, two of which would be fatal. Williams said that the stab wounds were consistent with a fight.
Motion to Strike:
Homicide requires malice, Greenberg said, arguing that even taking the Commonwealth's evidence in the most positive light showed no malice on the defendant's part.
"All the facts show no intent to kill," Greenberg said, saying that when Campbell tried to leave the fight, the defendant allowed him to. If the defendant wanted to kill the wounded Campbell, according to the defense, he would have pursued him.
Kassabian declined to strike the charge, citing the use of a weapon and the length of the stab wounds Campbell received as evidence of malice.
Campbell's Reputation:
The defense called two teenaged friends of the defendant to the stand as witnesses. One night during the summer of 2010, the three teens were allegedly ambushed by Campbell and two other older boys. Pretending to be police, the older teens stole the younger teens' phones and iPods.
The teens said they didn't report the crime because their parents didn't know they were out so late. The robbery is supposedly what precipitated the argument at the 7-Eleven.
One of the defendant's friends said Campbell had a reputation for violence.
"People knew who he was and they always talked about the stuff he did," he said, although he added that Campbell didn't touch him during the robbery.
The defendant's other friend, however, disagreed, saying that Campbell had pushed the defendant against a fence and frisked him, looking for valuables.
When prosecutor Camille Turner asked the witness whether he had already told police in an earlier statement that Campbell hadn't pushed anyone, the witness said he didn't recall saying that and insisted that Campbell was involved in the robbery.
Campbell's Family:
The defense called Mary Ann Meegan, Campbell's grandmother, to testify. After the argument at the 7-Eleven, Taylor and Campbell went to Meegan's nearby apartment before heading to the fight behind the convenience store.
Meegan said that Campbell stayed at her home for between 15 and 20 minutes.
Meegan said her grandson left with a golf club, the first admission by anyone associated with Campbell in the case that he had taken a golf club to the fight. A broken golf club shaft was found near the crime scene after the fight.
During cross-examination, defense attorney Caroline Costle asked Meegan if she remembered telling a Fairfax County Police Department detective that Campbell had only stayed in the apartment for a few minutes, instead of the 15-20 minutes she testified to in court. Meegan said that she remembered giving the earlier statement.
"He was happy when he came home," Meegan said. "He was angry when he left."
After Meegan, the defense called William Campbell, Campbell's 20-year-old brother.
Greenberg, who has been prevented from producing evidence about Wyatt Campbell's possible history of marijuana dealing with Taylor and Perez by a ruling from the judge, asked William Campbell whether, the day after the murder, he told FCPD Detective Dan Bibeault that his younger brother had been involved in a drug deal that went sour.
William Campbell said he didn't recall making any statement like that. When Greenberg asked him if he'd like to see the interview where he allegedly said it, Campbell refused, saying he knows what he said.
Immediately after Campbell, the defense called Bibeault to the stand. Bibeault said that William Campbell did tell him that his younger brother had told him about a recent drug deal gone bad, and explained how he chased at least one person down the street with a baseball bat as a result.
Campbell's cell phone showed his safe which had between 1/2lb - 1/lb and cash, $10K.
The Defendant's Brother:
David, 24, worked at a Gamestop store in October 2010. After getting off work on October 14, he picked up his younger brother and took him to the 7-Eleven to buy drinks and cigarettes, but realized he didn't have any money.
As he left the store, David said, his brother pointed out Campbell sitting nearby in a car. When David confronted him, Campbell laughed, and David pushed his head.
David said Campbell then tried to get out of the car while pulling the spring-loaded knife that was later found amongst his personal effects in the hospital.
"I'm going to get you," David recalls Campbell saying to him. Soon, though, Taylor convinced Campbell not to fight in front of the store.
The two brothers left the 7-Eleven, and David came up with a plan. He'd pretend that a broken Airsoft pellet pistol they had at home was actually a real gun, and threaten Campbell and Taylor until they gave back his brother's stolen iPod.
After the brothers went to the alley, though, the plan fell apart, according to David's testimony. Campbell arrived with Taylor and Perez, and none of them were scared by the broken toy gun.
"[Perez and Taylor] just ran at me and started punching," David said. When David could see his younger brother fighting Campbell, he saw Campbell swinging something at him, then trying to tackle his younger brother.
Soon, Campbell said he had been hurt. Taylor left in his car, and Perez and Campbell left in Perez's Cherokee.
The brothers left, too, returning to their house. The younger brother had received a cut (photos taken the day after show a cut on one of his wrists), and they bandaged it up while trying not to wake their mother.
David said his brother also received a black eye and a long, straight mark, two centimeters thick, across his ribs. This would seem to be consistent with a mark from a golf club, and was not mentioned in testimony from an officer who photographed the defendant's wounds soon after the fight.
In cross-examination, David admitted telling police about the toy gun late in interviews, and initially saying his younger brother never got out of the car during the fight. He insisted at trial that his brother didn't have a knife at the fight.
"He's not allowed to carry a knife," David said.
Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Camille Turner closed the cross-examination with a series of rapid questions:
Turner: Little brother?
David: Yes.
Turner: Love him?
David: Yes.
Turner: Want to protect him?
David: Yes.
Turner: To this day.
Defendant in Wyatt Campbell Murder Trial Found Not Guilty
After about six hours of deliberations, a jury found the 15-year-old defendant charged with the murder of Rose Hill teen Wyatt Campbell not guilty Friday morning.
Deliberations started Thursday afternoon and continued Friday morning. The jury reached a verdict around 10:20 a.m.
Defendant’s Brother Held for Contempt:
Before the verdict was read, Judge Brett A. Kassabian demanded order in the courtroom, telling both parties that any outbursts or disruptions upon hearing the verdict would be dealt with “severely.”
But upon hearing the not guilty verdict, the defendant’s brother, David, stood up and started clapping.
Once the defendant had been escorted out of the courtroom, Kassabian gave David a chance to explain himself. David said he was happy for his brother, and that his brother hadn’t deserved to be there.
Kassabian was not satisfied, and, placing him in contempt of court, sentenced him to a day in jail. “This is not the Jerry Springer Show,” Kassabian said. “This is a courtroom.”
While the bailiff was cuffing David’s hands, David looked at Campbell’s party and said, “Who’s laughing now, b----?”
Angered, Kassabian called the statement “outrageous” and sentenced him to additional time.
The defendant was sent back to the juvenile detention center to be released immediately.
Thursday’s Closing Arguments:
The trial was put to the jury around 12:40 p.m. Thursday, after the prosecution and defense presented their closing arguments.
Before Kassabian released the case to the jury, Cary Greenberg, the defense’s attorney, motioned again to strike the case.
“There is nothing that suggests malice,” he said, describing the killing as an act of self-defense by somebody who was “extremely petrified.” “There is no indication that this was an intentional killing. This case should not go to the jury.”
Kassabian disagreed, saying that these were all matters for a jury to decide.
During the prosecution’s closing arguments, commonwealth attorney Camille Turner stated that in order for the jury to come back with a verdict of guilty of second-degree murder, they had to establish that the defendant had killed Wyatt Campbell and done so with malice.
“You may infer malice because there was an unlawful killing,” she said, adding that there was deliberate use of a weapon, and that by the end of the fight, Campbell had suffered 12 stab wounds. “This was a brutal, malicious killing, and we would ask that you find the defendant guilty of murder.”
The defense used the closing arguments to reiterate that the defendant had been protecting himself.
“Nature’s oldest law is self-defense,” Greenberg said, reminding the jury that the defendant and his brother had been in a conflict with three people intending to do bodily harm. “These were people looking to fight and looking to hurt people in ways we can’t even imagine.”
Greenburg also brought up Campbell’s reputation, the inconsistencies in Randy Taylor’s testimony, an unprocessed knife found in the back seat of Tony Perez’s car, and unidentified blood on the defendant’s brother’s car.
And when the fight stopped, Greenberg said, the defendant didn’t pursue Campbell or try to do him more harm. “There’s no indication that [the defendant] ever actively wanted to kill anybody,” he said.
“This is a serious case and a terrible tragedy, but a 15-year-old kid is entitled also to go on and live his life.”
Turner used her rebuttal to point out that the defendant’s side of the story came primarily from his own brother, and questioned whether the sheer number of wounds qualified as “more force than was reasonably necessary to repel the attack” from Campbell.
“If a person who you outweigh by 20, 30, 40 pounds is coming at you in a football crouch, is it necessary to stab them 12 times?” she asked the jury, holding up forensic photos of Campbell’s wounds.
After about six hours of deliberations, a jury found the 15-year-old defendant charged with the murder of Rose Hill teen Wyatt Campbell not guilty Friday morning.
The jury was released for deliberations at 12:40 p.m. Thursday but was sent home at 5:30 p.m. with instructions to return at 9 a.m. Friday. They reached a verdict around 10:20 a.m.
Case close.