Dragging death guilty verdict
About the article
This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from February 1999.
Brought to you by
The jury that found King guilty Tuesday of kidnapping and murdering James Byrd Jr. last June must agree with Dr. Edward Gripon in order to sentence King to death.
As the punishment phase of King's trial continued Wednesday, Gripon told jurors that experts tend to base the predictions of future violence on two things. "One is past history because it's the best way to predict," he said. "The second is the sheer magnitude of some offense. Some are so extreme and so dramatic they remove all doubt what a person is capable of."
Gripon said King's racist tattoos and writings provided insight into King.
"Part of the reason was to make a statement, to make himself someone feared," Gripon said. Also testifying Wednesday was a Jasper County investigator, Joe Sterling, who said King threatened to assault him when King refused to leave the jail to make a court appearance in January.
"He told me it was nothing personal ... because he had nothing to lose," Sterling said.
The jury is hearing more testimony to help it decide whether King should remain in prison for life or receive the death penalty. He would become the only white among 452 Texas inmates to be awaiting death for killing a black person.
Jurors earlier heard from police officers about King's criminal past, and they heard probation officers say he refused to participate in programs and fled from rehabilitation centers.
Prosecutors say that last June 7, Byrd, 49, was picked up by the suspects as he walked home after a party. He was then savagely beaten and chained to the truck.
A pathologist testified Byrd was alive and in excruciating pain as he was dragged along a bumpy county road, held fast by the 24 1/2-foot logging chain. For part of the way, Byrd tried to prop himself up on his elbows to protect his head.
On Tuesday, it was a black man who delivered the news that could send King to death row. King leaned forward slightly, drawing near to one of his attorneys in hopes of avoiding the aim of a photographer as the jurors filed into the courtroom to announce the verdict.
The only black juror, who had been elected foreman of the 12-member panel, gave the papers with the jury vote to the bailiff, who handed them to state District Judge Joe Bob Golden. "We the jury find the defendant guilty of the offense of capital murder," Golden read.
Some spectators applauded, and Byrd's family broke into tears. "I am relieved," said Stella Brumley, Byrd's sister. "That's all we wanted, was justice."
A few blocks from the courthouse, Craig Johnson, owner of the World of Sounds music store, later suggested a punishment for King: "He needs to go the same way that man did."
Two other white men, Shawn Berry, 24, and Lawrence Brewer, 31, are still awaiting trial in the killing.
"All I know is that there's one down and two to go," said Ross Byrd, the victim's son.
The slaying thrust Jasper into a national spotlight which many in this racially mixed east Texas timber town of 8,000 said was unfair. Members of the Ku Klux Klan and New Black Panthers came to demonstrate outside the courthouse, and the crime drew even the attention of the president.
