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CHASE SQUIRESA judge resets the trial of Luckie Jermaine Barnes for Oct. 7 after the star witness breaks down, refuses to testify and is taken to jail.
DADE CITY - The murder trial of Luckie Jermaine Barnes came to a dramatic halt Tuesday when the star witness broke down in tears, shouted profanity, refused to testify and ended up in jail.
Barnes, 22, was scheduled to stand trial on a charge of first-degree murder in the Jan. 23, 2002, shotgun slaying of David Wayne Williamson, 35. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
But after a raucous morning, the trial was reset for Oct. 7.
Authorities say Barnes kidnapped ex-girlfriend Janelle Anita Sanders, 20, from her job in Hernando County late Jan. 22, 2002, then drove her around Hernando and Pasco counties before picking up Williamson, who was hitchhiking. Williamson was shot to death in a parking lot along U.S. 98 south of Lacoochee.
In his opening argument, prosecutor Manny Garcia told jurors that Sanders would tell them how she was kidnapped, how she feared for her life, how Barnes threatened to kill her, and how he gunned down a stranger in cold blood.
But minutes after Sanders took the witness stand and was expected to repeat the same harrowing account of that night that she described in a deposition, she dissolved into tears. She walked away from the stand.
Court was adjourned twice for her to compose herself. Then Circuit Judge Wayne Cobb began running out of patience.
"Ms. Sanders, do you want to testify in custody or out of custody?" Cobb asked her. "Which is it going to be ... If you don't start listening and answering the questions, I'm going to put you in jail."
Sanders grew visibly more upset. She refused to answer, and when Cobb found her in contempt of court and sentenced her to five months in the Pasco County jail, she swore repeatedly and mocked the judge with applause.
"I didn't do s---," she snapped at Cobb.
After another break, Garcia appeared ready to continue his questioning.
"When you got to your mother's car, who was in the car," Garcia asked, referring to the moment Sanders reportedly found Barnes waiting for her with a gun.
"Mickey Mouse," she answered.
Then, in an emotional outburst, she declared Barnes' trial a farce, pointing out that Barnes, who is black, was being tried before a 12 jurors and two alternates, only one of whom was black.
"Why you only got one black person on the jury?" she shouted from the witness stand. "Y'all are trying to hang him."
The juror in question was the only black person randomly selected from all Pasco County residents and summoned into court on Monday for Barnes' jury selection.
Sanders was taken to jail in handcuffs. Cobb declared a mistrial.
Outside the courtroom, Williamson's parents were resigned to another wait.
"We just want to get it over with," his mother, Roberta, said. "I just want to see justice done ... I'm going to take a rose to David's grave."
"It's a bad way to spend your retirement years," added his father, Ernest.
In his opening argument, appointed defense attorney A.J. Ivie told jurors the case rested on Sanders and said she could have escaped from Barnes several times during the ordeal, well before anyone was shot.
"This case really depends on the credibility of Janelle Sanders," Ivie said. "There is a problem with Janelle Sanders, and that problem will cause reasonable doubt."
Prosecutors said they had no idea Sanders would erupt on the witness stand. They said she had cooperated throughout the investigation and appeared ready to testify moments before court convened.
- Chase Squires covers east Pasco courts. He can be reached at 352 521-5757, ext. 27 or toll-free 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6108, then 27. His e-mail address is squires@sptimes.com