Prosecutors in a murder case are trying to strike from the panel a woman whose brother was sentenced by the judge.
By CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD
Published May 19, 2004
TAMPA - In jury selection, the question is standard: Has anybody in your immediate family ever been accused of a crime?
On Tuesday, it yielded a dismaying answer for prosecutors picking jurors in a death-penalty case at the Hillsborough courthouse.
One potential panel member, Catherine Norton, said her brother had been accused of murder. Trial Judge J. Rogers Padgett asked: Was his name Johnnie?
Yes, she said.
Padgett remembered Johnnie Norton, and with good reason: In 1996, he sentenced Norton to die in the electric chair for first-degree murder in the death of his girlfriend, who was found shot in the head in a vacant lot in Tampa. His conviction was later reduced to manslaughter, with a 30-year sentence.
The same State Attorney's Office that put Johnnie Norton away is now prosecuting before Padgett another alleged domestic-violence killing: a Marine sergeant accused of killing his girlfriend and her baby.
Prosecutors do not want Norton's sister on the jury, apparently fearing she might be biased against the state. On Tuesday, prosecutor Jalal Harb moved to have Catherine Norton, who is black, struck from the jury pool.
In cases involving a potential juror who is black, the side seeking to have the juror removed must give a reason for the action other than the person's race.
Defense attorneys objected, challenging the prosecutor to show a race-neutral reason why Catherine Norton should be booted.
Judge Padgett sided with the defense, ruling there was no good legal reason why she couldn't sit on the case. Under questioning, Catherine Norton said she knew little about her brother's case, not even what degree of murder he was charged with, and has little contact with him.
Later in the day, the prosecutor objected again to Catherine Norton's presence on the jury, citing the case of Acoff vs. Florida. In that case, a man convicted in Broward County of escape and resisting arrest argued on appeal that the judge presiding over his trial erred by allowing prosecutors to reject an African-American juror over defense objections. But an appeals court ruled in 2000 that the state gave a race-neutral reason for striking the juror, as required by law.
As fast as the prosecutor could bring up that case Tuesday, Judge Padgett ruled that it was not applicable to the case at hand.
Today, for the third day, lawyers will continue picking jurors to sit in judgment of James Coleman, 25, who faces two counts of first-degree murder, with a possible death penalty if he is convicted.
In December 2002, Tampa police said, Coleman choked his 19-year-old girlfriend, Jessica Hine, at the West Shore Boulevard apartment they shared. Police said he later put her body in a suitcase and dumped it in the woods in Volusia County.
Days after he murdered her, police said, he also killed her 10-week-old baby, Devonte, wrapped the body in a flower-print sheet and a cardboard box, and placed it in a freezer. Coleman, a Marine sergeant, worked at Central Command at MacDill Air Force Base.
- Times researcher John Martin contributed to this report. Christopher Goffard can be reached at 813 226-3337 or goffard@sptimes.com
