January 9, 2009
THE LIMO VERDICT THE JURORS
How 12 angry people decided
They almost came to blows.
The debate over the fate of Martin Heidgen got so heated that the 12 jurors screamed and banged on the table, jurors said last night.
The mood during the deliberations was "pretty fierce," said juror Michael DeRita, 39, of Levittown. "A lot of yelling, screaming. It came close to physical violence."
While they ultimately spoke with one voice that said Heidgen, 25, of Valley Stream, was guilty of murder, it took a week of tension-racked deliberations - including two deadlocks - to get there.
"At one point we would feel we were getting places, but it got so overwhelming that we just had to stop," said juror Robert Pike, 62, a retired firefighter from Levittown. "You would just look across the table at someone and calmly tell them what you think happened, and they tell you that they don't believe you, and people would get frustrated and scream and throw things."
Confusion reigned at times, jurors said; bitterness at others.
"Sometimes we would fight over what we were fighting about," said DeRita, a graphic designer.
Some jurors wondered if Heidgen was simply too drunk to reason. "That was almost in his favor," Pike said.
The jurors were far apart at the start, they said, with the initial vote tally splitting 8-4 or 9-3 in favor of convicting Heidgen of murder. "It looked hopeless," said one juror, Michelle, 38, of Roosevelt, an analyst for the post office who declined to give her last name.
Two holdouts seemed to stand their ground, prompting the jury at one point Monday to say it had deadlocked - which would have sparked a mistrial in an emotion-laden case.
But Acting State Supreme Court Justice Alan Honorof sequestered the jurors on the fourth day of deliberations, giving them the push they may have needed to decide.
"There was a point where they totally shut down, once it got a little heated, where they would just put their heads down," DeRita said of the holdouts. "One slept for a couple hours, wouldn't listen to anything."
The main sticking point was the depraved-indifference theory of the case, an unusual approach in a drunken driving matter. Prosecutors argued Heidgen was more than reckless when he drove the wrong way on the Meadowbrook Parkway and that he didn't care whether he struck anyone.
The holdouts found that hard to believe.
But as they analyzed the evidence - the phone calls, the testimony about drivers who flashed their brights to warn Heidgen he was going the wrong way - opinions of even the staunchest holdout turned against him.
Jurors also tried to lay aside the emotions stirred up by the thought of Katie, the flower girl on the way home from a wedding when she was killed in the accident. "There was so much emphasis being put on the little girl and how tragic it was," Pike said. "We sort of had to say whether she was a little girl or an old man, that we couldn't let that influence us."
When the jurors finally came to an agreement yesterday afternoon, they felt relief, but no joy. "Everybody just broke down," Pike said. "I think it was by far the most difficult thing that I have ever done. I was a fireman for 30 years; I never had such an emotional time.
In five days, the jurors swung from reasonable discussion to pitched argument and, finally, to unanimous agreement.
"I was amazed at how we did come together, this eclectic group," Pike said. "Nobody was alike. We were different ages, different nationalities, our lifestyles, our jobs, our opinions. It was just amazing that we did finally come together."
Staff writer Denise M. Bonilla contributed to this story.
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