January 9, 2009
Jurors: Evidence left us no choice
Evidence in the case of a Miller Place man convicted of killing an unarmed teenager left jurors no choice but to find the man guilty in the racially charged trial, one of the jurors said yesterday.
Francois Larche, 46, criticized the defense strategy for John White, a black man, whose lawyers labeled the crime a racial shooting.
"It's ridiculous," said Larche, a white South African native who has lived in the United States for more than two decades. "Putting labels on things is ridiculous."
Despite his confidence in the verdict, Larche, of West Islip, said he thought his fellow jurors were moving too quickly through the deliberations, which lasted four days and concluded late Saturday when the mostly white jury, which included one black man, convicted White of manslaughter and criminal possession of a weapon.
"People were rushing to judge," Larche said, adding that he thought the panel was not reviewing the evidence thoroughly enough. "I felt, you've got to slow things down a bit."
But jury forewoman Maureen Steigerwald, who cried in the courtroom during the testimony of White's wife, Sonia, said, "The jury did a very careful, conscientious, deliberate job."
In an interview with Newsday, she repeatedly said the jury was not rushed by the judge, the weekend session or the holiday season.
Steigerwald, of Hampton Bays, called the case "tragic."
The other 10 jurors could not be reached at their homes yesterday or declined to comment.
A man who answered the door yesterday at the Patchogue home of the only black juror, Eric Snell, declined to be interviewed.
During the trial, White's attorneys accused the white victim, Daniel Cicciaro Jr., of leading a "lynch mob" the night White shot Cicciaro in the face at White's Miller Place home.
Larche said he rejected the racial defense partly because the Whites had lived in Miller Place for about three years without experiencing any racial incidents.
Dean Camenares, husband of juror Marie Camenares, said that while his wife did not want to talk to reporters, she had found the deliberations arduous.
"Yesterday was very harrowing for her," he said. "She's still a little shell-shocked from the whole experience."
The strain of the case, combined with other pressures, was apparent in the behavior of several jurors during the trial.
One juror doubled over, trembling, while the jury sought clarification from the judge on the law. Another reportedly fretted about child-care issues as she was forced to deliberate well into the night on Saturday. One reportedly had a death in his family during the trial, and was spotted soon afterward crying outside the county courthouse, pacing up and down the sidewalk.
This story is based on reporting by Matthew Chayes, Alfonso A. Castillo, Zachary R. Dowdy, Mitchell Freedman and Patrick Whittle and was written by Chayes.
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