Jayson Williams jury seems focused on intent
By Harriet Ryan
Court TV
SOMERVILLE, New Jersey (Court TV) -- At the close of their first full day of deliberations, jurors in Jayson Williams' manslaughter trial appeared focused on what was going through the former NBA star's mind in the seconds before he shot a chauffeur at his mansion.
The panelists sent Superior Court Judge Edward Coleman a note late Wednesday afternoon asking for clarification of the third count in Williams' eight-count indictment: possession of a firearm with a purpose to use it unlawfully against the person of another.
Does the word "use" mean fire the gun or simply point it at the victim? the jurors asked, according to the judge's paraphrase.
Williams claims the February 14, 2002, shooting of Costas "Gus" Christofi was an unforeseeable accident and that he never saw the driver, let alone aimed the gun at him. Prosecutors, however, insist he was taunting Christofi with the weapon, and two bystanders testified that Williams cursed at the chauffeur right before jerking the 12-gauge shotgun up toward him. It discharged immediately.
After consulting with lawyers, Coleman brought the jury back into court and told them that both choices in their note were incorrect. He reread them his lengthy legal instructions on the charge. Those instructions say that to find Williams guilty of the count, they must determine that he knowingly pointed the gun "at or in the direction of Gus Christofi" and did so "under circumstances that he knew manifested extreme indifference to the value of human life."
The charge carries 5 to 10 years in prison.
When the judge finished his explanation at about 4:40 p.m., he gave the jurors the opportunity to resume their deliberations or go home. One juror, a younger woman, seemed eager to return to the jury room, but others grumbled. Finally the jury foreman said loudly, "We're not going to finish today," and the panelists departed.
Court observers have been trying to read the jury's progress (play-by-play) by interpreting the notes, five so far, that the panel has sent to the judge during its 11 hours of deliberations. Three of the notes dealt with the last four counts on the verdict, all charges stemming from an alleged attempt by Williams to mastermind a cover-up of the shooting.
In those notes, jurors asked to rehear specific portions of the testimony of witnesses John Gordnick and Harlem Globetrotters Howard Paul Gaffney and Chris Morris. The portions, read by the court reporter Wednesday, dealt with Williams' instructions to witnesses to give police a phony story. Additionally, the jurors reheard Morris' claims that Williams wiped prints from the shotgun and tried to place it in the dying man's hands in a bid to stage the scene as a suicide.
The fifth note's emphasis on the third count could indicate the panel was working its way up the verdict form from the least to most serious count.
The top charge, aggravated manslaughter, carries 10 to 30 years in prison.
Williams waited for news from the jury in a small conference room down the hall from the courtroom. His wife, father-in-law, and other family members and supporters waited with him.
