As the verdict was read, 16-year-old Thomas D. Partlow's mother wept. Guilty. First-degree murder. It's a decision that took a Duval County jury of three men and three women about 75 minutes Wednesday to determine, one that will hold Partlow in a state prison for the remainder of his life unless he appeals successfully. For the family of Grady Williamson, the 49-year-old man whom Partlow was convicted of stabbing to death for $3, the relief was bittersweet. The man remembered so fondly for his jokes and cooking talents - especially his knack for the grill during family barbecues - is gone. "The whole entire thing was horrific. ... It's been months and I still can't grasp it," said the victim's sister, Diana Williamson. Police charged Partlow several days after Williamson's death. According to investigative reports and testimony, Partlow plunged a knife nearly 6 inches into Williamson's chest during a random Northside street robbery on Jan. 25. In a recorded police interview played for the jury, Partlow told investigators he did it because he thought Williamson was going to run away. Two accomplices, who told authorities that Partlow did the stabbing, each pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and were sentenced in July. Marvin T. Clark, 15, was sentenced to 25 years. Gibson Wright III, 17, was sentenced to 30. An estimated 56 ounces of blood had pooled around Williamson's heart by the time he was pronounced dead at Shands Jacksonville hospital. The three boys made away with $3 - all Williamson had on him as he strolled that night near Lem Turner Road and Edgewood Avenue West. Investigators said Partlow and Clark dashed out of a Chevy Malibu to jump Williamson in a dimly lit parking lot because the teens were in need of gas money. "Please accept my humble apology," a man identifying himself as Partlow's grandfather said to Williamson's family outside the courtroom. His voice shook at points and he kept his statement brief. Partlow's mother could be heard crying in the courthouse hallway after Circuit Judge Mark H. Mahon set an Oct. 4 sentencing date and recessed. Under Florida law, Partlow faces a mandatory life sentence with no chance of parole. "This is a tragedy for both sides," Diana Williamson said. "Do you think those boys' mothers expected to hear their children were arrested for murder? I'm sorry for their loss as well. There's a lot of hurt people here." Defense attorney Greg Messore argued to jurors that the evidence in the case was inconclusive. Before Partlow told police that he stabbed Williamson, he told them that one of the other boys did. Messore said the confession was pressured. "We're dealing with a kid who's 16 years old. He hasn't had an opportunity to speak to his mom. He has ADHD. He's bipolar. He's not the most sophisticated person the police have dealt with," Messore said. "He didn't even know what the word homicide meant when they asked him." Prosecutor John Guy highlighted the physical evidence in the case. Police had found a sock Partlow used to clean up some of Williamson's blood - right where he told them to look - and discovered some of his blood splattered on the Malibu witnesses spotted Partlow in the night of the attack. "That man [Williamson] had zero chance," Guy said. "No weapons. No friends. There was no justification for this." david.hunt@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4025The 16-year-old faces a mandatory life term in prison at Oct. 4 hearing.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Jacksonville teen found guilty of murder for $3
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Killing Over $3 Lands Teens In Prison
Friday, May 21, 2010
Teen who allegedly hit, killed woman in Rviera Beach charged as adult
By ELIOT KLEINBERG Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Updated: 9:48 a.m. Friday, May 21, 2010 Posted: 9:06 a.m. Friday, May 21, 2010 Jermaine Nixon, the 15-year-old accused of losing control of a stolen car and mowing down and killing a woman in Riviera Beach, has been charged as an adult and booked into the Palm Beach County Jail, records show. Nixon was booked at 10 p.m. Thursday in the March 19 death of Kathryn Veroxie, 21, and is expected to appear before a judge this morning. Veroxie was walking near Garden Road and Blue Heron Boulevard about 10 p.m. when a stolen 1997 Chevrolet Malibu driven by Nixon swerved and hit her, police said. A native of New York, Veroxie moved to Jupiter seven years ago after her mother died of breast cancer. Her father died the following year. She lived with her aunt and uncle, graduated from Jupiter High School in 2007 and was attending Palm Beach State College off and on while working as a cashier for Publix in Lake Park. Known as "Kat," she loved Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and root beer. Nixon is charged with negligent vehicle manslaughter, failing to stop at a fatal crash, driving without a license with a serious injury or death, and theft between $300 and $5,000. The teenager surrendered to the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice on May 1. At a May 4 hearing, Juvenile Court Judge Kathleen Kroll ordered Nixon to remain at the Palm Beach County Juvenile Assessment Center while prosecutors considered whether to file adult charges. This, despite his attorney's arguments for leniency. State rules allow prosecutors 21 days to decide whether to charge Nixon in Juvenile Court or in Circuit Court. Nixon's attorney, Jack Fleischman, had pointed out that Nixon surrendered and asked he be released on electronic monitoring. But prosecutors countered that he waited two weeks, and had turned himself in only after a judge signed a warrant for his arrest.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Supreme Court Rules on Life Terms for Juveniles
By 6-3 Vote Says, Unless Convicted of Murder, Teenagers Cannot Be Sentenced to Life With No Chance of Parole
By a 6-3 vote Monday, the court said the U.S. Constitution requires that young people serving life sentences must at least be considered for release.
The court ruled in the case of Terrance Graham, who was implicated in armed robberies when he was 16 and 17. Graham was on probation for robbery when he broke into a home and committed another robbery just before his 18th birthday. Although he was eligible for a minimum 5-year sentence, the judge sentenced him to the maximum of life, saying he was a threat to society and had made a conscious decision to throw his life away.
Graham, now 22, is in prison in Florida, which holds more than 70 percent of juvenile defendants locked up for life for crimes other than homicide, and where parole had been abolished. [A juvenile sentenced to life in Florida may only be released by an executive order granting clemency.]
"The state has denied him any chance to later demonstrate that he is fit to rejoin society based solely on a non-homicide crime that he committed while he was a child in the eyes of the law," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his majority opinion. "This the Eighth Amendment does not permit."
Kennedy's opinion estimates that there are currently 129 non-homicide offenders sentenced as juveniles to life without parole in the U.S. Almost two-thirds - 77 - are in Florida. The remaining are in 10 states (California, Delaware, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Virginia) or in federal facilities.
"The Eighth Amendment does not foreclose the possibility that persons convicted of nonhomicide crimes committed before adulthood will remain behind bars for life. It does forbid States from making the judgment at the outset that those offenders never will be fit to reenter society," the court said.
Kennedy said juveniles "lack maturity and have an underdeveloped sense of responsibility," and that for them, a life sentence actually translates into a far harsher sentence than an adult would receive for a comparable crime.
Kennedy wrote that Florida acknowledged at oral arguments that "even a 5-year-old, theoretically, could receive such a sentence under the letter of the law. . . . All would concede this to be unrealistic, but the example underscores that the statutory eligibility of a juvenile offender for life without parole does not indicate that the penalty has been endorsed through deliberate, express, and full legislative consideration."
Today's decision also notes that such life sentences for juveniles have been rejected by every other nation.
Left unanswered, said CBS News legal correspondent Jan Crawford, is the question about life sentences for juveniles who do commit murder.
The Court had already struck down the death penalty for juvenile killers in 2005.
Chief Justice John Roberts agreed with the outcome, but wrote a separate, more narrow opinion, saying he would not necessarily outlaw juvenile life sentences in extreme and brutal cases, such as those involving rape.
Dissenting from today's opinion were Justices Thomas, Scalia and Alito.
On sentencing underage nonhomicide offenders Justice Thomas wrote, "Although the text of the Constitution is silent regarding the permissibility of this sentencing practice, and although it would not have offended the standards that prevailed at the founding, the Court insists that the standards of American society have evolved such that the Constitution now requires its prohibition. The news of this evolution will, I think, come as a surprise to the American people."
Writing that such sentences are allowed by 37 States, the District of Columbia and the federal government, Thomas said the Court's decision amounts to rejecting "the judgments of those legislatures, judges, and juries regarding what the Court describes as the 'moral' question of whether this sentence can ever be 'proportionat[e]' when applied to the category of offenders at issue here.
"I am unwilling to assume that we, as members of this Court, are any more capable of making such moral judgments than our fellow citizens. Nothing in our training as judges qualifies us for that task, and nothing in Article III gives us that authority.
"I agree with Justice Stevens that '[w]e learn, sometimes, from our mistakes.' Perhaps one day the Court will learn from this one," Thomas concluded.
The case, Graham v. Florida, was similar to another argued before the court, Sullivan v. Florida, in which a 13-year-old boy was convicted for taking part in a burglary and sexual assault. Attempts by the prisoner to have his case reheard were scuttled when it was discovered DNA evidence had been destroyed. The court today dismissed the writ of certiorari in Sullivan as improvidently granted.
Also today, the Court:
• Upheld a federal law that allows sex offenders to be held after their sentences expire. That decision was by Justice Breyer, with Thomas and Scalia in dissent.
• Sided with a British man in an international custody dispute that arose after his wife moved with their son from Chile to Texas without his consent. The Court said the Hague Convention conferred a custody right in such cases, and a court could order the child's return to Chile. Justice Kennedy also wrote that decision, with Justices Stevens, Thomas and Breyer in dissent.
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