Juror: Race no factor in Gibson verdict

By Matt Pordum (contact)

Wednesday, June 29, 2005 | 9:39 a.m.

A jury forewoman said Tuesday that confusing instructions and not race was the reason the jury she led on Tuesday found a white 22-year-old man guilty of battery and instead of attempted murder for the shooting of a 28-year-old black man.

Prosecutors had asked the jury to find Stephen Gibson guilty of the more serious charge for for the Jan. 15 attack that left Corey Garnett paralyzed from his thighs down.

But the jury opted after roughly four and a half hours of deliberation to convict Gibson of the lesser charge of battery with use of a deadly weapon causing substantial bodily harm and one count of mayhem.

If Gibson had been convicted of attempted murder he would have faced four to 40 years in prison. He now faces two to 15 years in prison for the battery charge and one to 10 years for the mayhem count.

At Gibson's Aug. 16 sentencing, District Judge Michael Cherry will determine whether to run the counts consecutive or concurrent.

Garnett, a man convicted of home invasion, forgery and possession of cocaine, was angered not so much at Gibson after the verdict, as he was at the jury and how they were selected.

Specifically Garnett was puzzled that there were no black jurors.

"How can out of 12 jurors none of them be black?" Garnett said. "How does that happen? Is that a jury of my peers? The jury obviously didn't listen to the evidence, they did nothing. They didn't do their job.

"How 12 of my peers said that I got shot and said he (Gibson) didn't try to kill me is unbelievable."

Chief Deputy District Attorney Frank Coumou said out of the roughly 50 members of the jury pool only one black person made it to the jury box for individual questioning as to whether he was qualified to serve as a juror in the Gibson case.

Coumou said that juror subsequently was excused because he said he knew Gibson's father socially and didn't feel it would be appropriate for himself to sit in judgement of Gibson.

Prosecutors contend that after Stephen Gibson was told his 16-year-old sister was dating Garnett and had been seen kissing Garnett while on a break at the Long John Silver's restaurant she worked at, his family became enraged and set up and carried out the shooting.

Testifying this week, Garnett said the girl had told him that her family disapproved of him because he's black.

Gibson, however, contended he only confronted Garnett on the night of the shooting by coincidence and although he and his family disapproved of Garnett dating the teen, it wasn't because of race. It was because he was 12 years older and had a criminal record, they testified.

Self-defense argument

Gibson's attorneys argued he attacked in self-defense against Garnett, who they allege had threatened earlier that night to shoot at Gibson's parents home.

After the verdict was delivered several of the jurors who wished to remain anonymous stated they were confused by the jury instructions, most notably those that dealt with the differences between attempted murder, battery and self-defense.

The handful of jurors questioned, however, could not offer any further specifics about which instructions caused them grief, but said a "glossary of terms of the law" would have helped.

The jurors did say the decision of battery over attempted murder was "hotly contested." One female juror said she "originally thought it was self-defense, and it wasn't an easy decision."

Another female juror wept openly and was given tissues by the bailiff after the verdict was read.

When the jurors were asked after court if they would have returned a guilty of attempted murder verdict if Garnett was white and not an ex-felon, the jurors paused for several seconds and looked at one another until one said, "no."

Although the jurors interviewed said race wasn't an issue in the case, Garnett said he would be walking and not forced to live the rest of his life in a wheelchair if he was white.

"These guys shot me because I was dating their white relative," Garnett said. "If that's not racism I don't know what is."

The shooting took place in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven located at 780 N. Nellis Blvd., down the street from the restaurant where the teenage girl worked.

Garnett said he was at the Long John Silver's fast food restaurant with the girl and after talking to her cousin, suddenly her mother, father, aunt and uncle appeared.

Garnett left the restaurant and was followed by Stephen Gibson's uncle as he walked over to the 7-Eleven down the street. At the convenience store, Garnett was confronted by Stephen Gibson, Gibson's girlfriend and three of their friends.

Independent witnesses told police that Stephen Gibson and Garnett argued until Gibson shot Garnett once in the chest. Gibson then left in a car parked across the street from the 7-Eleven, the witnesses told police.

Gibson's girlfriend, two friends at the scene and his uncle, however, all said Garnett was the aggressor and Gibson acted in self-defense.

While Garnett was still digesting the jury's verdict, he did take a moment to say he could relate to Stephen Gibson, the choice he made and the future he faces in prison.

"I feel upset about it, but also when I was this guy's (Gibson) age I caught a break with the legal system too," Garnett said. "I have a past but at a certain time in a man's life you decide to turn it around.

"I understand what he's (Gibson) going through. He was put up to do what he had to do."

Garnett said at the time of the shooting he was still dealing drugs, but stopped "gangbanging and hanging out with his old friends." He said he should have heeded the advice of his former gang member friends who left the gang life.

"I should have never moved back to my old neighborhood like they all told me, if I would have listened maybe none of this ever would have happened."

Garnett's mother, Cheryl Allen, cried tears of anger after the verdict saying, "That's not fair. I don't buy this at all."

"He (Garnett) was never a perfect child, but he didn't deserve this," Allen said.

It's been a tough year for Allen as her other son, Bryon Garnett, who was convicted in 2001 of armed robbery in Las Vegas. In claiming Bryon Garnett's innocence his attorneys called on a NASA rocket scientist whose video-enhancing technique is used to clarify pictures from outer space.

After examining the security-camera video of the robber passing the height strip in the store's doorway, NASA's David Hathaway said the man on the tape could have been no taller than 5 feet 8 inches. It couldn't be Byron Garnett because he is 6-foot-1, his lawyers contend. District Judge John McGroarty disagreed in December and upheld the conviction, which is currently being appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court.

Open and shut case

As for the Gibson case, Coumou, the prosecutor, said he felt it " was an open and shut case of attempted murder."

Regarding the claim that the jury instructions were confusing, Coumou said, "These instructions are the same I'm used over the last 14 years in these types of cases and this is the first jury that has had an issue in understanding them."

The prosecutor said he would be arguing for consecutive sentences for Gibson, but added it "doesn't matter that Stephen Gibson can get 15 years now because Corey Garnett is serving a life sentence in a wheelchair as we speak."

Gibson's attorney, Todd Leventhal, was not pleased with the verdict either.

"It's a sad case," Levanthal said. "You have a kid in a wheelchair and a kid that's never been in trouble now going to prison."

Levanthal said Gibson was guilty of nothing more than making a "terrible decision" for bringing a gun to the confrontation, but added Gibson only did so because he knew Garnett "was that type of guy."

Although Gibson had been offered the support of more than a dozen family members during the course of the trial, only his weeping mother witnessed the verdict. Joyce Gibson watched her son being led away in handcuffs.