Defense: Steele told the truth

DADE CITY -- Assistant Public Defender Tom Hanlon delivered the defense's closing argument in the Alfredie Steele Jr. murder trial:

" 'Fredie Steele told (cousin Nathaniel) Vanzant that the cops were looking for him. Vanzant told him that he was worried they were gonna kill him. What -- stand up 'Fredie -- what did this 19-year-old boy do when he found out they were looking for his cousin? He said 'Go down and clear your name.' Does that sound like a liar to you?

" 'Fredie tells (detectives) the story, "I didn't intend to hurt nobody or nothing.' Now you're supposed to presume he's innocent unless they can show through the evidence that that's not true. He told the truth. If you were gonna lie to try and get out of this charge, would you lie about 'Yeah, I shot him, no, I didn't mean to hurt anybody.' Well you know your common sense will tell you he is gonna say 'I didn't do it.' The biggest time in his life, with his mother's guidance, he tells them, based upon the truth, he tells them he shoots, but he didn't mean to kill anyone. A stupid thing? Yeah. Do people do stupid things every day? Yeah, and I don't mean to be disrespectful to him, but a dumb, drunk 19-year-old with a gun? Is there ever a rationale for that? How do we ever know he intended to do this thing?"

"How could anybody, without being clairvoyant, know that there would be a police car there? He didn't know there would be a police car there. Well Detective Medley asked him 'Did you go down (to the cook shed) for target practice. He said no. He went to shoot the gun. Like kids who go to throw rocks at windows ..."

"So four hours after he's shooting in the middle of the dark, it's target practice, to shoot what? Something he doesn't even know is going to be there?"

"He then talks to Detective Medley and Detective Christensen, and you recall they started out by Detective Medley saying 'I want to talk to you about Lt. Harrison.' And that's what his attention is drawn to, Lt. Harrison. And therein being the basis to say 'That man.' ...

"If he never intended to kill this unknown person he never knew about, then you don't have first-degree murder. It's gone."

"And he said 'that man' when he talked about Mr. BoBo and he's crying and he knows who's dead, and he knows he shot, and that's what he said. 'I wasn't trying to kill nobody or nothing, I guess I was trying to scare them.' Why can't you believe that? Why can't you believe that when that young man has the decency -- even though he did a completely indecent act -- to tell you he did it. And your common sense says if he was gonna lie about it, he'd just say 'I didn't do it.' "

"Had that young man not been honest we would not be sitting here today. There is no direct evidence that suggests he did it. No DNA, no fingerprints, no tire tracks, nothing, nothing that indicates he did it. Nothing. We're not here if he's not honest. And have they proved anything that makes you disbelieve him?"

"They can't prove to you beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt that he meant to hurt anyone."

"As jurors in life, don't we give credit to those who tell the truth?"

"I know as you sit there right now it's hard to fathom how could somebody do something like this? Go out and scare somebody like this, like that man told you. But you have no reason to disbelieve him. None."

"Was there a terrible disaster that occurred? Yes. I will assure you that Lt. Harrison did not deserve to die. A fine man. Did not deserve to die. That's not what this case is about. This case is about what that young man did and what that young man intended. That's what this is about. And don't think that for a minute that anybody sitting at that table (pointing to the defense table) thought he deserved to die, because he didn't. He was a fine man."

"Don't hold anything I've done against him. Only hold against him what the evidence shows. And if he's established a trust ... with you when he tells you he didn't meant to hurt, you can rely on that. Does that mean a not guilty all the way down the board? ... But the evidence shows that what he said, 'I didn't mean to hurt anybody,' certainly that makes first-degree  murder a not guilty."

"If you don't think it took intestinal fortitude to the deepest depths that no one else can know for that 19-year-old kid to come in here and tell you what he did, then you're wrong. If you don't think it wasn't the biggest day of his life, you're wrong."

-- JAMAL THALJI