Questions about the Steele defense(s)

DADE CITY -- Alfredie Steele Jr.'s lawyers are competent, experienced criminal defense attorneys. They're well-known around the Pasco County Courthouse as good guys. They're public defenders, passionate about their work. And they clearly have an affection for their client, Steele, the 23-year-old whose very life is at stake in this week's murder trial.

So now that all the niceties are out of the way:

What is going on with the Steele defense?

They've meandered while questioning witnesses, and during cross-examination, and even during Wednesday's long-delayed opening argument. It came to a point where one attorney had to shout questions to another attorney at the podium questioning an expert state witness.

Now they've unveiled a contradictory defense strategy.

Assistant Public Defender Tom Hanlon first argued Steele didn't intend to kill Pasco sheriff's Lt. Charles "Bo" Harrison when he drunkenly aimed and fired his rifle in 2003.

"I didn't mean to kill that man," Steele sobbed on an audio recording introduced as evidence Tuesday. "I didn't mean to kill Mr. BoBo."

Basically, the defense is arguing against premeditation, the key element of first-degree murder. If Steele is convicted of that, he could be put to death. A second-degree conviction saves Steele's life. It's a simple concept for the jury to grasp.

But if that's the defense, then why did the lawyers try so hard to muddy that by dredging up another, far more nebulous theory in front of the jury?

That's what the lawyers might have have done every time they brought up Nathaniel Vanzant, Steele's cousin, the one who recorded the defendant's tearful apology to the Harrison family that is quoted above.

Vanzant is a controversial figure in the case. He gave the apology to his lawyer, not Harrison's family. Steele's mother, Regina Clemmons, raised Vanzant and thinks he knows more about the case against her son than he's telling. But Vanzant has never been charged with anything in connection with the Harrison case.

Vanzant testified as a state witness on Monday. The defense got him to say that Steele was drunk during the time of the murder. That helped the defense. But then Hanlon kept questioning Vanzant's role in the case, pointed out he was the first one deputies looked for after Harrison's death, and implied he had something to hide.

"If you didn't do anything why would you have to clear your name?" Hanlon asked him.

"When that many people come with rifles," Vanzant said. "I didn't know you need that many rifles to talk to anyone anyway."

Then in Wednesday's opening argument, Hanlon said Steele didn't intend to kill anybody, that Steele was drunk --- then the lawyer wandered off his own tracks to bring up Vanzant again.

"Does your common sense make you wonder, when he was the first person of interest for the state, that he had something to do with it?" Hanlon asked the jurors. "And what did he have to do with it?"

So which defense theory should the jury believe? That Steele killed Harrison, but didn't intend to? Or that maybe he wasn't responsible for the shooting, others may have been involved, and that a state witness might know more than he's telling?

That's reasonable doubt?

So the defense was in the uncomfortable position Wednesday of putting witnesses on the stand who testified to one theory or the other. Some testified, to varying degrees of success, that Steele was drunk the night of the murder. Some testimony cast aspersions upon Vanzant.

It culminated late Wednesday afternoon in what might be the most head-scratching moment of the Steele trial: the testimony of Shaun Yeomans. Well, he didn't testify. He skipped out on the subpoena and couldn't be found. So two defense attorneys just took turns reading his deposition to the jury.

In it, Yeomans said he bought marijuana from Vanzant, and the two spent time together behind bars. They were also together the morning after Harrison's murder, watching TV news reports.

"He just said he was involved," Yeomans said in the deposition. "He was acting skittish, he was acting nervous."

Spectators smirked, rolled their eyes and shook their heads.

And it was already past 5 p.m.

-- JAMAL THALJI