Mr. Gray said the killers chose not to hide the body in thick woods nearby, where it would have gone undiscovered for weeks. They then resumed driving. The body was dumped about a mile farther down the road. Mr. King's lawyers barely raised the prospect that Mr. King might not be convicted, mentioning it briefly twice. But they spent almost half of their 30-minute presentation detailing the death penalty and the lethal injection method used to carry it out in Texas.
Murder is a bad thing.
You take a human life. It is our objective to present a defense, whatever is necessary legally to save his life. Mr. Cribbs also told jurors that they could decide that Mr. King was guilty of murder only instead of the combination of murder and kidnapping that prosecutors have alleged. A murder must be committed during the commission of another crime to qualify for the death penalty. Mr. Gray acknowledged in his Monday statement to prospective jurors that Mr. Byrd was drunk on the night of his death.