Opinion ID: 216020
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Closing Arguments and the Jury's Verdict

Text: Wood's defense was that Harry took it upon himself to kill Hall and then fingered Wood in an attempt to secure leniency. However, the admission of Wood's videotaped statement forced defense counsel to affirm that the events it depicted were for the most part the way it was. This severely strained the argument that Harry acted independently of Wood and complicated efforts to undermine Harry's credibility, because Wood's own statement placed him at the scene, mere moments before the shooting, and acknowledged that he identified Hall to Harry at that time and place as someone Bernard had [a] beef with. Nevertheless, defense counsel's summation attempted to discredit the government's key witnesses and paint Harry as a senseless killer. The prosecutor, in turn, began his summation by characterizing Wood's statement as an attempt to explain away his presence at the crime scene. He noted that Wood knew both the victim and the shooter, but failed to contact the police after the killing. This demonstrated Wood's guilt, he argued, because any citizen would have come forward with such information. The prosecutor then focused squarely on the content of Wood's videotaped statement, arguing that it corroborated Harry's version of events up to the moment of the shooting and, therefore, bolstered the credibility of Harry's entire testimony. To reinforce that point, the prosecutor used details from Wood's statementthe color and make of his car, the number of shots fired, Wood's purchase of marijuana directly before the shootingto confirm details from Harry's testimony. The prosecutor thus used the statement in an effort to make the jury more likely to credit Harry's version of the actual killing once the stories diverged. The prosecutor also directly confronted Wood's theory of the case by rejecting the idea of a senseless murder. He insisted that Harry was not some madman. . . . [He was] motivated in life by money. This led the prosecutor to further emphasize Wood's admission that he gave Harry cash and drugs shortly after the murder. He argued: What possible explanation is there for that? Other than that [Harry] was somehow entitled to that money. . . . There is no other explanation for it. On the third day of deliberations, the jury found Wood guilty of Murder in the First Degree, concluding that he had hired Harry to kill Hall. See N.Y. Penal Law § 125.27(1)(a)(vi).