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Tuesday, February 9, 2010 |
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Jury finds teen not guilty of murder
Published March 1, 2009
SAN ANTONIO — A Bexar County jury that heard three days of testimony deliberated seven hours and then found Darrell Wilson Jr. not guilty of murder in the April 25, 2008, stabbing that rocked the first-ever Fiesta Carnival at the Alamodome.
Wilson, 17, locked up for more than 10 months while he awaited trial, looked toward the ceiling and nodded his head when 386th Judicial District Judge Laura Parker read the verdict.
Then, he turned to the jury of seven women and five men — the majority of them Hispanic — and mouthed the words, “thank you” before being led out by bailiffs — still in handcuffs — to be processed out of the Bexar County Juvenile Detention Center and sent home to Seguin with his mother, Dawn Jimenez, early Saturday.
“I knew it was in God’s hands, and God is good,” Jimenez told reporters through tears a moment after the verdict was announced. “Believe in God and justice will prevail — and it did. That’s the story here.”
Jimenez also expressed sorrow that another young man, Robert Perales, 19, of San Antonio, died in the confrontation witnesses said they believed started because Wilson was wearing a blue shirt and bandana — displaying the “colors” of the “Crips” street gang.
“I give the other family my remorse,” she said. “They lost a child in this.”
Wilson’s version of events the night he stabbed Robert Perales, 19, to death, differed in key points from the theory advanced by Bexar County Assistant District Attorney Rose Zebell, who insisted the stabbing resulted from mutual combat in a gang confrontation between chapters of the “Latin Kings” criminal street gang, and the “Crips,” a similar gang whose composition is predominately black males.
Defense attorney Don Mach insisted throughout months of pre-trial hearings that, if gang-related, the gang connection was on Perales’s side of the incident and not Wilson’s.
“Five kids from Seguin went to San Antonio and met up with a gang of thugs,” Mach told jurors in his summation. “Five young people, three guys and two girls, came to the big city on the wrong day, at the wrong time and met the wrong people. The state wants to go, ‘gang on gang’ with this, because otherwise, they have five kids who came to town and were attacked by thugs, and they don’t want to bring that kind of case. The community will know what you did here today. By your verdict, you will say if it’s safe for an innocent person to walk the streets — or if it’s unsafe. If you convict Darrell Wilson of murder, I submit there will be a lot of not-nice people laughing at you.”
Mach always insisted Wilson acted in self-defense, and he said the case was mishandled by the SAPD.
The integrity of the crime scene was basically destroyed by a torrential downpour that just moments after the fight resulted in a six-inches deep torrent of water that washed over the ground where the brawl, reported by witnesses to involve at least several people on both sides, occurred.
Afterward, Mach said, the SAPD put Wilson through an “assembly line” investigation in which each officer involved did his or her part with integrity and professionalism — but perhaps missed the “big picture.”
“The system doesn’t always work,” Mach said.
Jurors approached for this story declined to discuss the verdict reached just after 9 p.m., and Zebell and co-counsel, Kristina Escalona, left the courtroom without comment.
Mach said he always believed in his client, but said such a defense is an uphill fight.
“Rose Zebell is a very good attorney and this was a very difficult case for everyone involved,” Mach said. “There are no winners here. A boy is dead and another boy will carry this experience with him for the rest of his life. But this jury paid attention to the testimony and paid attention to the law, which requires them to put themselves in the defendant’s place and ask themselves, ‘What would a reasonable person believe and how might that person react in the circumstances?’ Justice prevailed here tonight.”
In her summation to the jury, Assistant District Attorney Kristina Escalona laid out the evidence against Wilson as the prosecution saw it — alleging it was Wilson and not Perales who brought a knife to the carnival. Wilson had testified that the knife, apparently carried by one of his assailants, fell to the ground while he was being kicked by at least two or three attackers. He said he dropped it afterward, and the weapon has never been found.
“Basically, what we have here is a question of self-defense,” Escalona told jurors. “We know that on April 25, 2008, Robert Perales and Darrell Wilson Jr. went to the carnival, and in the course of that evening, Darrell Wilson intentionally and knowingly cut Robert Perales with a deadly weapon.”
Perales had two fatal stab wounds in his left chest, another non-lethal wound in his right chest and other injuries showing he’d been stabbed or cut eight times in the fight with Wilson.
Escalona scoffed at Wilson’s testimony that he was in fear for his life because it was Perales who had all of the wounds as well as the kinds of cuts, abrasions and bruises that indicated a fight, while the Seguin youth appeared to have escaped relatively unscathed.
In her emotional rebuttal of Mach’s summation, Zebell called Wilson’s testimony “a load of crap” — in spite of the testimony by pastors at two Seguin churches who testified they’d known Wilson and his family all of the youth’s life and that he was a good and truthful young man jurors should believe.
Based on the testimony of a Houston woman who said she saw the incident — including Wilson making a “stabbing motion” — and the blood evidence on the shirt of both Wilson and one of his friends, Zebell said it was Wilson and his crew who piled onto Perales and not the other way around. Another witness testified he heard Wilson’s group refer to the “Crips,” and saw them throwing gang-related hand signals.
Zebell noted also, references to the initials “DOC,” and “free Darrell Wilson” T-shirts Seguin supporters printed up — one of which she showed the jury.
Seguin witnesses — including a promoter who has booked Wilson’s group for shows in Seguin and San Marcos — testified during the trial that the “DOC” stands for “Dollars Over Cents,” a local rap group Wilson sang with prior to his arrest. DOC, the producer said, is not a “gangsta rap” group, describing it instead as a teen rhythm and blues band that sang about “girls, cars and school.”
A “C” hand signal Wilson was shown making in a photo stood for the band, and not for the “Crips,” witnesses said. The white shirts were for a fundraiser Mach said the Seguin Police Department asked be cancelled for fear of retaliation by the “Kings” — and not demonstrative of gang affiliation, which Wilson, his family and other witnesses have always denied.
“He was jumped by a group of gangsters who were really gangsters,” Jimenez said.
“If you have any question at all about whether or not this is a gang fight, there was plenty of evidence on both sides,” Zebell said. “Robert Perales was getting his butt kicked by three or four black guys. This is not a self-defense case, and all the evidence in front of you shows you that. Robert Perales did not deserve to die. It’s a murder case, and I ask you to find Darrell Wilson guilty of murder.”
In the end, the jury disagreed.
Mach said he fought hard and to the end because he believed in Wilson, and while his story had holes, the youth never wavered in his accounts of what happened.
“These fights aren’t like on television where everything is in slow motion and you see every move,” Mach said. “They happen in seconds, and witness accounts almost always differ in such a situation.”
The belief his client was innocent was a double-edged sword for Mach, who was visibly shaking as Parker read the verdict and appeared just as relieved as was his client, and the two dozen or so Seguin supporters sitting behind them who raised their arms in a silent cheer.
“When your client is guilty, it’s a win if you get him 20 years instead of 50,” Mach said. “That’s how we keep score in this business. If you know he’s innocent, then the only acceptable outcome is an acquittal, and you second-guess yourself at every step of the process because you know the deck is stacked pretty high against you.”
Jimenez expressed thanks to Mach and to the jury for the outcome, and said her family would try to help her son get past April 25, 2008, and what he’s endured in the months since.
“I want him to go back to school, go to college and go on with his life,” Jimenez said.
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