Terry Payton and his mom, not long before her death in June 2011.
EDGAR CO.—In what was anticipated to be an acrimonious battle but ended up being anything but, a full jury with two alternates was seated today, February 19, 2013, by 3 p.m. in the case of an Edgar County youth charged with killing his mother.
Terry Payton, now 18, was just a month removed from his 16th birthday when an incident at their apartment in housing in Paris, Illinois, ended with Kathie Payton, then 53, dead on the kitchen floor. Prosecutors argue that Terry Payton killed his mother in cold blood, and showed no remorse afterward; he’s charged with two counts of First-Degree Murder with Intent, both Class M felonies and non-probationable.
However, evidence was present throughout more than a decade before that Terry was being abused. Kathie had already lost custody of a daughter due to excessive drinking and irresponsibility. Terry, it seemed, was falling through the cracks. Neighbors tell of the little boy sleeping outside the apartment in the landscaping bushes, even in pouring rain, because his mother got mad and locked him out. And a school counselor told of an incident where Kathie Payton threatened—to the counselor—to “cut Terry’s legs off.” Evidence shows that she was always threatening him with a knife. So it kind of came as no surprise to people in Paris that she’d been stabbed to death by her own son….many attesting to the notion that she’d brought it on herself.
It’s this that’s split the community. That was evident today during jury selection when many potential jurors advised that they couldn’t provide unbiased opinions during the trial and deliberation for a verdict. There were a couple of Kathie “supporters” (who seemed to be of the opinion that she was just a sweet lil thing and they were so sad this happened to her), but by far and away the overwhelming sentiment was toward the young man, Terry, who sat still as stone at the defense table as the selection of twelve who would decide his fate went on. Through tears, one potential juror advised that she “knew what had been happening to Terry” and she “just couldn’t serve on this jury”; it seemed that her sorrow wasn’t for what was happening to him so much as it was for what had happened to him that brought him to this point—years of abuse, calls unanswered by DCFS, who are never around when they’re needed—and that she couldn’t sit through voir dire questioning and manage to tell the truth, with a straight face, that she could “set aside” her feelings and serve as an unbiased juror.
Yet another juror, when being questioned about her feelings on alcoholism and whether she’d ever been around an alcoholic, advised that her father was an abusive alcoholic and she’d suffered it for years. When asked whether she could set aside her feelings on that were she to be selected for the jury, she said she probably couldn’t, and then opined, “I kinda understand where he’s coming from” about Terry Payton’s actions.
But the most stunning statement came when the third and final jury panel was seated and being questioned by Payton’s attorney, Robert McIntire of Danville.
This panel had the highest number of Terry supporters on it, and it was clear that those wouldn’t serve on the jury. But one woman kept filling in on why she couldn’t serve, each time it came her turn to be questioned.
Asked why she was so adamant that she couldn’t serve, the woman said she’d known Terry all his life, and his parents as well, adding “I was the one who had to take him to the hospital when he was four.”
Asked to elaborate on why she had to take him to the hospital, the woman stated, “He’d gotten hit in the head with a whiskey bottle and needed stitches.”
McIntire had no further questions for the panel; fortunately for the state (and unfortunately for the defense, as it turned out), only two jurors were being selected from that panel. Had that woman been on the second panel, her input might have enlightened eight of the twelve, as there were four selected from the first panel, then eight from the second, and alternates from the third (the woman who’d had to take Terry to the hospital for stitches was NOT chosen as a juror, incidentally).
The jury selection in Edgar was slightly weirder than in any other county of the 20 or so we regularly cover in southeastern Illinois: separate panels were brought in for morning session, then afternoon session. Each panel was shown a secretive video about jury service (it’s shown in the open in other circuit courtrooms), without members of the public or media being allowed in on that action. The judge lectures the panels for a while, then 12 are selected to stay and the rest sent to other parts of the courthouse to await their turn; when the first 12 are finished, and actual jurors selected, the next 12 are brought in. This differs from other circuits, where the video is shown to the ENTIRE GROUP, with media and public present if they wish, then 12 at a time are called to the jury box to be questioned by the state’s and defense attorneys (voir dire). If there are a hundred prospective jurors sitting in the courtroom, all the better for them when it’s time for their voir dire (if in fact the 12 aren’t immediately chosen from the first one or two panels). That means that everybody has heard the kinds of questions being asked, everybody can be thinking of their answers, and the whole thing progresses much more quickly than how it went in Edgar County today.
There was an extra note of tension on this one, as we had been advised that not only would the public be kept from jury selection, but media would be restricted.
Edgar County Watchdogs
This “decision” was made Friday, when our affiliates, the Edgar County Watchdogs, were present in the courtroom…however, the decision wasn’t made in the courtroom; instead, a motion for such a thing (we think; we haven’t seen the motion) was made and it was argued in chambers, out of earshot of the public and press. This was alarming enough, but when the Watchdogs were effectively being told they weren’t going to be allowed in to jury selection because the judge wasn’t going to define “press” (the Watchdogs have a popular website on which they have been bringing news of government doings and corruption in Edgar County for almost two years now), it got our hackles up. We came prepared today to force the issue and make the judge and state’s attorney cite statute that kept “certain” people out of jury selection as WELL as the public (not really a wise thing to do; the only exclusion from jury selection should be witnesses in the instant case), but amazingly, there was no problem at all (except for the interminable delay attributed to this secretive juror video), and even the public was allowed in when the third panel was being questioned.
Another little surprise greeted us today when we were waiting for proceedings to begin: None other than the venerable Ed Parkinson, of the Illinois Appellate Prosecutor’s office, was present and walking in and out of Edgar County prosecutor Mark Isaf’s office…and when the proceedings were underway, there was Ed at the prosecution table. Perhaps one of those in limines heard in secret last Friday had to do with Isaf asking for help from the appellate prosecutor’s office, and Ed was sent. But if that’s so, that’s one of the SPEEDIEST responses from the AP’s office we’ve ever heard of….and it wouldn’t be the first time Ed, known as the pitbull of prosecution, was improperly appointed and the whole matter had to get thrown out (shades of Julie Rea Kirkpatrick, 2002).
This will be an interesting trial. Not only has everyone pretty much known either A) an abusive alcoholic or B) a situation where DCFS has crapped on an abused kid, but Terry has connections to the Harrisburg and Carmi area as well, so there are lots of interested people in South Counties reading what’s going on four hours north of them. We’ll be posting the proceedings as they develop, beginning Thursday, Feb. 21…be watching.