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Miller Place trial: Juror felt pressured to convict John White

BY ERIK GERMAN, ALFONSO A. CASTILLO AND PATRICK WHITTLE | erik.german@newsday.com
alfonso.castillo@newsday.com
patrick.whittle@newsday.com

6:36 PM EST, December 24, 2007

Francois Larche agreed to convict John White of manslaughter, despite believing that prosecutors did not prove that White was not justified in his actions the night he shot dead Daniel Cicciaro Jr. (Erik German / Newsay / December 24, 2007)

Feeling pressure to return to his family as Christmas rapidly approached -- and to let his fellow jurors return to theirs -- Francois Larche finally agreed to convict John White of manslaughter, despite believing that prosecutors did not prove that White was not justified in his actions the night he shot dead Daniel Cicciaro Jr. in front of White's home.

"Was Mr. White justified? I think he was," Larche, 46, said Monday. "I really don't think Mr. White -- I don't think he had a fair chance."

Speaking from his West Islip home on Christmas Eve, Larche, who was juror No. 4, offered a peek inside the locked jury room, where six men and six women put aside their families' lives to reach a decision that would irreversibly change the lives of two other families.

In exchange for their efforts, jurors got $40 a day -- if their employers weren't paying them -- and a frenzied holiday, fielding a flurry of inquiries into how their decision was reached.

"You've been calling this house every day!" a man answering the phone at the home of juror No. 12, Richard Burke, of Blue Point, told a Newsday reporter Monday. The jury forewoman, Maureen Steigerwald, of Hampton Bays, said Monday that the intense media coverage "ruined my Christmas."

Despite his reluctance to be labeled a "holdout" during an earlier interview Sunday morning -- hours after the jury found White, 54, guilty of second-degree manslaughter -- Larche on Monday opened up about the pressure he faced as one of only two jurors who saw reasonable doubt well into the eleventh hour.

The jury had to decide whether to convict White on a felony charge of second-degree manslaughter or a misdemeanor charge of reckless endangerment, and also had to consider a charge of criminal possession of a weapon.

Although Larche believed early on in the three-week trial that White recklessly caused the death of Cicciaro, 17, he was never convinced that White's actions were unjustified.

"You must prove beyond a reasonable doubt and the doubt is definitely there," said Larche, who said he believed White was justified in confronting Cicciaro and four of his friends with a gun when they arrived at his home on the night of Aug. 9, 2006.

And while Larche said he felt obliged to explore the question thoroughly, most of his fellow jurors had made their decision "within an hour" of the first day of deliberations, which started Wednesday.

"As far as they were concerned, a young kid was dead and somebody had to pay the price," Larche said. "There was no objective, clear reasoning."

Larche said he had one ally -- juror No. 8, Donna Marshak, 61. Although Marshak, of Miller Place, did not say much during deliberations, "she stuck with me right to the end," Larche said.

Reached yesterday, Marshak declined to speak at length about the deliberations, but confirmed Larche "wasn't the only holdout."

To help resolve their differences, the jury repeatedly asked for portions of testimony to be read back, for exhaustive clarification of the applicable law, and to examine every exhibit in the trial.

Larche hoped reviewing evidence and law would prove prosecutors failed to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that White acted without justification. But he said his opponents never budged. Such requests were "exercises in futility," he said.

To help make their cases, the jury requested and received notebooks, in which Larche said each juror penned a vote of "guilty" or "not guilty" -- and listed reasons why.

When Larche refused to abandon his stance even as the weekend approached, hostility flared in the jury room, where the jurors gathered from morning until night with nothing but a table, 12 chairs, and the evidence. Juror No. 10 even turned red and "started to punch walls and go crazy," Larche said.

The tension was apparent Saturday night as that juror sat doubled over in the jury box, trembling and running his fingers through his hair as an exhausted Larche rubbed at the bridge of his nose.

"Doors were slammed in my face. They called me a pighead," Larche said.

So combustible were the deliberations that Larche recalled one juror even accusing him of violating his oath as a juror, which called him to act fairly and impartially and use logic and objectivity, rather than emotion, in considering the evidence.