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Juror's admission could provide White case appeal

BY ERIK GERMAN AND ALFONSO A. CASTILLO | erik.german@newsday.com
alfonso.castillo@newsday.com

8:50 PM EST, December 25, 2007

Revelations from a holdout juror could form the basis of an appeal in the case of John White, the black man convicted of killing a white youth during a racially charged confrontation in Miller Place, White's lawyer said Tuesday.

But the arguments for a successful appeal would have to reach a high standard of proof, experts said.

Juror number four in the monthlong trial, Francois Larche, revealed Tuesday that he'd fought bitterly with fellow panelists to acquit White of second-degree manslaughter in the shooting of Daniel Cicciaro Jr., 17. But Larche said he finally surrendered under the pressure of the looming holiday.

"Is it worth it to your family?" Larche recalled asking himself. "You've got to get out of there. It's Christmas."

White's lawyer, Frederick Brewington, said Larche's admission demonstrates jurors were inappropriately rushed and their verdict can be challenged on appeal. "This case most certainly should not have been decided because of a lack of time," said the Hempstead-based defense attorney. "Any time when you have a situation when the appropriate time is not given to a jury, that can form a basis of an appeal."

But winning that argument could be difficult, said Hofstra Law School's interim dean Nora Demleitner. "It's a very hard thing to prove," she said. "Internal pressures of this sort are standards of group dynamics. It's pretty usual that people will gripe about how they want to go home for the holidays, how they want a holdout to change their mind. ... The only time appeals courts are interested is if the issues were external."

Veteran Manhattan defense attorney Robert Gottlieb said White's defense has a legitimate, but tough case to make.

"What makes this unique is the timing of the judge's instructions and the threat to keep them deliberating on the eve of a holiday and perhaps even on the holiday itself," he said. "But the defense has a very difficult road ahead."

Gottlieb said the appeal's success will hinge on whether Suffolk County Court Judge Barbara Kahn "crossed the line to extract a verdict" from jurors who were, by some accounts, already under tremendous strain.

District attorney spokesman Robert Clifford declined to comment.

To prove White guilty of second-degree manslaughter, prosecutors had to convince the jury -- composed of one Hispanic, one black and 10 white jurors -- that White acted both recklessly and without justification in gunning down the youth who confronted him in his driveway on the night of Aug. 9, 2006. Cicciaro was shot point-blank in the face after he and several friends arrived at the house and, according to defense attorneys, began shouting racial epithets and threatening White's son, then 19.

During deliberations, Larche said it was obvious his fellow jurors had made up their mind "within an hour" of first convening last Wednesday. "As far as they were concerned, a young kid was dead and somebody had to pay the price," Larche said.

Still, some jurors maintained that the process ran its proper course. "We were very deliberate, conscientious and hardworking," said the jury forewoman, Maureen Steigerwald, of Hampton Bays. "And when you are deliberate and conscientious and hardworking, I don't think you can say you were rushed."

But Larche, a white South African who emigrated from that country in 1982, said prosecutors failed to persuade him "beyond a reasonable doubt" that White was not justified in using deadly force that night. "The doubt is definitely there," he said.

Larche said he had one ally -- juror No. 8, Donna Marshak, 61. Although Marshak, of Miller Place, said little during the disputes, "she stuck with me right to the end," Larche said.

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

When Larche refused to abandon his stance even as the weekend approached, hostility flared in the deliberation room, where the jurors gathered from morning until night with nothing but a table, 12 chairs and the evidence in the case.

"Doors were slammed in my face," Larche said, adding that at one point one of his opponents even "started to punch walls and go crazy."

Throughout the deliberations, Larche said fellow panelists compared him to a character in "12 Angry Men," the 1957 film in which a holdout juror battles his 11 peers in a tense murder trial. "The whole case was on my shoulders," he said. "That's the burden I felt."

In the film, the holdout turns his fellow jurors around, persuading them to acquit. Larche bought a copy of the film Sunday. He said he plans to view it with his family, adding: "I wish I'd watched the movie before the trial."

Staff writer Patrick Whittle contributed to this story.