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Daniel
Matthew CARTER
Classification:
Homicide
Characteristics: Juvenile (15)
- His uncle
beat him with a large steel
flashlight and threatened to tie him up and castrate him
Carter's first taste of freedom:
Double-cheese pizza
Michael Stewart - PensacolaNewsJournal.com
March 7, 2004
After 19 months in jail, 16-year- old Daniel
Carter wanted a double-cheese pizza and a guitar.
"That's exactly what he got," Cindy Carter, Daniel's
mother, said Saturday, nearly 24 hours after her son was acquitted of
first-degree murder charges stemming from the July 2002 stabbing death
of his uncle, Jack.
On Friday, an Escambia County jury deliberated three
hours before finding the teen not guilty, following three days of
testimony.
At 10:32 p.m. Friday, Daniel walked out of jail.
The death of Jack Carter, Daniel's incarceration and
his vindication are in the past now, and Cindy Carter said her son is
looking to the future. He worked his way through a GED manual while
behind bars and plans to take adult high school classes at Pensacola
Junior College.
"He could go ahead and take his GED," Cindy Carter
said. "He doesn't want to do that. He wants to go to school."
For now, Daniel has no other plans. For almost two
years of his young life, his every move was meticulously scheduled under
the watchful eyes of adult caretakers, Cindy Carter said.
On Saturday, Daniel spent his first day of freedom at
home, laying low and doing what most teenagers his age normally do:
hanging out and talking with friends on the telephone.
But things aren't normal, Cindy Carter said. For one
thing, her son has matured.
"It's incredible," she said. "You expect a lot of
change over 19 months, especially under the circumstances. He's more
introspective. Despite the horrible circumstances, he has become a more
kind, gentler person."
Friends of Jack Carter don't agree, however, and have
portrayed Daniel as a troubled teen who savagely killed his uncle with a
rusty knife. Jack Carter's friends said he was a kind, outgoing man who
never would hurt anyone.
Cindy Carter said during the trial that her brother,
Jack, came to her Beulah home the night he was killed to help her
discipline Daniel. She said Jack Carter went into a rage and began
savagely beating his nephew.
"I have never seen Jack act aggressively," said Carla
Thomas, 31, a friend of Jack Carter's and a bartender at Barracuda's on
Navarre Beach, where he used to go occasionally. "Nobody can believe
(Daniel) got off."
Daniel Carter said he acted in self-defense when he
grabbed a knife to ward off his uncle, who was cut 10 times during the
struggle, once fatally in the neck.
"The jury saw the truth. I just hope they can see the
truth, too," Cindy Carter said of her brother's friends.
However, Daniel's legal problems are not over.
On April 16, he will appear in court to answer a
charge that he tried to escape from a juvenile detention facility in
August 2002. Authorities said Daniel popped ceiling tiles and
unsuccessfully attempted to get out through the ceiling.
With 19 months of time served, it's questionable
whether Daniel will face more jail time, said Katy Porter, who works
with the child advocacy group Justice for Juveniles.
"We really truly believe they should do the right
thing and drop the charges," Porter said.
Assistant State Attorney David Rimmer said he won't
make a decision on how to proceed with the charge until Monday at the
earliest.
Teen acquitted in uncle's death
Carter family seeks closure after verdict
Amber Bollman - PensacolaNewsJournal.com
March 6, 2004
An Escambia County jury on Friday acquitted 16-year-old
Daniel Carter of first-degree murder in the July 2002 stabbing death
of his uncle, Jack Carter.
"Daniel believed all along that if a jury could be
put in his bedroom that night, they would understand his actions," Cindy
Carter said after her son's verdict was announced.
A crowd of tearful supporters exchanged hugs outside the courthouse
Friday evening and made preparations to pick up Daniel from Escambia
County Jail, where he has been held the past 19 months.
"We just want to get him home tonight," Cindy Carter said. "He's
going to get to open his Christmas presents."
After three days of testimony, the six-person jury deliberated for
nearly three hours and reached its verdict about 5:30 p.m.
Carter was 15 years old when his uncle bled to death inside his
Beulah bedroom after a violent struggle. Jack Carter, 46, suffered 10
knife wounds to his body, including a fatal gash to the side of his neck.
Daniel Carter, who did not testify, maintained that he acted in self-defense
after his uncle stormed into his bedroom, beat him with a large steel
flashlight and threatened to tie him up and castrate him.
"It was a double loss for my family when my brother died and my son
was arrested," Cindy Carter said. "I think we've still got a lot of
wounds to heal.
"They won't be closed for a long time."
Daniel Carter had faced a mandatory sentence of life in prison if
convicted.
Defense attorney Patrece Cashwell said she believed she helped save
the teenager "from the guillotine."
Brandon Howell, a juror in the case, said he and other jurors did
not believe the prosecution proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
Though Daniel Carter admitted stabbing his uncle, the prosecution had to
prove it was a premediatated act and not self-defense.
"We couldn't say 100 percent that he did it," said Howell, 20. "Nobody
wants to put a guy away for something they're not sure he did."
Assistant State Attorney David Rimmer said he respects the jury's
decision and understands its reservations about the case.
On the night of Jack Carter's death, the Navarre Beach man had been
called to his sister's home to help discipline Daniel. Cindy Carter
testified earlier in the week about the 20 minutes of screaming, sobbing
and items being thrown as her brother and son argued.
She called Jack Carter to the home after becoming exasperated with
Daniel's behavioral problems. She said in court that Jack Carter
promised not to physically harm her son.
After Jack Carter's death, Daniel Carter claimed in interviews with
investigators that he picked up a knife only to get his uncle to stop
beating him.
"I just wanted him to stop, but he kept coming," Daniel Carter said
hours after his arrest. The jury heard an audiotape of an interview
conducted by a lead investigator in the case.
Rimmer, who argued that Daniel Carter planned to attack his uncle
when he showed up to punish him, painted the teen as a troubled boy who
was resented his uncle.
"Jack Carter confronted an angry, out-of-control teenager with a
chip on his shoulder, a knife in his hand and murder in his heart,"
Rimmer said during his closing remarks.
Cashwell, however, portrayed Daniel Carter as "terrified and
terrorized" when his uncle entered his room in a violent rage, smashing
Daniel's belongings and ripping a telephone out of the wall when the
teenager tried to call 911.
Jack Carter had two knives, a box of shotgun shells and a 7-foot
length of rope with him when he was killed. He also had a loaded shotgun
in his truck.
"He couldn't call 911, he couldn't get his mom, he couldn't get out
of the room," Cashwell said. "Daniel Carter had nobody protecting him
that day."
Two forensic pathologists presented conflicting statements about
whether the wounds on Jack Carter's body appeared defensive or the
result of a sudden struggle with a knife in close quarters.
Rimmer argued that even if Daniel Carter initially picked up the
antique knife to fend off his uncle, he took his right to self-defense
too far.
"He did not need to inflict that fatal blow," Rimmer said. "After he
had cuts on his arms and blood dripping down his face, Jack Carter was a
vanquished foe. He was at the mercy of Daniel."
Several children's-rights advocates rallied outside the courthouse
after the verdict Friday. They were joyous over Daniel Carter's
acquittal but critical of the fact that he was prosecuted as an adult
for the killing.
"Daniel Carter was abused and beat by his uncle, but he was abused a
second time by the state of Florida," said Donna Gallegos of the
organization Justice for Juveniles.
Bishop Thomas Masters, a founding member of the group Under Our
Wings, said minors never should be pushed into the adult court system.
"How can a child be 12 on a Monday and suddenly be considered 18 on
a Tuesday?" he said.
Though acquitted of his uncle's murder, Daniel Carter still faces
criminal charges for attempting to escape a juvenile detention facility
two weeks after his arrest.
He was granted a $1,000 bond, and Cindy Carter said he was expected
to be released from the jail Friday night.
His next court appearance for the attempted escape charge is
scheduled for April 6.
"Hopefully they will drop this charge since he was being held there
for something that he never should have been," Gallegos said. "Hopefully
they will let him get on with the rest of his life."
Defense wraps up case in Carter murder trial
'Everything has been said,' defendant says
March 5, 2004
Amber Bollman - PensacolaNewsJournal.com
Daniel Carter decided not to testify in his own
defense Thursday, as attorneys finished presenting evidence at the
16-year- old's first-degree murder trial.
"I believe everything has been said that needed to be
said," Carter told Circuit Judge Terry Terrell.
Assistant State Attorney David Rimmer and defense attorney Patrece
Cashwell are expected to offer closing arguments this morning before
the jury begins deliberations.
Carter, who faces life in prison if convicted, kept his head bowed
as graphic photographs of his uncle's dead body and the room where
his uncle was killed were displayed in court.
Former associate medical examiner Michael Berkland presented dozens
of slides depicting knife wounds on Jack Carter's arms, chest, head
and neck.
Jack Carter suffered at least 10 cuts during a violent struggle with
his teenage nephew on the night of July 16, 2002.
Daniel Carter has maintained that he cut his uncle with an antique
knife in self-defense.
In interviews with investigators, Carter said his uncle charged into
his bedroom that night, pulled him out of bed by his hair and beat
him with his fists, feet and a large steel flashlight for 20
minutes.
A recording of the frantic 911 call placed by Cindy Carter as her
brother lay bleeding in her arms was played in court Thursday.
Jurors heard sobs and screams on the recording of the call.
"Why isn't somebody here?" Cindy Carter asked on the tape after
explaining to an emergency dispatcher what had occurred. "He's
bleeding to death."
Berkland discussed in detail the wounds Jack Carter suffered and
explained the patterns of blood found spattered at the crime scene.
A forensic pathologist and crime scene analyst, Berkland said the
evidence he reviewed seemed to support Daniel Carter's claims of a
sudden struggle in the cramped bedroom.
"These are struggle kinds of injuries," Berkland said. "They're not
wounds that seemed to be inflicted intentionally."
Berkland's statements contradicted earlier testimony by former
District 1 Medical Examiner Gary Cumberland, who performed the
autopsy on Jack Carter's body.
Cumberland had said many of the wounds appeared to be "classic
defense injuries," indicating that Jack Carter was trying to fend
off an attack.
Rimmer reminded jurors after Berkland's testimony that Berkland was
discharged from his position by Cumberland last year.
In addition to autopsy and crime scene photos, Cashwell presented
the ripped, bloody T-shirt Daniel Carter was wearing the night of
his uncle's death and two knives and a 7-foot piece of rope that
Jack Carter was carrying when he was killed.
Daniel Carter told investigators his uncle had threatened to tie him
up and castrate him for disobeying his mother and getting into
trouble.
An employee at the juvenile assessment center where Carter was taken
after his arrest said the teenager did not appear angry -- just "traumatized
and glazed over."
On Wednesday, friends and neighbors of Jack
Carter defended the Navarre Beach man's character -- saying he was
not violent and did not appear to be angry or upset that night.
However, his brother, David Carter, said tearfully on
Thursday that he and Jack often received violent punishment as children.
He said they often were beaten by their mother, who David Carter
said equated discipline with physical pain.
While Cashwell has argued that Daniel Carter was trying to protect
himself from an abusive and enraged uncle, witness Brian Voeks
testified Wednesday that he heard the teenager make a comment about
slitting his uncle's throat earlier on the day of their fatal
struggle.
Young defendant: 'He kept coming'
Jury hears police tape of Carter interview
Amber Bollman - PensacolaNewsJournal.com
March 4, 2004
About 12 hours after he was taken into custody, Daniel Carter told
an investigator he believed that brandishing a knife was the only way to
make his uncle stop beating him.
A 20-minute recorded interview between Carter, then 15, and Escambia
County homicide investigator Frank Fillingim was played for jurors
Wednesday during the second day of Carter's first-degree murder trial.
"It was the only thing I knew to do," Carter said in the interview,
conducted the day after his 46- year-old uncle, Jack, bled to death
after a violent struggle inside the teenager's bedroom.
"I just wanted him to stop, and he wouldn't. He kept coming. If I
had known I would have killed him, I would have just let him beat me."
Daniel Carter, now 16, faces life in prison if convicted.
Although Daniel Carter maintains he acted in self-defense after his
uncle stormed into his room and attacked him on the night of July 16,
2002, a friend of the defendant Carter testified Wednesday that he heard
the teenager say he planned to slit Jack Carter's throat.
Brian Voeks, who was 18 and residing with Daniel Carter and his
mother at the time of Jack Carter's death, said Daniel Carter was
worried that his uncle was coming to their Beulah home to punish him for
rummaging through Jack Carter's old magazines.
Voeks testified that on the day Jack Carter was killed, Daniel
repeatedly mentioned how nervous he was.
"He didn't want me not to be there when his uncle came over," Voeks
said.
At the time, Daniel Carter was holding the antique knife used to
kill Jack Carter, Voeks said.
"He said that if his uncle started beating him, he was going to slit
his throat," Voeks said.
Defense attorney Patrece Cashwell grilled Voeks, who has given
conflicting statements to authorities in the past.
On the night of Jack Carter's killing, Voeks said nothing to
investigators about Daniel Carter making plans to use the knife against
his uncle.
"I didn't tell the police because Daniel was my best friend, and I
didn't want to hurt him," Voeks said. "I didn't want him to be in
trouble for premeditated murder like he is now."
Voeks also said Daniel Carter had accused his uncle of "pushing him
around" in the past.
"I still didn't think he was going to come over there," Voeks said.
"I have a lot of guilt over this."
In the interview played for jurors, Daniel Carter said his uncle was
out of control with rage, using a large steel flashlight to break items
in his bedroom and strike him in the neck.
"He wouldn't stop," Carter said during the interview. "He wouldn't
talk to me."
Although Carter admitted to investigators that he was angry, he said
it wasn't "to the extent" that he wanted to harm his uncle.
Daniel Carter said his uncle ripped a telephone out of the wall when
he tried to call 911 and only swung the knife toward Jack Carter when he
felt it was the only way to protect himself.
"I just wanted him to leave me alone," Carter said during the
interview.
Jack Carter suffered 10 knife wounds, including a fatal gash to his
neck.
In other testimony, Marni Jamison, the live-in girlfriend of Jack
Carter, spoke about a phone message she received from Daniel's mother,
Cindy Carter, earlier that day.
"She said she was at her wit's end with Daniel," Jamison said. "She
wanted Jack to come help her with him."
Jamison, along with several more of Jack Carter's friends, said he
did not appear to be angry the evening he died.
She said he didn't seem impaired by drugs or alcohol when he left
their condominium and began driving to Cindy Carter's home.
"He said Cindy was in fear for her life, and he needed to be there
for her," Jamison said.
Laboratory results showed that Jack Carter had a blood-alcohol level
of 0.13 percent, along with Valium, traces of a painkiller and anabolic
steroids in his system.
Forensic toxicologist David Black said the type and amount of
steroids detected in his body would not have been likely to cause
violent, aggressive behavior.
Several Escambia County sheriff's deputies testified Wednesday about
the night they were called to the Carters' home.
Daniel Carter was crying, rocking back and forth and talking to
himself, deputies said.
Crime-scene technician Phillip Davies testified that he collected
two knives, a box of shotgun shells and a 7-foot length of rope from
Jack Carter's clothing.
Cashwell challenged Fillingim about his failure to instruct
investigators to collect several pieces of evidence from Jack Carter's
truck.
"Do you try to find evidence that shows premeditated murder, or do
you try to find evidence that shows justifiable homicide?" Cashwell
asked.
Fillingim said the evidence was collected impartially and is not
intended to support any individual's version of events.
Assistant State Attorney David Rimmer completed his case against
Carter on Wednesday.
Cashwell is expected to present her case today.
Circuit Judge Terry Terrell said he hopes the jury can begin
deliberations on Friday.
It is not known whether Daniel Carter will testify.
Advocates protest Carter trial
Several children's rights advocates gathered outside the courthouse
Wednesday to voice their opposition to the charges against Daniel Carter.
Bill King, of the organization Kids in Court, said he had seen no
evidence of premeditation in the prosecution's presentation.
Bishop Thomas Masters, of Under Our Wings, said there is no reason
Carter should have been charged as an adult.
"Once again, Pensacola has embarrassed Florida and embarrassed the
entire nation," Masters said. "Children and adults are different, and
they should be treated as such."
Another teenager faces life in
prison
By Bill Kaczor - The Associated Press
Thursday, March 4, 2004 -
HeraldTribune.com
PENSACOLA -- Cindy Carter tried to stem the blood
flowing from a knife wound in her brother's neck, but the respiratory
therapist knew from emergency room experience that the four-inch gash
was fatal.
"I just held his head," she tearfully recalled in an
interview with The Associated Press. "I said 'Just go to sleep. It won't
hurt.'"
Emotional pain, however, remains for the 52-year-old
single mother because she also may lose her only child, Daniel Carter,
to a lifetime in prison. Jury selection begins March 1 in the 16-year-old
boy's trial on an adult charge of murdering his 46-year-old uncle, Jack
Carter.
Daniel's case is one of several that have prompted an
outcry against Florida's prosecution of juveniles as adults.
He was 15 when he slashed his uncle with a large
hunting knife inherited from his grandfather. He claims it was self-defense
against an adult who attacked in a drunken rage and threatened to
castrate him. Jack Carter died July 16, 2002, in Daniel's bedroom at his
mother's house in Beulah, a rural community near Pensacola.
The sandy-haired teen, being held without bail at the
Escambia County jail, turned down a plea offer promising a prison term
of no more than 12 years for manslaughter. Instead, he will be tried for
first-degree premeditated murder. The penalty is life without parole.
Defense lawyer Patrece Cashwell said she was baffled
by the severity of the charge.
"His uncle came over there, broke into his room and
began beating him," Cashwell said. "Daniel was in his room and in his
bed."
Cashwell took over the case after his first lawyer,
James Stokes, was killed in a plane crash June 11, Daniel's 16th
birthday.
Medical experts are expected to offer conflicting
testimony on whether Jack Carter's multiple knife wounds and cuts on
Daniel's hands indicate which one had been the aggressor.
His mother said Daniel, a good marksman, has such a
gentle nature that he would intentionally miss when hunting with family
and friends.
"They just thought he was a horrible shot," Cindy
Carter said. "He said 'I don't want to kill it, and I sure couldn't eat
it if I did kill it.'"
Prosecutor David Rimmer declined to discuss the
evidence.
"The main thing I have to deal with is the problem of
sympathy that a jury may have for a child so young charged with a crime
so severe," he said.
Rimmer also prosecuted two other Panhandle boys
charged with murder. Alex and Derek King were 12 and 13 when they killed
their father, Terry King, 40, with a baseball bat in November 2001.
A jury rejected first-degree murder charges but found
them guilty of second-degree murder. Jurors later said they were
convinced the boys had only aided a convicted child molester, not
knowing another jury had acquitted him of the killing.
A judge threw out the convictions and the boys
pleaded guilty to third-degree murder. Alex was sentenced to seven years
and Derek to eight in juvenile prison.
Several organizations and individuals have offered
moral and financial support to Daniel and other juvenile defendants
facing adult homicide charges.
Bill King, 54, a childless Vietnam veteran and former
hospital security worker, is unrelated to the King brothers but moved
here from Frederick, Md., to be closer to their family and the Carters.
"The injustice of putting an adult label on a kid is
just too much," he said. "The only time they call a kid an adult is when
they are trying to destroy him, and it's wrong."
The message "Dear God guide the lives of Alex-Derek
and Daniel forever, Amen" rolls across an electric sign in Bill King's
living room. He has given Daniel spending money for the jail commissary
and says he is keeping up his Christmas tree until the teen is released.
The Jan. 29 release of Lionel Tate has offered a
glimmer of hope to other juvenile murder defendants. Tate was 12 when he
fatally beat 6-year-old Tiffany Eunick almost five years ago in Pembroke
Pines. He initially claimed he had imitated wrestling moves seen on
television but later said he leaped from a staircase and accidentally
landed on the girl.
An appellate court reversed his conviction and life
sentence, ruling his mental competency should have been tested before
trial. Tate then pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in a deal with
prosecutors. He was freed with time served.
Daniel is taking medication for post-traumatic stress
disorder and suffers from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, his
mother said, but Cashwell was unsure the Tate ruling would affect his
case because he has undergone testing.
"He's actually a very well-grounded, soft-spoken
young man," the lawyer said. "He's not the type of kid who likes to
fight."
His uncle, however, was a 6-1, 180-pound bodybuilder
and Kung Fu expert -- two inches taller and 30 pounds heavier than
Daniel -- with a short temper, Cindy Carter said.
Tests disclosed traces of muscle-building steroids
and a prescription anti-anxiety drug in Jack Carter's blood. He also had
a blood-alcohol level of 0.l3 and 0.17 percent, well over the 0.08
percent level for driving.
Cindy and Jack Carter were raised by their mother in
Liberty, Texas, after she was divorced. An older brother and sister
lived with their father.
The two younger siblings were very close, and court
records show Cindy Carter collected a substantial sum from her brother's
life insurance when he died. She and Daniel's father never married and
he has remained out of the picture, she said.
Jack Carter worked as a time-share salesman and auto
dealership finance manager. He shared his Navarre Beach home with a
girlfriend, Marni Jamison. She told a grand jury that he had gone to his
sister's house that fatal day because she feared for her life.
Cindy Carter, however, said she wanted him to talk
with her son -- not beat him -- because she had larned that Daniel and a
friend were planning to obtain and sell marijuana. She said Jack
Carter's anger grew when she told him Daniel also had gotten into his
surfing magazines stored in her barn.
She was in her bedroom when he burst into Daniel's
room at about 10:30 p.m. but said she could hear a couple slaps.
"My brother was shouting at him very loudly, as
brutal a tongue-lashing as I have ever heard," she said. She recalled
that he told Daniel not to hurt her by getting into trouble again.
Cindy Carter was home- schooling Daniel because he
had been expelled from high school after an arrest on a prescription
drug charge later dropped. Daniel also had spent two years in an
alternative middle school after turning in marijuana other boys had
given him, she said.
The confrontation in Daniel's room escalated. Cindy
Carter said she could hear her brother banging the bed, shouting "This
could be your head," and then "I'm going to hog tie you, strip your
clothes off, and I'm going to give you a beating you won't forget."
She said she then heard him threatening to castrate
Daniel and his television crashing to the floor.
"There was this very, very brief scuffling," she said.
"As I reached the door, Daniel screamed 'Mommy, mommy, Uncle Jack's
dying.'"
Teenager's mom tells of deadly encounter
Sit-down wasn't to get violent, she says
March 3, 2004
By Amber Bollman - PensacolaNewsJournal.com
Cindy Carter broke down in tears Tuesday morning as
she remembered opening the door to her 15-year-old son's bedroom to find
him covered in blood and her brother dying from a gash to his neck.
Daniel Carter, who is charged with first-degree
murder in the July 2002 death of his uncle, Jack Carter, shook slightly
as his mother testified during the opening day of his trial.
"The practical part of
me knew that he was going to die, but the sister part of me just kept
saying, `No, don't leave me. I love you,' " Cindy Carter said as she
wept.
"He never said anything
to me, but he looked at me and then he began to lose consciousness."
Jack Carter suffered
multiple knife wounds to his chest, arms, head and neck during a violent
struggle inside his nephew's bedroom on the night of July 16, 2002.
Daniel Carter, who now
is 16 and faces life in prison if convicted, maintains that he was
protecting himself against his enraged uncle, who was under the
influence of alcohol and prescription drugs at the time of his death.
Circuit Judge Terry
Terrell is presiding over the case.
Under questioning from
Assistant State Attorney David Rimmer and defense attorney Patrece
Cashwell, Cindy Carter recounted the 20 minutes of shouting, cursing and
sobbing she overheard from down the hall in her own bedroom.
Cindy Carter,
testifying for the prosecution, said she heard profanity-filled
outbursts from her brother and the sound of objects being thrown and
slammed around the room as Jack Carter confronted her son.
"He'd start screaming
and calling Daniel names, and then he'd calm down, and I'd think it was
over," Cindy Carter testified. "Then he would start raging again."
Carter, a single mother,
testified that she had become exasperated with the behavior of her son
in the days before Jack Carter's death.
She had heard rumors
that Daniel Carter and a friend, Brian Voeks, were planning to purchase
marijuana and sell it. She also found that the pair had rummaged through
a box of old surfing magazines that Jack Carter stored in the family's
barn.
"I had talked at length
with Daniel, and I felt like he wasn't listening to me," Cindy Carter
said. "I had talked to him as much and in as many ways as I could, and
it seemed like I had run out of things to say."
Cindy Carter said she
called her brother, with whom she had a very close relationship, in the
hopes that he would have a "man-to-man" talk with Daniel and set him
straight.
"He promised me that he
wasn't going to beat my child," Cindy Carter testified. "He said he was
going to come in and make some noise, and I said that noise was fine,
but beating was not."
The two talked several
times on the day of the deadly confrontation, and Cindy Carter said she
reiterated that she wanted her son to be disciplined - but not abused.
Jack Carter initially
told his sister that he would stop by her Beulah home to talk with
Daniel later that week. He called her from his cell phone at about 10
p.m. on the night of his death to say he was in Gulf Breeze and on his
way there.
Cindy Carter removed
all the guns and knives she could find from the house, left the family's
back door unlocked and went to her bedroom.
"Jack told me to stay
there in my bedroom and let him handle it," she said in court Tuesday.
"He promised me he wasn't going to hit Daniel."
When Jack Carter
arrived at the home, Cindy Carter said she heard a bang as he yanked
open the door to Daniel's room and slammed it behind him.
She then heard the
commotion begin as Jack Carter ordered his nephew out of bed and began
cursing at him, "punctuating what he was saying," by breaking things in
the teenager's room.
Jack Carter threatened
to hogtie Daniel, take him behind the barn and beat him, Cindy Carter
said.
When she heard her
brother threaten to castrate her son, Cindy Carter -- who had a broken
foot at the time -- said she started walking toward Daniel's bedroom.
As she walked down the
hall, she heard a scuffle and Daniel's voice screaming at his uncle to
get away from him.
Moments later, she
heard her son say, "Mommy, mommy, Uncle Jack's dying."
In addition to
testimony from Cindy Carter, jurors also heard from former Medical
Examiner Gary Cumberland, who performed the autopsy on Jack Carter's
body and explained his injuries.
Bruce Goldberger, a
University of Florida professor who works in the school's Center for
Environmental and Human Toxicology, testified that Jack Carter had a
blood-alcohol level of 0.13 percent at the time of his death.
He also had Valium and
the painkiller hydrocodone in his system, Goldberger said.
Combined with alcohol,
he said the drugs would have a "sedating" effect and could have impaired
Jack Carter's ability to defend himself from an attack.
Carter also tested
positive for anabolic steroids, which Cashwell said could have caused
the opposite reaction in Jack Carter.
In her opening
statement, Cashwell said Jack Carter "terrorized" his nephew for 20
minutes in an out-of-control rage and that Daniel Carter was trying to
protect himself from harm.
The teenager has been
incarcerated for 19 months. It is not known whether he will testify in
his own defense.
The prosecution hopes
to finish calling witnesses today.
Jury seated in Carter trial
Sixteen-year old accused of first degree murder in
uncle's stabbing
March 2, 2004
Amber Bollman - PensacolaNewsJournal.com
Daniel Carter sat in a courtroom Monday afternoon
looking over a list of 46 strangers' names.
It was the first time in 19 months the 16-year-old
had worn something besides a jail uniform.
His hands - kept in shackles in previous court
appearances - were free, and his shaggy hair was parted and pulled away
from his face with bobby pins his attorney, Patrece Cashwell, had in her
purse.
After several hours of questioning, Cashwell and
Assistant State Attorney David Rimmer selected eight Escambia County
residents - four men and four women - as jurors in Carter's first-degree
murder trial. Six will make up the panel; two are alternates.
Opening statements are scheduled for 9 a.m. today.
Carter was 15 when he fatally stabbed his uncle, Jack
Carter, with an antique knife in July 2002.
He has maintained that he acted in self-defense,
protecting himself from his 46-year-old uncle during a violent struggle
inside the teenager's bedroom.
Jack Carter was larger, trained in the martial arts
and, according to Cashwell, had a blood-alcohol level "more than twice
the legal limit" when he drove to the Beulah home where the teenager
lived with his mother. He also had "drugs in his system" on the night of
his death, Cashwell said before jury selection began Monday.
Rimmer has pointed to the 10 knife wounds on Jack
Carter's body as proof that Daniel's attack was premeditated, with
enough time for "reflective thought."
On Monday, Rimmer and Cashwell asked potential jurors
if they could handle viewing graphic photographs of the wounds on Jack
Carter's body and if they felt they could convict a juvenile on adult
murder charges.
If convicted, Daniel Carter faces life in prison. He
previously has turned down an offer to plead no contest to manslaughter
with a maximum possible sentence of 12 years.
With Daniel Carter's mother, Cindy Carter, sitting in
the courtroom, Rimmer asked the women in the group whether they had ever
been in her situation - raising a child without a father in the home.
About a half-dozen said they had.
Cindy Carter stayed in the line of her son's sight
throughout the day, leaning forward in her seat. Since her son's arrest
and her brother's death, she has received support from several advocacy
groups opposed to minors being prosecuted as adults.
Donna Gallegos, a
spokeswoman for Justice for Juveniles, is hopeful about the teen's
chances for a fair trial.
"He's been locked away
for two Christmases and a birthday," she said. "But he really and truly
believes that a jury of adults will see the truth. Lord hope they do."
Gallegos and several
other Carter supporters held prayer vigils throughout the weekend hoping
the teen will be exonerated.
Rob Rockholz, a
longtime friend of Jack Carter, hopes for a different outcome.
"I want to see justice
served," Rockholz said. "Daniel killed my closest friend and that ripped
something out of my body too."
Rockholz said Jack
Carter went to his sister's home on the night he was killed to help her
get Daniel - a rebellious youth who had struggled with drug abuse and
behavioral problems - under control.
"That wasn't the first
time, either," he said. "They're acting like Daniel is this innocent
little angel, but he wasn't. He used to be a good kid, but at some point
over the years, he started to change.
"He's going to have to
face the consequences of his actions."
On Monday, Rimmer asked
potential jurors if they had experience dealing with teenagers who had
drug problems. He also asked whether the use of force in an act of self-defense
could "go too far."
Cashwell warned
potential jurors that if they were selected they would be dealing with
issues of child abuse and questioned them about their own practices for
disciplining children.
"Where do you draw that
line between punishment and abuse?" Cashwell probed.
She also asked the
group of potential jurors about their exposure to anabolic steroids and
the so-called " 'roid rage" that is a known side effect of the drugs.
Rockholz said the
version of Jack Carter defense attorneys have depicted bears no
resemblance to the man he was walking arm-in-arm with on Navarre Beach
two days before Carter was killed.
"He wasn't some big
kung fu master who liked to rough guys up, and any medicine he was
taking was prescribed to him," Rockholz said. "It's hard to hear them
portray my friend like that.
"There was a scuffle
inside the house that night, but that's no reason to stab a guy 10
times."
