She Wanted It All - Kathryn Casey [152]
With Steve Beard’s millions and the twisted details of the alleged plot involving the young wife and her lesbian lover, the Beard case hadn’t needed any more of a draw to bring in publicity, but DeGuerin tended to help make any trial an event. In this case, drawn by the sensationalism and what promised to be a hard fought trial, PrimeTime Live, Court TV, and 48 Hours had cameras throughout the courtroom.
Wetzel began her presentation, explaining the process. Texas has a bifurcated trial system. First, the jury would judge guilt or innocence. Before trials began, defendants were given the option of who would decide their sentence if convicted. “Mrs. Beard has decided her punishment will be handled by the jury, not the judge,” she said.
DeGuerin jumped to his feet. “Your Honor, that doesn’t need to be talked about with the jury yet,” he said. “That gives the impression my client expects to be convicted.”
Wetzel agreed; of course that would depend on the jury’s decision, but then she launched a second volley: “It isn’t until the punishment phase that the jury learns if the accused has committed other bad acts.” She wanted to implant in jurors’ minds that Celeste may have committed crimes they’d only learn later.
As Wetzel worked her way around the room, she asked questions to weed out jurors who had a grudge against the state and those who would not be able to make a decision. She also had the task of determining who would not be able to get past Celeste’s wholesome looks. “Juror number twenty-three,” she said. “You said on your questionnaire that you would not be able to find someone who looks like Mrs. Beard guilty of murder.”
“I couldn’t,” answered the man. “She just doesn’t look like a murderer to me.”
Cobb noted in his records that juror 23 was unacceptable. At the end of the process, jurors would be stricken for cause—those who admitted they were prejudiced either for or against the defendant, those who maintained they couldn’t make a decision. Then, each side would be given ten preemptory strikes, enabling them to weed out jurors they judged were not in their side’s best interests.
Wetzel went on, “We all know that people aren’t as they appear. How do we judge whether people are telling us the truth?”
From that, the jurors launched into a discussion that included the characteristics by which they judged others as liars: a lack of eye contact, body language, a tone of voice, whether their words were logical and credible based on other facts, whether or not they had personal gain at stake. Wetzel agreed those were all indications.
She then detailed the counts against Celeste. First: capital murder. For that charge the jurors would have to find Celeste caused her husband’s death for the promise of remuneration; namely, his money. In liberal Travis County—unlike much of Texas—prosecutors rarely asked for the death penalty. In a case where the defendant hadn’t pulled the trigger, it would be especially difficult to get. So the prosecutor had taken the ultimate punishment off the table. A conviction on capital murder meant an automatic life sentence.
Second, Celeste was charged with murder. Unlike capital murder, here the jury didn’t need a financial motive. The punishment, too, differed. A murder conviction offered options from probation to life.
Last, Celeste was charged with injury of an elderly person, another third-class felony, with punishment ranging from probation to life.
All the charges required that to find her guilty, the jury had to decide Celeste acted knowingly and with intent to grievously harm Steve. That brought Wetzel to the role she charged Celeste had played—that of the planner and conspirator.
“Can someone be guilty of murder without pulling the trigger on the gun?” she asked.
Hands went up around the room. Before long nearly all the panel agreed that the planner was as guilty as the shooter in a murder