By Jason Meisner And Stacy St. Clair, Chicago Tribune –
CHICAGO — Eighty-three witnesses. More than 500 pieces of evidence. But a largely circumstantial case.
That’s what the 12 jurors deciding the fate of William Balfour — charged with killing three members of singer and actress Jennifer Hudson’s family — faced when they entered the jury room after an 11-day trial. The prosecution’s case lacked the trappings of forensic science that are commonplace in televised courtroom dramas.
Instead, this was a jigsaw puzzle. And jurors learned quickly that they would have to put it together one piece at a time.
Robert Smith, the jury foreman, a Chicago Public Schools bus aide, said he was ready to convict Balfour early on in the deliberations. A critical piece of evidence for him was a key found in Balfour’s pocket when he was taken into custody on the day of the murders.
Balfour was charged with murdering Hudson’s mother, brother and 7-year-old nephew in a 2008 home invasion and kidnapping. The nephew’s body was found in the brother’s SUV — and the key Balfour had belonged to the brother.
“Why did you have that key in your pocket, for a guy you didn’t like, to a truck you weren’t supposed to be in, that happened to have the dead nephew in it?” Smith said. “To me, everything connected.”
But others saw holes in the timeline of the case and needed a thorough sweep of all the evidence and testimony to make up their minds. Juror Jacinta Gholston came up with a plan.
The group would review what each of the witnesses said, one at a time. After the testimony was read back, the jurors would vote “yes” or “no” as to whether they found that witness credible. Then they would assess what the witness had offered.
For example, Gholston said, the group considered Jennifer Hudson to be a credible witness but didn’t think she offered anything relevant to the case, so they tossed her testimony aside.
Gholston said “there were a lot of dramatics” by the attorneys during the trial. But in the end the jury focused on the testimony and evidence.
With each passing hour, the puzzle took shape, and a solid timeline of events began to form.
Juror Paula Halcomb said cellphone records — which were a key part of the prosecution’s case — helped the jury establish that Balfour could not have been where he said he was when the murders took place.
“We were able to put a timeline together,” she said. “We figured out that he had to be at such-and-such a place at such-and-such a time.”
As they labored over the testimony, jurors said they would have liked to have had DNA evidence or other more concrete facts to rely on. Prosecutors expected that.
“There is a ‘CSI’ effect on our jurors because they do watch these programs that frankly don’t reflect the reality of the criminal cases that we prosecute,” prosecutor Jim McKay said. “In reality, it’s great when we have DNA, it’s great when we have fingerprints, but more often than not we don’t have either of those pieces of evidence.”
As the hours passed, courthouse observers began imagining a fractured jury that would not be able to reach a unanimous decision. Many assumed the ticking clock represented a deepening divide and, with Mother’s Day weekend approaching, expected a stalemate to be announced.
But juror Juan Chavez said he paid no attention to the clock or the calendar. When a third day of deliberations began Friday morning, he assumed they would be sequestered another night because they were still working on the puzzle.
“I didn’t feel any pressure (to decide quickly),” he said outside his Chicago home. “I’m not going to send a guy to jail for life if I still have my doubts.”
That morning, the group held its first straw vote. There were nine jurors in favor of a guilty verdict and three who felt they needed more time.
Gholston was one of the three. She saw holes in the timeline and wasn’t ready to vote to convict.
“There were three of us who just needed to see the picture a little clearer,” she said.
Igara thought, “I’ve got a guy’s life right in my hands.”
“Everything was moving way too fast,” he said. “Some of us just wanted to slow it down a bit so we could go through everything.”
So the jury sent the judge a note requesting all evidence detailing the FBI analysis of Balfour’s cellphone activity on the day of the murder.
That wound up being the final piece of the puzzle.
“We kept going piece by piece, and then it clicked, and that’s when we made our decision,” Igara said.
Jurors now had a clear picture, and a unanimous decision to convict Balfour on all counts of murder, home invasion, armed robbery and kidnapping. Facing mandatory life in prison, Balfour, 31, showed no emotion as the jury’s verdict was read.
“I believe we made a good, informed decision based on the evidence presented to us,” Jimenez said. “We didn’t take this lightly at all. We knew (Balfour’s) life was at stake.”
Juror Susan Rocha, 45, a physical therapist from Mount Prospect, said she felt the jury handled the case fairly.
“I strongly feel that we did our very best,” she said. “For the victims’ family, it is important for them to find justice, and hopefully they will find peace and some kind of closure.”
