Jury to decide if road rage led to shooting death
April 5, 2021
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Jury to decide if road rage led to shooting death
EVERETT, Wash. (AP) In 1991, a jury acquitted Simeon Berkley in a shooting that paralyzed a man following a near-crash on a California freeway. Thirty years later, he’s on trial again, this time for second-degree murder.
A Snohomish County jury will decide if Berkley, 75, acted out of road rage or self-defense in a shooting July 6, 2019, that left an Everett man dead, the Everett Herald reported.
Berkley was driving a Honda Accord around 7 p.m. that night when a Lincoln Navigator rear-ended him on Glenwood Avenue, according to charging papers. Berkley got out of his car and walked over to the Navigator while the other driver, Steven Whitemarsh, 49, remained in the front seat, according to witness testimony last week in Snohomish County Superior Court.
decision. 78% of black people polled agreed with the jury s decision while only 42% of white respondents were in agreement. race became the story of this trial. in the break, you said to me that mr. simpson s current incarceration you think is still connected to a set of beliefs about his guilt. no question about it. i covered his road rage trial in the fall of 2001. nobody was there. it was right after 9/11. but he took the stand and i got to know o.j. then. i covered his las vegas robbery kidnapping case in 2008, also got to know him a little bit just talking to him in the halls there. kind of a broken man by then. there is no question that he is being punished now for getting away with murder before, to me. the cops were caught saying when they were searching the hotel room where the memoribilia was, where the robbery kidnapping happened, california couldn t get him but we will. yeah. the fact you say that, that there s this language about what
proceeding and issued a gag order. so the public really never got a sense of what his testimony was like. and i think if he does in fact take the stand today, for the first time publicly they ll see what o.j. simpson is like on the witness stand. it should be an interesting day. yeah. and beth karas has pointed out that he did actually take the stand back in 2001 when he had a road rage trial in miami. but effectively we have not heard him talk about these particular crimes that have now put him behind bars for 33 years. jose baez, i want you to jump in if you will for me on this. look, we all have a responsibility, if we end up at defense table with council to be a part of our defense. it s why we have to be determined competent. we have to be able to assist in our defense. o.j. simpson ultimately is the boss of his defense. and he had to swear that he was okay not testifying. why is he now allowed to say i