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Jeffrey Conroy’s Defense Lawyer Stresses Intent During Closing Statements

Posted April 12, 2010 by Ted Hesson
Categories: Hate Watch

After more than three weeks of testimony in the murder trial of Jeffrey Conroy—accused of stabbing and killing Marcelo Lucero in a hate crime—the jury turned their attention today to closing statements by Conroy’s defense lawyer, William Keahon.

In a three-hour long summation, Keahon argued that if jurors believed that Conroy stabbed Lucero, then they should look closely at the intent of Conroy’s actions.

Conroy is charged with second-degree murder as a hate crime and first-degree manslaughter as a hate crime, among other charges. During his closing argument, Keahon implied that the jury should consider a second-degree manslaughter charge against Conroy, although, to my knowledge, the district attorney’s office hasn’t levied that charge.*

Immigrant advocates held a press conference at the courthouse in the morning, with representatives from the Long Island Immigrant Alliance, the NAACP, and the Suffolk County chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union speaking about the “climate of fear” among Latino immigrants in Suffolk County.

Referencing Conroy’s ongoing trial, Nadia Marin-Molina, the executive director of The Workplace Project, said that “the entire Latino community right now is holding its breath.”

Although Conroy made headlines by testifying in his own defense last week, during today’s summation, Keahon glossed over the more shocking aspects of Conroy’s testimony. As the summation progressed, Keahon focused less and less attention on Conroy’s claims that he never attacked Lucero.

On Thursday, Conroy testified that fellow defendant Christopher Overton, who had previously been involved in a home invasion where a man died, charged at Lucero during the November 8, 2008, confrontation, and then handed Conroy a bloody knife after the alleged attack, saying, “‘I can’t get in trouble for this. Can you please take the knife?’”

Instead of wholeheartedly supporting Conroy’s testimony—which contradicted statements by witnesses; physical evidence, like DNA found on the alleged murder weapon; and Conroy’s own written confession—Keahon took a more practical approach, trying to poke holes in the prosecution’s case wherever he could find weaknesses.

Keahon reiterated that on the night of the alleged attack none of the witness in the trial recalled seeing Conroy with a knife until after the confrontation with Lucero and his friend Angel Loja had ended.

“The first time anyone sees my client with a knife is after Mr. Lucero is stabbed, and they’re walking away,” Keahon said.

At times, however, the defense summation appeared contradictory. While Keahon spent some time arguing why jurors should believe Conroy’s version of events, he devoted most of his energy—especially during the latter part of his argument—to evidence that might prove that Conroy’s intent, if he stabbed Lucero, was not to kill or cause serious bodily harm.

At one point, Keahon addressed Conroy’s tattoos, two of which symbolize white supremacy, according to testimony by one of Conroy’s friends.

Testifying in his own defense, Conroy said that his Nazi symbol tattoo was meant as “a joke,” and that a lighting bolt tattoo was an homage to the San Diego Chargers football team.

Regarding the tattoos, Keahon, whose tone was measured and hushed throughout the entire summation, decided not to fight too strenuously:

“Horrible? Yes,” he said. “Stupid? Yes. Foolish? Yes. Despicable for an adult? Yes. A 17-year-old kid?” Keahon asked the jury. “You’ll decide that.”

Keahon added: “Should he have done that? Obviously, no.”

Keahon reminded jurors that Nicholas Hausch—a fellow defendant in the alleged attack who testified earlier in the trial—had gotten a plea deal from the district attorney’s office.

“I don’t have that authority as a defense attorney,” Keahon said. “I can’t call witnesses and promise them things like that.”

Hausch testified that Conroy confessed to stabbing Lucero moments after the alleged attack. Hausch’s testimony also contradicts Conroy’s description of the route that the teens took to Patchogue on that night.

According to Conroy, the teens traveled directly from Southaven Park to Patchogue. If the group traveled along that route, Conroy’s version of events supports his assertion that he only got into Jordan Dasche’s SUV because he needed a ride to a friend’s house, and that he never intended to attack anyone.

Hausch testified that the group first went from Southaven Park to an area near his home in Medford to look for Latinos to attack before eventually heading to Patchogue.

On Friday, one of Hausch’s neighbors, Arturo Perez, testified that he saw Hausch and a group of young men coming out of the woods near his home on the night of the murder, around the time that Hausch described.

Keahon didn’t rebut Perez’s testimony, even though it contradicted that of Conroy:

“That wasn’t a surprise to me; I knew that was coming” Keahon said. “Jeff’s testimony is that they never went there.”

Keahon added, “I don’t have an explanation for that.”

As minutes of Keahon’s closing statement stretched into hours, the defense lawyer focused more attention on what Conroy’s intent might have been if he had, in fact, perpetrated the stabbing.

In Conroy’s written statement, Conroy admitted telling Hausch, ““Oh shit, I am fucked, I stabbed him,” after the alleged attack. Keahon asked the jury to think about the intent of someone who would speak with such surprise after this kind of incident.

Keahon also wondered why the detectives questioning Conroy didn’t ask more questions that would have revealed Conroy’s intent, if he had stabbed Lucero.

“They had him for 13 hours,” Keahon said. “They couldn’t ask him, ‘Jeff, if you intended to kill him, why only one stab wound?’”

Citing the autopsy report, Keahon said that by simply examining the nature of the wound, jurors would see Conroy’s alleged intent:

“The angle of the knife blade itself creates reasonable doubt that he intended to kill him,” Keahon said.

Keahon also addressed the media swarm that has accompanied the case. Since Lucero’s death, both local and national news outlets have written extensively about the alleged murder.

“This case has probably generated more publicity than any other case in Suffolk County over the past 30 years,” Keahon said. He charged the jury to retract any preconceived bias that each juror might have had at the start of the trial.

“This is probably one of the most important decisions that you’ve ever been asked to make in your life,” Keahon said, towards the end of his summation.

Assistant district attorney Megan O’Donnell will offer the prosecution’s closing statement tomorrow.

*I contacted the D.A.‘s office a few hours ago for a clarification on this, but I haven’t heard back from them.

**Today would have been Lucero’s 39th birthday, as a friend of the Lucero family told me this morning.

Tags : hate crimes, jeffrey conroy, marcelo lucero, suffolk, william keahon

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