A jury in Athens has no doubt that Jamie Hood murdered two people, including an Athens-Clarke County police officer, but will they think there are enough mitigating circumstances to keep him off death row?
Are his reasons — his "illegal"conviction for a 1997 armed robbery than forced him into a life of crime as an unemployable ex-con on his release and the death of his younger brother at the hands of a police officer in 2001— enough to persuade the jury to give him life with or without parole rather than a death sentence.
Hood admitted repeatedly before and during his trial that he killed officer Elmer "Buddy" Christian on March 22, 2011, and wounded another policeman, Tony Howard. Hood, has apologized to the Christian family. He was also convicted of murdering Omar Wray on Dec. 28, 2010, but says he did not do it.
Hill fired two sets of public defenders before deciding to become the first death penalty defendant in Georgia to represent himself.
The lawyers on the two teams wanted to raise the issue of Hood’s mental health. He told the jury that’s why he fired them. Hood was found to be competent to stand trial but his mental health was not otherwise evaluated.
He continues to represent himself in the sentencing phase of the trial, which began Wednesday and remains confident of his chances event though, as he told the jury “My attorneys said ‘they gone kill you if you represent yourself.’ “
On Monday, nine men and three women convicted Hood of 36 of the 70 felony charges against him. They will begin deliberations Friday.
Hood boasts that he, with only a GED, had persuaded the jury to find him not guilty on 34 other charges. He said that showed he had more legal talent than his prosecutor, District Attorney Ken Mauldin.
“I’m a pro se defendant. How do I beat him (Mauldin) out of 34 charges?” Hood said.
Hood began the penalty phase by telling the jurors he would explain all the “events in my life that led to this unfortunate situation” and they would then understand why he shot two police officers and vote to show him mercy.
“There is some power in representing yourself,” said Jack Martin, a veteran capital defense attorney. “The jury gets to see you as a human being, warts and all. The question is whether they see him as a human being with sympathetic qualities or whether he’s just a manipulative, evil devil.
“If he comes across as scary to the jury that’s nothing but bad. If he comes across at sympathetic and lost, that could work in his favor,” Martin said.
Hood showed a side of anger when he did not like the questions prosecutor Mauldin was asking his mother, who had been called to show a more sympathetic side of her son.
Hood shouted at his mother several times to stop answering the questions he objected to and then he called Mauldin “boy” and a “monkey. Earlier in the day he called the DA “slime.”
Azalee Hood said she did not know what happened to her son to make him kill. She sympathized with the mothers who had lost a child and said she wished it had never happened. “I hate what (Hood did),” she said. “But I’ll always love him.”
If he is sentenced to death, Hood would have an automatic appeal. Ordinarily, the trial attorneys file that first appeal that challenges whether they should have been convicted. Since Hood represented himself, Elizabeth Rogan, who has represented other capital defendants at trial and on appeal, said she expected the judge to appoint a lawyer.
“People who are mentally ill like this guy… don’t even know how to deal with this,” Rogan said. “It’s a real Catch 22 in the law where the court needs to balance a person’s right to represent themselves with their duty to make sure this person is getting adequate representation in this most serious of all situations.”
If Hood is sentenced to death. Rogan said, “it’s hard for me to believe they would execute someone who has not had the benefit of counsel. The last thing anybody wants is to try this case again.”
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