Loading ...Jury Deadlocks in Tampa Murder Trial
A Hillsborough County jury reached an impasse last week when trying to decide whether Ronnie Tremel Walker killed Elaine Lanier Caldwell during a 2003 home invasion. After deliberating for five hours, jurors told the judge they were hopelessly deadlocked. The judge declared a mistrial due to the deadlock.
Prosecutors quickly announced that they plan to retry Walker for first-degree murder, burglary and robbery. He faces life imprisonment if convicted.
Caldwell’s boyfriend, Raymond Lee, testified at trial that Walker burst into their home back in October, 2003 and then held him and Caldwell’s granddaughter at gunpoint, robbed him and then fatally shot Caldwell when she wouldn’t stop screaming.
Lee picked Walker out of a series of photographs his sister found on the Internet. They took the photo to police and Lee picked Walker out of a photo lineup in December 2003.
At trial, Walker’s attorneys relied heavily on the fact that law enforcement did not seem terribly convinced by Lee’s identification of Walker wasn’t arrested until much later. “If Raymond Lee was so sure about the identification in 2003, doesn’t it suggest someone in law enforcement had some doubts,” the defense attorney argued.
Lee said his assailant had a scar on his cheek. Defense attorneys pointed out that Walker has no such scar.
Jurors apparently weren’t convinced by prosecutors use of Walker’s own statements to police in which he didn’t deny the crime, simply telling officers that he doesn’t tell on himself. Prosecutors also called a jail inmate as a witness. The inmate testified that Walker implicated himself during conversations they had this month while waiting to be transferred from the courthouse back to jail.
Defense attorneys noted that many of the details the inmate provided about the crime were inaccurate. Prosecutors counted by arguing that the errors were due to Walker’s minimization of his own guilt.