RoadkingLarry
Member
All it takes is one punch and it can be lights out. Of course this also illustrates why it is not a ba idea to stay way from the bar scene.
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=070303_Ne_A1_Juror2034
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=070303_Ne_A1_Juror2034
Jurors find defendant not guilty of throwing fatal punch
By BILL BRAUN World Staff Writer
3/3/2007
Tulsa County jurors who deliberated for 11 hours Friday found Jason Nicholson not guilty of first-degree manslaughter in the death of a man who was hit in the head in a downtown Tulsa parking garage.
Nicholson, 35, was charged almost two years ago in the death of Scott Bolton, who prosecutors say sustained a deadly head wound when he was punched and fell to the concrete floor of a garage at First Street and Detroit Avenue about 2 a.m. Sept. 11, 2004.
Bolton, 23, died five days later.
Jurors began deliberating about 12:45 p.m. and returned the verdict shortly before midnight.
After the verdict was announced, Nicholson stood up and embraced his attorney, Zach Smith, and his private investigator, Eric Cullen.
"I'm just glad," Nicholson said later outside the courtroom. "We couldn't have had a better jury."
Nicholson said that "I did not see how they could not acquit me."
He thanked God and the people who supported him.
Nicholson, a former club security worker who has boxed professionally, had testified that he did not hit Bolton. He said it was his former co-defendant, Clay Spicer, who punched Bolton after Spicer and Bolton argued and cursed at each other.
Spicer, 24, testified Thursday after District Attorney Tim Harris agreed to grant him immunity that protects him from any future prosecution related to the Bolton homicide.
Taking the stand as a rebuttal witness, Spicer said Nicholson "popped" Bolton in the mouth and that Bolton fell down and struck his head.
Smith, the defense attorney, argued Friday that "the elected DA granted immunity to Clay Spicer, the man who committed this crime."
In March 2005 -- six months after Bolton's death -- prosecutors jointly charged Nicholson and Spicer, alleging that Spicer distracted Bolton and that Nicholson hit him.
District Judge Clancy Smith ruled in 2005 that the evidence was insufficient to hold Spicer for trial, and Spicer's manslaughter charge was dismissed.
Prosecutors asserted that Nicholson saw a chance to fight when he interjected himself into a dispute between Adam Buchert, a bouncer at a now-closed First Street club, and Bobby Standley, an intoxicated club patron and friend of Bolton's.
Assistant District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler said that even after Standley apologized to Buchert and Buchert left the garage, Nicholson, Spicer and Doug Johnson hung around because "they were there for a fight."
A surveillance videotape -- which shows activity in the garage but with some brief time gaps -- shows Nicholson "steamrolling" toward Bolton before subsequent images show Bolton on the floor, Kunzweiler told jurors.
A detective said no video image showed the punch.
Harris said Spicer's position in the garage just before the punch was thrown was not close enough to Bolton for Spicer to have hit him.
Zach Smith said the case against Nicholson relied on "guilt by association, assumptions (and) stereotypes."
Prosecutors sought "to bash him for being a boxer," he said, arguing that Nicholson's boxing history was irrelevant.
Nicholson went to the garage "to see a fight," Harris said. " 'Don't screw with us' -- that's what that punch said. Poor Scott Bolton didn't have a clue."
Bolton's mother, Debbie Henry, said early Monday that "I do not agree with this verdict. I do not understand it."
Henry said family members will live with the verdict, because "that's the law, and we are law-abiding citizens."
"I completely stand behind Tim Harris and his office," she said.
Earlier, Henry, who lives in Argyle, Texas, talked about the person her son was.
"He always had a smile on his face," she said. "He always had an extended hand. He enjoyed life."
Nicholson has been free on bond in the case since March 2005. Had he been convicted, he could have faced four years to life in prison.