Pensacola · Cindy Carter tried to stem the blood flowing from
a knife wound in her brother's neck, but the respiratory therapist
knew from emergency room experience that the four-inch gash was
fatal.
"I just held his head," she tearfully recalled in an
interview with The Associated Press. "I said, `Just go to sleep. It
won't hurt.'"
Emotional pain remains
for the 52-year-old single mother because she also may lose her only
child, Daniel Carter, to a lifetime in prison. Jury selection begins
March 1 in the 16-year-old boy's trial on an adult charge of
murdering his 46-year-old uncle, Jack Carter.
Daniel's case
is one of several that have prompted an outcry against Florida's
prosecution of juveniles as adults.
He was 15 when he slashed
his uncle with a large hunting knife inherited from his grandfather.
He claims it was self-defense against an adult who attacked in a
drunken rage and threatened to castrate him. Jack Carter died July
16, 2002, in Daniel's bedroom at his mother's house in Beulah, a
rural community near Pensacola.
The sandy-haired teen, being
held without bond at the Escambia County Jail, turned down a plea
offer promising a prison term of no more than 12 years for
manslaughter. Instead, he will be tried for first-degree
premeditated murder. The only penalty is life without
parole.
Defense lawyer Patrece Cashwell said she was baffled
by the severity of the charge.
"His uncle came over there,
broke into his room and began beating him," Cashwell said. "Daniel
was in his room and in his bed."
Medical experts are expected
to offer conflicting testimony on whether Jack Carter's multiple
knife wounds and cuts on Daniel's hands indicate which one had been
the aggressor.
Prosecutor David Rimmer declined to discuss
the evidence. "The main thing I have to deal with is the problem of
sympathy that a jury may have for a child so young charged with a
crime so severe," he said.
Rimmer also prosecuted two other
Panhandle boys charged with murder. Alex and Derek King were 12 and
13 when they killed their father, Terry King, 40, with a baseball
bat in November 2001.
A jury rejected first-degree murder
charges but found them guilty of second-degree murder. Jurors later
said they were convinced the boys had only aided a convicted child
molester, not knowing another jury had acquitted him of the
killing.
A judge threw out the convictions and the boys
pleaded guilty to third-degree murder. Alex was sentenced to seven
years and Derek to eight in juvenile prison.
The Jan. 29
release of Lionel Tate has offered a glimmer of hope to other
juvenile murder defendants. Tate was 12 when he fatally beat
6-year-old Tiffany Eunick almost five years ago in Pembroke Pines.
An appellate court reversed his conviction and life sentence, ruling
his mental competency should have been tested before trial. Tate
then pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in a deal with
prosecutors. He was freed with time served.
Cindy Carter said
she wanted Jack Carter to talk with her son -- not beat him --
because she had found out Daniel and a friend were planning to get
and sell marijuana. She said Jack Carter's anger grew when she told
him Daniel also had gotten into his surfing magazines stored in her
barn.
She was in her bedroom when he burst into Daniel's room
about 10:30 p.m. but said she could hear a couple of
slaps.
"My brother was shouting at him very loudly, as brutal
a tongue-lashing as I have ever heard," she said.
The
confrontation in Daniel's room escalated. Cindy Carter said she
could hear her brother banging the bed, shouting "This could be your
head," and then "I'm going to hog-tie you, strip your clothes off,
and I'm going to give you a beating you won't forget."
She
said she then heard him threatening to castrate
Daniel.
"There was this very, very brief scuffling," she
said. "As I reached the door, Daniel screamed, `Mommy, mommy, Uncle
Jack's dying.'" |
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