Story last updated at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, March 3, 2004
Daniel Carter was 15 when he killed Jack Carter, 46, of Navarre
Beach, after he burst into the teen's bedroom on July 16, 2002 in
the Beulah community northwest of Pensacola. The defense contends
the uncle was in a drunken and drug-induced rage.
"He was using his fists, he was using his feet, he was using his
flashlight," Daniel told Escambia County sheriff's investigators
during the interview.
The boy, now 16, claims he used the rusty butcher knife,
inherited from his late grandfather, in self-defense, but he is
charged with premeditated first-degree murder. The only penalty
Florida law allows is life in prison without parole if he is
convicted as charged.
The prosecution later rested its case. Defense lawyer Patrece
Cashwell will present her evidence Thursday, and Circuit Judge Terry
Terrell said he expects the jury to get the case Friday.
Daniel told his questioners that he never would have tried to
stop his uncle, who also threatened to tie him up and castrate him,
if he had known what the result would be.
"I was mad, but not to that extent," the boy said on the tape. "I
can't believe I did that. I didn't know any other way."
Frank Filligim, one of two investigators who questioned Daniel,
said the boy had been crying before but not during the interview.
Filligim said it appeared he was not so much scared as he was
angry that his uncle had broken his television set, stereo and video
game during their confrontation.
A friend of the teen, Brian Voeks, 20, testified Daniel had shown
him the knife earlier that day and said he would slit his uncle's
throat if he was attacked. It was something Voeks never told
authorities until Sunday, a day before the trial began.
Assistant State Attorney David Rimmer is trying to use testimony
about Daniel's possible mind-set, multiple wounds Jack Carter
suffered and expert medical opinion to prove the teen intended to
commit murder.
The boy's mother, Cindy Carter, testified Tuesday that she had
asked her brother to have a "man-to-man" talk with Daniel because
she suspected he and a friend planned to obtain and sell marijuana.
She said her brother also was angry that Daniel had gotten into some
of his surfing magazines.
Opponents of prosecuting juveniles as adults held a news
conference during the trial's lunch break to voice support for
Daniel.
"Once again, Pensacola has embarrassed - Florida has embarrassed
- the entire nation with this unbelievable prosecution of children,"
said Bishop Thomas Masters, pastor of New Macedonia Missionary
Baptist Church in Riviera Beach in southeastern Florida. "They are
not being tried by their peers. It is unfair to ask adults to try to
get into the mind-set of a child."
Masters, leader of a group called Under Our Wings, cited the
cases of Alex and Derek King, who were 12 and 13 when they killed
their father with a baseball bat near Pensacola in 2001 and Rebecca
Falcon, convicted in Panama City of killing a cab driver in 1997
when she was 15.
The King boys were charged with first-degree, convicted of
second-degree and pleaded guilty to third-degree murder after a
judge threw out their verdicts. Alex was sentenced to seven years
and Derek to eight in juvenile prison.
Falcon was convicted of first-degree murder and is serving life
with no parole possible. An appellate court rejected her appeal. Her
mother, Karen Kaneer, said she now plans to seek clemency.
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