Slaughter convicted of lesser charge in Cherokee

By Penny Ray

Cherokee Scout

Murphy – On each day of the trial charging Jackie Slaughter with attempted murder, the judge instructed jurors not to research media reports about the defendant’s past.

The judge and defense attorneys didn’t want jurors to punish Slaughter for events that happened years ago, matters that had no bearing on this particular case at all. 

Assuming jurors adhered to those instructions, 12 Cherokee County residents based their decision solely on testimony from the state’s two key witnesses, whom they chose to believe over the defense team’s argument that physical evidence in the case did not fit the narrative offered by prosecutors.

However, their decision did not come easily. The jury deliberated for about nine hours and were given two “Allen” instructions by Judge William Coward. An “Allen charge” is a controversial instruction given when a jury reports that it is deadlocked and unable to decide on a verdict. At least 23 states have rejected – in whole or in part – the use of an Allen instruction, which critics argue coerces the jury into reaching a unanimous decision.

The jury told Coward they were at an impasse around 3:30 p.m. March 16, when they were given an Allen instruction to continue deliberations. About an hour and a half later, the jury reported they had reached a unanimous verdict on the lesser of the two charges against Slaughter, but were deadlocked on the other. The jury foreman said he believed they could make progress with more deliberation; therefore, the judge issued another Allen instruction.

The jury returned around 6:40 p.m. and declared Slaughter guilty of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury. They remained “hopelessly deadlocked” on the attempted first-degree murder charge, so Coward declared a mistrial on that count of the indictment.

Coward sentenced Slaughter to serve a minimum of 117 months in prison, with the possibility of spending 153 months in confinement. Slaughter was given credit for the three-plus years that he has been incarcerated since Cody Austin White nearly died.

Slaughter’s defense attorneys gave the court an oral notice of appeal after sentencing. 

Superior Court staff are expected to send Slaughter’s case file to appellate court this week, when a new lawyer will be appointed to him.

Mystery remains

Over the course of five days, defense attorneys argued that police botched the investigation from the start and that the two main witnesses in the case had biased reasons to finger Slaughter as the culprit.

Prosecutors never offered a clear motive as to why Slaughter would try to kill White. However, the defense team argued that the victim’s aunt – Daratha Curtis – cut her nephew because she was angry at him for stealing his dying mother’s methadone pills when she was battling throat cancer.

White testified that he was sitting on the left end of a loveseat talking with Curtis, who was sitting in a separate chair facing him, when Slaughter pulled back his head and slit his throat from behind. White said he looked back and saw Slaughter holding a knife. He claims Slaughter then said, “Yeah, I got you, didn’t I?”

However, defense lawyers Rich Cassady and Holly Christy argued that the bloodstain on the living room floor did not support White’s account of events. 

Crime scene photographs introduced at trial show Curtis’ chair in a different position than what White described. 

The bloodstain is positioned to the right of that chair and slightly to the left of where White was sitting. Slaughter’s attorneys argued that White had stood up to leave the property and walked past Curtis, who then slit her nephew’s throat with her right hand.

White suffered an 11-inch laceration that stretched from the right corner of his mouth, down the side of his face and around to the back of his neck. The injury included damage to his internal and external jugular veins. A trauma surgeon testified that White would have started bleeding “pretty immediately,” but stopped short of saying that the suspect would’ve been covered in blood.

“Why is there no blood on the coffee table? Why is there no blood on the loveseat? Why is there no blood on the walking space between the loveseat and the coffee table?” Cassady said during closing arguments.

The knife allegedly used in the crime was found on a coffee table lying cutting-edge up, with only a few thin lines of blood on the side of the blade nearest the dull edge and a couple small specs of blood in other locations. No blood appears to be on its cutting edge, and defense attorneys argued that blood spewed onto that knife after Curtis cut White with a different weapon.

Investigators overlooked two additional knives that are visible in crime scene photos shown in court. Moreover, three years after the incident, Curtis gave authorities a knife that was found by her lover while cutting the neighbor’s grass.

“Law enforcement never found the knife [actually used to cut White],” Cassady said, while arguing that the real knife would have had blood on the handle.

Meanwhile, prosecutors argued that no case is perfect and suggested that perhaps Slaughter wiped blood off of the knife before police arrived.

“What caused this problem? We don’t know. The state didn’t promise to tell you everything,” assistant district attorney Kimberly Harris said, while excusing the lack of motive in the state’s case and mistakes by police. “What law enforcement didn’t do doesn’t change the fact that Jackie Slaughter cut Cody White’s throat.”

Witnesses

There were six people in Curtis’ mobile home when the incident happened on the evening of May 7, 2017. Three of them testified to using drugs that day, including Curtis and White.

No one besides White claims they saw Slaughter cut his throat, not even Curtis. 

However, Curtis claims she saw Slaughter conceal something with a black handle behind his back moments prior to the assault.

Everyone who testified in court said they saw Slaughter standing at the entrance to the kitchen nearest the right side of the loveseat a few feet from where White was seated. Curtis and White said Slaughter was standing there before the assault, while two other witnesses said they awoke after hearing a scream or loud noise and saw Slaughter standing in that spot.

Witnesses testified that after White and Curtis fled the trailer, Slaughter sat down on the loveseat until police arrived. Two witnesses who were on a couch across from the loveseat at the time of the incident said they never saw Slaughter with a knife. The third person didn’t testify in person; however, her written statement doesn’t mention anything about Slaughter holding a weapon. 

Curtis was the only person who appeared to be covered in blood that night besides White. 

Police never found blood on Slaughter, nor did they find his DNA or fingerprints on the alleged weapon.

“Why would [the witnesses] remain in the trailer home with the attacker of Cody White,” Cassady said, while arguing that three people remained in the living room with Slaughter because they didn’t feel he was a threat. “If you can even conceive of another person committing this crime, I submit that you have reasonable doubt.”

History in Graham

If jurors researched Slaughter at any time before reaching a verdict, they would have learned that he was previously charged with murder in the April 2012 death of Robert Smith.

In 2016, a judge dismissed the charge after doctors determined Slaughter suffered retrograde amnesia following repeated tases by Graham County law enforcement. The court ruled Slaughter’s memory loss was permanent and non-recoverable; therefore, he could not assist counsel in his defense, making him legally incapable of proceeding to trial.

However, jurors may not have known that court documents allege prosecutors ignored affidavits “strongly suggesting” that the true identities of Smith’s killers were suspects other than Slaughter.