Meghann Cuniff
@meghanncuniff • 142,776 subscribers
Independent journalist reporting on trials and other legal issues nationwide 📝⚖️ Subscribe to my Substack mailing list and find me on YouTube
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Jurors in the murder trial over a Southh Carolina gas station owner killing a teenager will continue deliberating tonight after the judge declined to allow them to go home. Judge Heath Taylor told attorneys he's concerned the huge amount of media attention over 14-year-old Cyrus Carmack-Beltron's fatal shooting in May 2023 could influence jurors if they recess deliberations for the day. He brought the jury in and told them they can't go home. "Typically once the deliberative process begins, we ask you to stay here as long as possible. Certainly, we're not going to do anything inhumane, but I'm going to ask you to keep deliberating," the judge said. A court employee "is going to get with you shortly with regard to orders for dinner, and we're just going to ask you to keep working." "I understand it's been a long day. It's been a long day for everybody, and I know y'all are diligently working, and I appreciate that, but we're going to ask you just to keep working, and we'll get your dinner orders," Judge Taylor said. I do not see this in California, but juries in the South especially regularly deliberate late into the night. I think making jurors stay like this when they want to go home favors the defense, but it's difficult to know for sure.
Meghann Cuniff185,225 次观看 • 4 天前
Rick Chow's lawyer Jack B. Swerling spoke to reporters outside the courtroom after a jury acquitted Chow of murdering 14-year-old Cyrus Carmack-Belton. "Firstly, behalf of the Chows, we're very pleased at the jury's deliberations and their verdict. We think it was the appropriate verdict in this case, although it was a difficult decision to come to, because you have two different stories, two extreme differences," Swerling said in a video from WIS-TV. "You have, on the one hand, Mr. Chow, who we always contended was defending his son. He was not trying to hurt the young man." "And the other side, you had the young man who had a semi-automatic pistol. ... Our position is, he pointed it at Andy Chow and his father had to defend his son, and it's tragic. I feel sorry for the family. As I said during my opening statement, my heart goes out to them, but 14-year-old kids should not be roaming the streets of Columbia or South Carolina with semi-automatic pistols loaded and ready to fire." "I think I think the difference was this. Andy Chow was following him out of the store and down the street, we always took the position that Rick Chow, the defendant, that was not his objective. His objective was he was going to protect his son, and that's what happened. So we tried to separate the two different issues, one from Andy Chow, who was following him down the street." "We're not celebrating the fact that this young man got killed. We just think that the jury sliced it the right way with Andy Chow coming out of store, thinking and having a reasonable suspicion that he may have taken something, leaving the store and going to follow him, and the father going after his son to make sure his son is okay." "What would you say to the Carmack family if you could say anything to them now?" a reporter asked. "My heart goes out to them. I know I can't imagine what they're going through, or what they have been through, losing a son. I can't, as a parent myself, I cannot imagine any more pain different, more difficult than that. So I feel for them, I really do, because they didn't do anything, they didn't, they didn't bring on the suffering themselves." "This was something that their son put them into, and you know, young people need to learn. You can't walk around the city carrying semi automatic weapons loaded. ... If he didn't have a gun, this would not have happened." Swerling has been a licensed lawyer in South Carolina since 1977. He is one of the most prominent criminal defense attorneys in the state.
Meghann Cuniff148,088 次观看 • 3 天前
A lawyer for the family of Cyrus Carmack-Belton told reporters after a jury acquitted Rick Chow of murder Monday night that the question of why the 14-year-old had a gun "was answered when he was shot dead in the streets 130 yards from a store where he did absolutely nothing wrong." "The question was answered when this jury found him not guilty today. The question was answered because a child, a 14-year-old child, shot dead in Richland County, got no justice. When the family got no justice," said attorney Todd Rutherford, standing beside Cyrus' father, Troy Belton, in a video from WACH-TV news station in Columbia, South Carolina. Rutherford paused as people shouted near him. "The anger is palpable tonight. You can feel it. You can touch it, because people saw a child that looked like their own. That did nothing wrong. A child that all the witnesses described had fear in his eyes when he left the store. And then he started to run as two grown men chased him down over a football field and shot him dead. This should not happen," Rutherford said. "This makes us feel as if our children don't matter, and they do. This makes us feel like Cyrus's life did not matter, and it did," Rutherford said. He urged people not to turn their anger "into anything else but words." "To go online to talk about it, to discuss it, but not to act like what people in their evil minds think that we are. We are certainly better than that. Cyrus was better than that. His family is better than that," Rutherford said. He said they have "no choice" but to accept the verdict, "but we don't agree." "There is no way that a child who did nothing wrong, who was shot in his back, how that jury can justify that verdict. I've been practicing law for almost 30 years. I've never seen anything like this. I don't understand it. I'm at a loss to explain it to his father, Troy, standing beside me. I'm at a loss to explain it to his mother, who couldn't take it and had to leave. I'm at a loss to explain it to his family, because I, too, don't understand it," Rutherford said. Chow’s son, Andy Chow, testified his father shot Cyrus after Cyrus pointed a gun at him. Prosecutors say the boy had a loaded 9 mm gun but never displayed it before he was shot. Andy chased Cyrus after the boy walked out of the store after being falsely accused of shoplifting bottled water, and Rick Chow's lawyer said he ran after his son to see if he was OK.
Meghann Cuniff93,511 次观看 • 3 天前
A retired MLB player testified today he had his cousin contact police so he could report his friend's involvement in a fatal crash. Royce Clayton said his cousin told him, "You're not snitching on anybody. When it comes to kids, this is something that's going to come out."
Meghann Cuniff699,296 次观看 • 1 个月前
Victory for Afroman over the sheriff's deputies who sued him for defamation and invasion of privacy through false light. "In all circumstances, the jury finds in favor of the defendant. No plaintiff verdict prevailed. So the matter will be concluded with defense verdicts."
Meghann Cuniff1,042,684 次观看 • 2 个月前
A retired deputy suing Afroman for defamation testified he doesn’t know why the rapper nicknamed him “Officer Pound Cake,” so Afroman’s lawyer played the “Lemon Pound Cake” video. “You would admit that’s you with the glasses walking by the lemon pound cake on the counter?”
Meghann Cuniff914,318 次观看 • 2 个月前
A courtroom debate: What to call Rihanna in relation to A$AP Rocky. Are they actually married?? "It's his common-law wife, Your Honor." "If they're not legally married, we prefer that she not be referred to as his wife." "Are they legally married anywhere?" "I don't know."
Meghann Cuniff4,948,962 次观看 • 1 年前
A jury in Tampa, Florida, today convicted four men of murdering rival gang member and prominent Jacksonville rapper Charles "Julio Foolio" Jones. Sean Gathright, Isaiah Chance, and cousins Rashad Murphy and Davion Murphy could be sentenced to death when jurors return on Monday.
Meghann Cuniff204,573 次观看 • 28 天前
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