jmccann@heraldsun.com; 419-6601
DURHAM -- The defense lawyer in Thaddius R. Wright's retrial for assault with a deadly weapon intent to kill inflicting serious injury and first-degree burglary didn't want jurors hearing testimony from the victim if the victim wasn't going to be in the courtroom.
The case went to the jury Friday afternoon and deliberations resume today.
But Superior Court Judge Cressie Thigpen Jr. granted Assistant District Attorney Stormy Ellis' request to use courtroom testimony Reuben Garnett Jr. presented during Wright's initial trial.
Wright allegedly shot Garnett in November 2004 at Foxfire Apartments in north Durham. A jury in 2006 found the defendant guilty of the assault and burglary charges. But Wright, 27, appealed the ruling based on racial bias during the jury-selection process.
Thigpen said he allowed Ellis to use Garnett's prior testimony because the state put forth a good-faith effort in trying to get him to testify in Wright's retrial.
Art Holland, a Durham Police Department investigator assigned to the Durham County District Attorney's Office, testified about the difficulty in trying to track down Garnett. And when Holland's message finally reached Garnett, the victim left a message informing Holland he wouldn't testify in the retrial, the investigator said.
The story was similar from Vanysha Evans, whose duties as a legal assistant in the District Attorneys' Office include tracking down witnesses.
But defense lawyer Woodrena Baker-Harrell said it's not that Garnett isn't available -- he's just being uncooperative. Since Ellis and her team knew about Garnett's job at Church's Chicken in Bragtown, surely someone there knew how to get up with him, Baker-Harrell said.
An order for Garnett's arrest was issued earlier this month, but an attempt to serve it at the chicken restaurant was unsuccessful.
