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Lonestar
03-01-2010, 10:31 AM
Krieger: With death of Broncos' Darrent Williams, what might have happened if not for lost chain?
By Dave Krieger
Denver Post Columnist
POSTED: 03/01/2010 01:00:00 AM MST

Musings for a Monday morning from the Darrent Williams murder trial as it enters its second week . . .

If you're tempted to blame Brandon Marshall for Williams' death rather than the shooter who actually shot him, you should probably be aware of another less-reported factor:

The departure of Williams' 40-foot Hummer limousine from the nightclub where the trouble began was delayed by a search for his famous chain, the one Javon Walker ended up holding after Williams was killed.

Williams asked John Sheppard, a friend from Fort Worth, Texas, to hold the chain when the Broncos cornerback got out of the limo to urge his remaining teammates to quit barking at their antagonists and leave the scene.

Yet the Lincoln Town Car limousine carrying Marshall and Elvis Dumervil ended up leaving first. Sheppard slid the chain, worth an estimated $50,000, underneath one of the Hummer's bench seats, apparently trying to hide it. When Williams returned, he couldn't find it.

The limo driver, Ryan Alexander, testified he was just pulling out when a chorus of voices called for him to stop. He stopped the car, got out, went to the back and helped search for the chain, which eventually turned up.

Would it have made a difference if the Hummer's departure hadn't been delayed? Would the Crips have followed Marshall's limo instead if it had been the last to leave? We may never know, although the expected testimony of Daniel "Ponytail" Harris this week might shed some light.

But once you go down the road of blaming anything or anybody other than the shooters, there are lots of places to stop.

Judge Christina Habas apparently does not believe in the imperial judiciary. One morning last week, before court started, she announced she was going downstairs for coffee and asked Kenny Dhainin, the Clear Channel sound engineer handling the audio feed, if he would like a cup. He took her up on it too.

At first, I didn't understand Habas' rather severe limits on trial coverage — no cameras, no streaming or broadcasting of the live audio feed, no tweeting or blogging from the courtroom itself. Now I do. The testimony describing the events of that night has been so full of profanity and the N-word that airing it unedited could be seriously provocative. And keeping distractions to a minimum in a courtroom with Williams' people and defendant Willie Clark's people in close quarters was probably prudent.

I'm less clear about her ruling on contempt citations for the alleged gang members who have refused to testify. Prosecutor Tim Twining asked for punitive contempt, which might get the reluctant witnesses as much as six months in jail. Habas chose remedial contempt, which gets them the length of the trial, or about two weeks. Neither is probably enough to make a difference, but for alleged gang members, Habas' penalty is pretty close to a joke.

A criminal defense lawyer reminded me over the weekend that even if the prosecution can't prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Clark fired the fatal shot, it still could get a guilty verdict under the theory of complicity.

This is true, but juries don't always buy it. Just after Williams was killed, I sat in on a similar case on a much smaller scale — an altercation in a bar followed by a car chase and drive-by homicide.

The prosecution couldn't establish definitively who fired the fatal shot, but it reasoned that both occupants of the car from which the shot was fired were complicit. One — the passenger — was the defendant. The driver never appeared at trial.

The case ended in a hung jury. When I asked one of the jurors afterward to explain, she asked me where the driver was.

Legal theories often matter more to lawyers and judges than jurors, who want to feel they're doing actual justice. In this case, two of the four people riding in the Tahoe from which the shots were fired won't be appearing unless that second week in county jail really gets to them.

Of the remaining two, one got a sweet plea deal to testify against the other. If jurors aren't sure who fired the fatal shot, they might be reluctant to send Clark to prison for life while Harris, also complicit, gets five years and immunity for anything he says at trial.

What distinguishes this case from the other one, of course, is Williams' celebrity. It might make the jury more inclined to buy into the theory of complicity, especially if the panel includes a few Broncos fans.

Dave Krieger: 303-954-5297, dkrieger@denverpost.com or twitter.com/DaveKrieger

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