BAMAPHIN 22
12-18-2006, 03:36 PM
A Georgia man gave the middle finger to a judge who sentenced him to life in prison plus 40 years for the shooting death of a Savannah debutante during a botched robbery.
Michael Thorpe, 26, gestured and shouted "F--- democracy!" as deputies led him Saturday from the courtroom where Chatham County Superior Court Judge Penny Haas Freeseman sentenced him for shooting Jennifer Ross on Christmas Eve 2005.
Ross, a 19-year-old Mercer University student who had attended her debutante ball earlier that evening, died on the operating table one week later from a sudden ruptured artery.
Thorpe's co-defendant, Kevin Huckabee, 21, also shouted and cursed after Freeseman sentenced him to life in prison plus 30 years as a party to the crime for driving the getaway car.
Co-defendant Webster Wilson, 25, simply glanced at his mother after he was also sentenced to life in prison plus 40 years as a party to the crime.
The jury of five men and seven women deliberated for 17 hours over three days.
They convicted the defendants of felony murder, but acquitted them of the top charge of malice murder, which requires a finding that the defendants planned and committed the crime with "an abandoned or malignant heart," according to Georgia law.
They were also convicted of aggravated assault with the intent to rob for pistol-whipping Ross's friend, Brett Finley, and convicted of theft for using a stolen Ford Taurus to drive to and from the crime scene.
The defendants' outbursts contrasted with the somber tone set by Jennifer Ross's mother, Coren Ross, who read a prepared statement expressing the impact of her daughter's death.
"We are broken, both individually and collectively," said Ross, as her husband fought back tears in the audience. "Rusty will not walk Jennifer down the aisle at her wedding ... I will not caress her pregnant tummy."
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Michael Thorpe, 26, gestured and shouted "F--- democracy!" as deputies led him Saturday from the courtroom where Chatham County Superior Court Judge Penny Haas Freeseman sentenced him for shooting Jennifer Ross on Christmas Eve 2005.
Ross, a 19-year-old Mercer University student who had attended her debutante ball earlier that evening, died on the operating table one week later from a sudden ruptured artery.
Thorpe's co-defendant, Kevin Huckabee, 21, also shouted and cursed after Freeseman sentenced him to life in prison plus 30 years as a party to the crime for driving the getaway car.
Co-defendant Webster Wilson, 25, simply glanced at his mother after he was also sentenced to life in prison plus 40 years as a party to the crime.
The jury of five men and seven women deliberated for 17 hours over three days.
They convicted the defendants of felony murder, but acquitted them of the top charge of malice murder, which requires a finding that the defendants planned and committed the crime with "an abandoned or malignant heart," according to Georgia law.
They were also convicted of aggravated assault with the intent to rob for pistol-whipping Ross's friend, Brett Finley, and convicted of theft for using a stolen Ford Taurus to drive to and from the crime scene.
The defendants' outbursts contrasted with the somber tone set by Jennifer Ross's mother, Coren Ross, who read a prepared statement expressing the impact of her daughter's death.
"We are broken, both individually and collectively," said Ross, as her husband fought back tears in the audience. "Rusty will not walk Jennifer down the aisle at her wedding ... I will not caress her pregnant tummy."
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.