Jurors spare Owens death penalty:
7-5 split could display doubts on executions
Decatur Herald-Review By Stephanie Potter
November 11, 2003

                 
DECATUR -- A Macon County jury on Monday found Earl A. Owens is not eligible for the death penalty for murdering his 64-year-old neighbor.

The decision means that Owens, 35, will face a sentence of 20 to 60 years in prison when he is sentenced Dec. 16. The jury found Owens guilty Friday of the June 12, 2000, murder of Mary Ann Wright, who was discovered in her bed in her Decatur home with her throat repeatedly slashed.

Relatives of Owens, who maintain his innocence, were relieved by the decision and plan to appeal the guilty verdict. Wright's son, Brian, said he wished the jury could have heard evidence about another attack on an older woman Owens is accused of committing in 1995.

"I think we are disappointed," he said. "We wish it would have been a better result."In order to find Owens eligible for the death penalty, the jury would have had to unanimously decide he was above the age of 18 when the crime was committed and that he committed or tried to commit aggravated criminal sexual assault in the course of the murder.

Owens' age wasn't at issue, but the sexual assault was, said juror Connie Wisnewski. She said the jury split 7-5, with five deciding they could not find him eligible beyond a reasonable doubt.

She declined to say how she voted but said some jurors did question the sequence of events that led up to the killing and whether the sexual activity could have been consensual.

"I think there were a lot of questions, and I think that's what separated the group," Wisnewski said.

Wisnewski, 62, a retired nurse, said jurors felt great sorrow for both Owens' family and Wright's family and said watching their tears when the verdict came back was "unbearable."

"It was just one of those things you don't experience very often in life," she said.
Alternate juror David Stern said he would have voted to find Owens eligible. Stern agreed jurors' hearts went out to both families and to Owens' seven children.

Assistant State's Attorney Jay Scott, who prosecuted the case with Jack Ahola, argued Monday the evidence of rape was clear because Owens' semen was found in Wright's body. He said there was evidence of a violent attack from the moment Wright answered her door that morning. Her bent glasses were found on the floor behind a chair, and Wright was struck on the head three times, leaving large pools of blood.
"We have force from the beginning to the end," Scott said.

But defense attorney Tom Griffith continued to argue the sexual activity could have been consensual -- pointing to a tube of lubricant left in the victim's bed.
"We simply do not know what happened in this situation," Griffith said.

Scott called the consensual sex argument "ludicrous" and said Owens used the lubricant as part of the sexual assault.

"The evidence in this case is overwhelming that this is an act of violent rape and murder," he said.

After the jury's decision, Griffith and defense attorney Jeff Justice said they thought the case could show a shift in people's attitudes toward the death penalty. Justice said questioning during jury selection showed more people are becoming aware of problems with the death penalty that culminated with the commutation by former Gov. George H. Ryan of 167 death sentences in January. Ryan cited a flawed system that led to 17 men being wrongly convicted and sentenced to death row.

Justice said a couple of potential jurors mentioned one wrongly convicted man by name, and others said they would have to be 100 percent certain in order to sentence someone to death.

But although he opposes the death penalty, Justice thinks it's fairly administered in Macon County.

"The process in Macon County is as fair as it gets," Justice said. "Jack Ahola and Jay Scott are fair, hard-fighting, excellent attorneys."

The case attracted the attention of the group Macon County Citizens Opposing the Death Penalty, which protested outside the Macon County Courts Facility on Monday morning, carrying signs reading "No Death Penalty" and "Life Without Parole."

State's Attorney Scott Rueter had asked the group to stop protesting until the jurors were in the building. They continued but issued only a brief statement through member John Dunn, saying they believe the taking of a life by society is wrong.

Rueter later said he does not believe the decision in this case signals any change in people's views on the death penalty.

Wisnewski said the protest did not affect jurors, who walked into the building together as a group.

Vevalyn Joyner, Owens' mother, said she didn't believe the jury heard all the evidence in the case. But she said she did not blame the jury and expressed her condolences to Wright's family.

Brian Wright, who found his mother's body, said the family wants the maximum penalty to protect others.

"She was a very loving mother," he said. "She was very sweet, very helpful. She would have helped out anybody."

Owens is still awaiting trial on an arson charge in a 1995 case, and prosecutors were expected to use it as evidence, had the case progressed further. In that case, authorities allege he sexually assaulted an 82-year-old woman after knocking on her door and asking for money and to borrow the telephone. The victim, a retired teacher, was tied to her bed and it was set on fire. She died a year later, but not from attack-related injuries.