Jury deliberates in Modery homicide trial
WASHINGTON – The jury in Gregory Modery homicide trial deliberated for nearly five hours Tuesday without reaching a verdict. The jury of 10 women and two men will return to deliberations this morning at 9 a.m. and has been instructed by Judge Catherine Emery to plan to stay as late as 8 p.m. Modery, 32, of McMurray is charged with homicide, conspiracy to commit homicide, kidnapping, two counts of aggravated assault, robbery, and criminal conspiracy to commit kidnapping, aggravated assault and robbery.
District Attorney John Pettit has sought a first-degree murder conviction with the possibility of the death penalty in the case. The jury was instructed Tuesday that they may either find the defendant not guilty of homicide, guilty of homicide in the first degree or guilty of homicide in the second degree. Modery is being tried as the accomplice of Alexander Martos, who has confessed to shooting and killing Ohio medical consultant Ira Swearingen in December of 1999.
Emery instructed the jury for nearly an hour in the matters of law they need to consider in reaching their verdict. She detailed each of the seven charges Modery is facing and the criteria needed for a guilty verdict for each. The jury asked for a second reading of the charges after about an hour and a half of deliberation. They also asked for information about the penalty for second- degree homicide, but Emery said they were not yet at the penalty phase of the trial and it was not appropriate for her to give them that information at this time.
According to District Attorney John Pettit, second-degree homicide carries a mandatory life sentence. First-degree homicide carries either a mandatory life sentence without parole, or the possibility of the death penalty.
Emery explained first-degree homicide as an act in which the defendant has the specific intent to kill. For a conviction, the jury must be convinced that the victim is dead, that the defendant killed him and that the defendant acted with specific intent and malice.
Under accomplice liability, a person who aids, encourages or promotes someone else to commit a crime is equally responsible for it. It is not merely being present or even conspiring to the crime, Emery said.
“For first-degree murder, you must be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Gregory Modery had the specific intent to assist Alexander Martos in the murder,” Emery explained.
Second-degree murder is a murder committed in the act of another felony, even if the defendants did not set out to commit a murder. For the jury to find Modery guilty of second-degree murder they must be convinced of four things, Emery explained.
– That Martos killed Ira Swearingen.
– That Martos did so while he and Modery were partners while committing the robbery and kidnapping.
– That Swearingen was killed in the furtherance of the robbery or kidnapping.
– That the defendant was acting with malice.
If the jury returns a guilty verdict to first-degree homicide, the case will enter the penalty phase with additional testimony and further deliberations as to whether Modery should receive life in prison or the death penalty. The jurors heard four weeks of testimony from nearly 80 witnesses. More than 200 exhibits were entered into evidence during the trial.