Payne sentenced to spend life in state prison
During a brief, but emotionally charged sentencing hearing, Debra Payne told a packed courtroom Tuesday that she loved her husband, Harold, and denied killing him. Nonetheless, in accordance with her first-degree murder conviction, the 45-year-old Grindstone woman was sentenced to spend the rest of her natural life in a state prison.
“I love my husband, I want everyone to know that,” she said, noting that she could not apologize for something she did not do.
As Payne was speaking, a relative, seated in the front row, passed out. Family and friends clamored around the woman, as one yelled that the woman was having a seizure.
Paramedics were called to the scene and Judge Ralph C. Warman finished sentencing Payne before they arrived to tend to the woman.
Last month, five men and seven women listened to several days of largely technical testimony before finding Payne guilty of shooting her husband in the head as he lay in bed at their 110 Orchid Drive home on June 5, 2003.
A gunshot residue expert testified that Debra Payne had particles on her shirt and shorts that could indicate she was in the room when the gun was fired. Prosecutors also presented testimony from renowned forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril H. Wecht that because the gun was fired from several inches from Harold Payne’s head, it was unlikely a suicide.
Payne’s attorney, Samuel Davis, countered with his own expert, a suicidologist, who testified that he had seen several cases in his years of study where the gun was several inches away. Dr. Ronald Maris testified that people can hesitate, and move their hand before shooting.
District Attorney Nancy D. Vernon also touted letters found in Payne’s purse to her children, telling them they were the best things she’d done in her life. Another letter was to Payne’s husband. In it she told him he “won” and would be free.
Before Payne was sentenced, Davis argued to Warman that there was not enough evidence to sustain the conviction and grant her a new trial, a motion the judge denied. Davis said the gun was not tied to Debra Payne in any way, and that her fingerprints were not on the weapon.
“If this was a bench trial and you heard all the evidence, would you evidence for a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt?” Davis asked.
Vernon pointed out that the position of Harold Payne’s body, with one arm underneath his head and the other curled up under his body, was impossible to get to had Payne shot himself.
“The jury weighed the evidence and the verdict should not be disturbed by the court,” Vernon said.
Payne, through Davis, now has the option of appealing her conviction to the state Superior Court.
Since Davis raised the issue of insufficient evidence to sustain the conviction, he can argue that point on the appellate level.