05/03/07 (NY):
Expert Testimony Earns Manslaughter Conviction
|
|
In a case where the facts were not in dispute it was the killer's state of mind that was up for interpretation, and after a lengthy bench trial in Brooklyn Supreme Court, an admitted murderer's case has finally concluded.
The deadly landlord-tenant dispute from June 2005 officially ended with a conviction when state Supreme Court Justice Abraham Gerges ruled that James McElwee, 52, had been suffering "extreme emotional disturbance" when he stabbed his landlord to death. Gerges then reduced the murder charge against him to the lesser criminal count of first-degree manslaughter. McElwee faced a second-degree murder charge at a non-jury trial before Gerges last week, highlighted by mental health experts who gave conflicting testimony on the state of McElwee's mind at the time of the killing.
The facts of the case were not in doubt. In June 2005, McElwee was renting a room on the second floor of the two-story house on Prospect Avenue owned by Felix Saar, an arrangement that had been in place for the past 15 years.
According to McElwee's own statements, shortly after midnight on June 22, Saar awakened him from a sound sleep and began beating him, shouting about a lost key.
A startled McElwee picked up a nearby knife and repeatedly stabbed Saar until he broke the weapon. McElwee then forced Saar down a flight of steps, retrieved a second knife and continued the attack. After police responded to the scene, McElwee was brought to the 72nd Precinct in nearby Sunset Park. There, he gave a detailed statement to detectives about the incident, describing the sometimes volatile relationship between the two men, marked by at least one other assault by Saar two weeks before the stabbing.
During subsequent sessions with mental health experts, McElwee detailed his poor treatment at the hands of his landlord, including Saar's refusal to provide a working toilet.
One defense expert, Dr. Cheryl Paradis, claimed in earlier testimony that the squalid living conditions - along with McElwee's previously diagnosed epilepsy - presented a portrait of a man with a "severe emotional disorder."
Assistant District Attorney Robert Lamb refuted claims that these conditions were evidence of an emotional disorder, stating that McElwee could have moved out at any time. His refusal to move was due to the inexpensive rent Saar charged, which allowed McElwee to indulge his twin compulsions - daily alcohol consumption and compulsive gambling. Lamb said McElwee "exercised choice" in his decision to stay in the rented room, as well as in his decision to murder Saar, and called on Gerges to convict him of second-degree murder.
A prosecution witness, psychiatrist Mark Turle, took the stand and refuted the defense's claims that McElwee suffered from "extreme emotional disturbance" at the time of the stabbing.
After Turle's testimony, Gerges asked whether "waking the defendant in the middle of the night constituted an extreme emotional disturbance."
No, Turle said, it didn't. Because of the close relationship between Saar and McElwee, Turle believed that McElwee's reaction to being awakened should not have resulted in such an extremely violent reaction.
"People who live with each other for long periods of time get used to seeing each other," Turle said in testimony last week. "There was nothing in that occurrence that would cause him to react that way." After the conclusion of testimony last week, Gerges ruled yesterday in favor of the defense, which was led by attorney Michael Millet. The ruling reduced McElwee's conviction to first-degree manslaughter, a charge carrying a sentence between five and 15 years behind bars.
Gerges scheduled McElwee's sentencing for June 5.
© X-Pro 2007
|
|
