Dad on trial for execution-style murder of 15-year-old son (Wayne County, Michigan)

Dad JAMAR PINKNEY SR. is currently on trial for the execution-style murder of his 15-year-old son. Dad says the boy confessed to molesting his 3-year-old half sister; the mom says not so. We've posted on this case before.

http://www.freep.com/article/20100401/NEWS02/4010443/1322/Dad-says-rage-steered-actions-murder-case-wraps-up

Posted: April 1, 2010
Dad says rage steered actions, murder case wraps up
BY JOE SWICKARD
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Jamar Pinkney Sr., charged with murdering his 15-year-old son with a point-blank pistol shot to the face, told a Wayne County Circuit Court jury Wednesday that he was "a loving parent."

Pinkney said rage gave way to an out-of-body experience when he beat, stripped and marched Jamar Pinkney Jr. to a Highland Park vacant lot and executed him last November after the teenager admitted he'd had sexual contact with his 3-year-old half sister.

Charged with first-degree murder in a trial before Judge Brian Sullivan, Pinkney said he was overwhelmed when his son said he'd started to have sex with the child after maintaining for hours that he only "humped on her."

The boy's mother, Lazette Cherry, contradicted the father, saying the boy never admitted to anything but "the same thing he'd been saying all along" about the humping incident.

Final arguments are scheduled for this morning after three days of testimony wrapped up Wednesday.

The last day was emotionally roiling with spectators sobbing at the father's deadpan recitation of shooting his son and then crying out "Amen! Amen!" when the mother said she was working with God to find forgiveness.

Defense attorney Corbett Edge O'Meara decried "the Amen choir" and called for a mistrial. Sullivan suggested he reflect on the mistrial motion overnight and present it if he still wanted to this morning.

O'Meara and co-counsel David Draper have tried to lay the groundwork for a verdict less than first-degree murder, which carries a mandatory life without parole sentence. Passion and shock, they've suggested through their arguments and questioning, overwhelmed Pinkney's judgment.

"I was horrified; I was enraged," Pinkney said, when he realized that his son "plotted on my daughter."

"You have to understand there is no handbook for this situation," he told trial prosecutor Christine Kowal.

"Yes, but you had choices," Kowal repeatedly hammered at Pinkney during an hour and 15 minutes of cross-examination.

"You made a choice, didn't you, sir?" choosing his daughter over his son, she said.

He chose to go armed to a family meeting about the accusation, Kowal said.

When the teenager was beaten and stripped as he cried on his knees for mercy, Kowal demanded: "Who's in control?"

"I feel like I didn't have control," Pinkney answered.

Kowal pressed, asking: "When the boy was taken through a door, down six steps, through a gate and into the field, who had control, who could have called the whole thing off?"

The youngster "elected to kneel," Pinkney said, adding that he then just walked up and shot his son.

In unemotional -- almost laconic and detached -- testimony that stretched over more than two hours, Pinkney repeated that he felt like he didn't have control and that his memory of all the events was patchy and frayed.

Doctors called by the prosecution and defense differed on any evidence that the girl may have been molested.

Appearing for the prosecution, Dr. Prashant Mahajan said he found no injury or trauma in an examination at Children's Hospital.

The girl's pediatrician, Dr. Bassam Bashour, said he found a small laceration "that could be sexual abuse."