Hykeem Tucker | Homicide Watch Trenton

Trenton men get life for murder of Mercer corrections officer

Isaac Avilucea — Fri, 19 Aug 2016 12:28:32 -0400

Former Mercer County corrections officer Carl Batie had a “heart as big as this world” and the swagger of a GQ model, his colleagues and family members said.

Elaine Batie, Carl’s mother, daubed her eyes while remembering the moment her second-oldest son was placed into her arms on March 3, 1985. She smiled so much her “cheeks began to hurt.”

Maurice Skillman

That smile disappeared Nov 11, 2012, when Batie was shot in the head while celebrating the re-election of President Barack Obama with his brother, Karshawn, at a Trenton banquet hall.

“That smile I had on my face for 27 years became a frown,” Elaine Batie said. “Every day I think he’s coming home through the front door from a long day at work.”

Before a packed courtroom Friday in Mercer County criminal court, a judge handed life sentences to two city men for their roles in taking Batie’s life.

Maurice Skillman, 30, and Hykeem Tucker, 29, who were convicted following a second trial in June, were set to prison for 75 years for the murder of Batie.

They received consecutive 18-month terms for nearly striking a bouncer who was perched on a wood stoop monitoring the crowd at the Baldassari Regency banquet hall in the early-morning hours, when Skillman opened fire 22 times with a semi-automatic handgun.

Tucker’s sentence was harsher than the 55 years Assistant Prosecutor James Scott asked for, saying he felt that even though he was an accomplice Tucker was less responsible because didn’t pull the trigger.

Judge Andrew Smithson said, in handing down the life terms, he felt prosecutors would have asked for the death penalty if it hadn’t been abolished in 2007.

“These are the cases that try judges’ souls,” he said.

The judge said Skillman had a “terrorist” mentality when he fired at the crowd 22 times and called his decision “an incredibly cowardly act of violence.”

“The only way you can deter him is by keeping him away from people,” Smithson said. “The miracle here was that no one else was hit.”

Turning to Tucker, the judge said the men were “two peas in a pod.”

Carl Batie

They planned the shooting together, hid a Tec-9 gun in the area and lurked in the shadows until they saw an opportunity around 1:15 a.m. as people were getting ready to leave the packed establishment.

Tucker acted as a lookout while Skillman opened fired – all of it captured on grainy surveillance tapes that were the foundation of prosecutors’ case.

Skillman maintained his innocence and will appeal his conviction. He said he prays for Batie’s family and sends his condolences. He apologized for “everything” they have been through.

Tucker, who didn’t speak, claimed in a pre-sentencing report that he was on Percocet and Xanax at the time of the shooting.

Skillman turned to the back of the family and told family members he loved them as he was led from the court.

Tucker’s attorney, Christopher Campbell, asked the judge for a 30-year sentence and expressed shock at the outcome.

“It was surprising, particularly when the state appeared to be not seeking an equivalent sentence,” he said. “I think the decision was more of a legal decision that both were charged with the same crime and the jury found them guilty of the same thing.”

A jury deliberated roughly 40 minutes at the retrial before convicting the men without asking any questions or reviewing the tapes a second time.

Jurors in the first trial were unable to determine whether it was Skillman and Tucker on the tapes and came back deadlocked.

For the judge, the tapes were definitive and were the only reason prosecutors convicted the men.

“[Tucker] was with him right down the line,” Smithson said. “That video will stay with me forever.”

Hykeem Tucker

Mercer County corrections officer Chanique Veal, who started at the same time as Batie in 2007, told the judge there were “no winners” in the case. She hoped the spirit of Batie, a magnanimous man who loved to dress up and bred dogs in his spare time, ”continues to shine.”

She said Batie’s mother was his “superhero” and praised her for her strength and resilience for enduring two trials.

Elaine Batie said her son’s death forced her into early retirement. She recalled the moments he has missed and lamented he doesn’t get to see his newborn nephew.

“I know this pain with last for life,” Elaine Batie said.

She hopes one day she can forgive Skillman and Tucker.

“Justice was done,” she said outside the courtroom. “And I pray for the city of Trenton.”

Trenton men convicted of killing Carl Batie in 2012

Isaac Avilucea — Thu, 09 Jun 2016 14:22:59 -0400

Elaine Batie clutched her son’s former co-worker outside a Mercer County criminal courtroom.

They hugged for what seemed like minutes, swaying back and forth in unison.

Carl Batie

“It’s over,” the woman told Elaine.

Carl Batie, a former Mercer County corrections officer with an infectious personality and generous spirit, was killed in a hail of bullets Nov. 11, 2012 at the Baldassari Regency banquet hall, in what authorities believed was a chilling and callous gang-related shooting that claimed an unintended victim.

Prosecutors stressed to jurors over two trials they may never know “the why” of the killing, but they could know “the who.”

It took 1,307 days since Batie's death, two trials and two different juries. But two city men were finally found guilty Thursday of killing the off-duty Mercer County corrections officer in 2012, nearly four months after their first trial ended in a hung jury.

Maurice Skillman and Hykeem Tucker were convicted of counts of murder, aggravated assault and weapons offenses around 1:35 p.m. Thursday in Mercer County criminal court.

The verdict broke an inglorious streak for prosecutors of a spate of hung juries and acquittals in murder trials.

Skillman was convicted of opening fire on the packed balcony 22 times, possibly with a TEC-9 that was never recovered, while Tucker was held responsible for being an accomplice by acting as a lookout.

Maurice Skillman

Tucker, known on the streets as “Tex,” arrived with Skillman at the banquet hall.

Ten sheriff officers were brought into the courtroom for the verdict to ensure there were no outbursts.

Batie’s relatives embraced each other after the foreman read the verdict.

Skillman kept his eyes downcast, while Tucker stared straight forward in the court.

Skillman and Tucker face life imprisonment when they are sentenced. A tentative date was set for Aug. 1

Defense attorneys said they plan to ask Judge Andrew Smithson for a new trial and will appeal the convictions.

The guilty verdict paves the way for the start of a civil trial, which was put on hold until the criminal case was resolved.

The Batie family has sued the city, banquet hall and the two men convicted of his murder for Carl’s wrongful death.

“The Batie family continues to grieve the loss of Carl,” said attorney Robin Lord, who represents the family in the civil case. “If, in fact, the jury’s verdict reflects what actually occurred, the family is grateful to put this chapter behind them and move on. Regardless of the verdict, it’s not going to bring Carl back.”

Christopher Campbell, Tucker’s attorney, said he was “shocked” the jury returned so quickly with a verdict following grueling testimony over three weeks, including from Scott Peterson, the Trenton Police detective who testified he identified Tucker because of a distinctive varsity jacket he wore the night of the murder.

Defense attorneys said Peterson’s identification of their clients as the killers based on grainy surveillance tapes was suspect and an open question.

But the jury felt so secure after deliberating for a maximum of 52 minutes, which didn't take into account the time jurors spent walking back and forth to court from picking up their meals after deciding to work through the lunch break, that it did not ask questions or review surveillance footage a second time.

They handed the judge a single note that relayed they arrived at a decision. Attorneys were informed of the jury’s note around 1:16 p.m., while on the lunch break.

For Elaine Batie, the family bedrock whose bright blouses, crisp pants and immaculately applied lipstick belied her grief during the two trials, it was a triumphant moment steeped in tragedy.

Her steely demeanor was tested through the trials, after a jury couldn’t reach a verdict in February following many hours of rancorous discussions.

This time, a jury of seven men and five women delivered their verdict, less than an hour after they were handed the case, inside a packed courtroom where about 40 people gathered.

It was a stunning turn of events that took defense attorneys by surprise following the hotly contested first trial, which centered on surveillance tapes that showed two men lurking in the parking lot of the banquet hall and later rummaging through a white conversion van minutes before the murder.

The first trial ended in mistrial, when a lone holdout was unconvinced the two men on the tapes were Skillman and Tucker.

Hykeem Tucker

Assistant Prosecutor James Scott, who tried the case with colleague Heather Hadley, said he was gratified to see the odyssey come to an end.

“The only thing I care about is that the family gets some closure,” Scott said. “I don’t get validation from jury verdicts. The people who matter are the people who are family of Carl Batie. He was a fantastic person. I never had the pleasure of meeting him. But from everything I’ve heard about … has been nothing but great.”

The hung jury in the first trial required both sides to do the case over, forcing Batie’s mother to reopen a wound that never healed.

The death of Carl Batie, a respected corrections officer whose brother followed in his footsteps, tugged at the heartstrings of the community.

Hundreds of corrections officers and supporters attended his funeral at Shiloh Baptist Church.

Batie, affectionately known as Kion, was remembered as a kindred spirit who shelled out his time, money and effort for family and friends.

Four years after graduating from Trenton Central High School in 2003, Batie landed a job as a corrections officer. When he wasn’t working, he traveled, partied, rode ATVs and spent time with his brothers.

He and his brother, Karshawn, were inseparable. Karshawn testified at both trials that they shopped, ate and even went to the bathroom together.

Carl paid the $50 cover charge for he and his brother to get into the banquet hall that night.

Karshawn was about 20 feet away, standing near the door of the deck as his brother made the final rounds at the banquet hall.

Carl noticed a familiar face in the crowd.

It was bouncer Alexis Feliciano, a convicted felon who he came into contact with at the Mercer County Correction Center in Hopewell.

Feliciano spent time there as an inmate but was turning his life around and landed a job working security at the banquet hall.

The men talked about Carl’s dog-breeding business before gunfire sent party-goers running for cover.

Chaos broke out on the streets, fights and people shouting, as an ambulance scrambled to get to Batie dying on the deck, his eye watering and covered in blood.

Maurice Skillman was caught up in the crowd and arrested for fighting that night. No gun was found on him, and defense attorneys suggested he wore different clothing than the left-handed shooter.

Defense attorneys pointed to two other individuals, alleged Bloods gang member Shaquel Rock and Edward Acosta, a city man whose DNA turned up on a hat on one of the surrounding streets, as the possible killers.

Rock threatened to shoot up the banquet hall and kill a Trenton cop who worked security that night. He was charged with making terroristic threats.

Rock was questioned, but never charged in connection with Batie’s slaying, despite failing a lie-detector test and providing law enforcement with a phony alibi.

Acosta was an easy target for defense attorneys. He is a notorious figure in Trenton who was convicted, and is serving six years, for shooting a city man in the face in 2013.

Nicole Carlo, Skillman’s attorney, said her client was an innocent man who was wrongfully accused by a police detective looking to close one of Trenton’s numerous murder cases.

Campbell, Tucker’s attorney, told jurors in closings they could not rely on the grainy surveillance tapes to convict the men.

In the end, jurors debated the case less than everyone connected to it in Mercer County.

Scott credited the work of Peterson, the lead detective in the case, with making jurors’ decision easier.

They shook hands and hugged after people filtered out of the courtroom.

“Every jury’s different,” Scott said. “We believed we had a very powerful case. The surveillance video was very clear. … I told the family I was going to stay with this case. I was there at the Baldassari the night Carl was killed. Scott Peterson did a fantastic job in this investigation. I was proud after the first trial and I’m proud after this trial.”

Defense: Trenton detective looked to 'nail' wrong men for Batie murder

Isaac Avilucea — Wed, 08 Jun 2016 17:59:08 -0400

Carl Batie and his brother, Karshawn, were leaving the Baldassari Regency banquet hall in the early-morning hours of Nov. 11, 2012.

They stepped out on the deck to get some fresh air, when Carl noticed a familiar face standing on a wooden stoop at the edge of the balcony, gazing over the crowd.

It was Alexis Feliciano, a convicted felon who was turning his life around. Feliciano landed a job as a bouncer at the banquet hall.

Maurice Skillman

Batie, the affable 27-year-old corrections officer from Mercer County, walked over to Feliciano.

They played basketball together in the past and encountered each other at the Mercer County Correction Center in Hopewell, where Feliciano spent time as an inmate.

They chatted about Carl’s dog-breeding business for a few minutes.

Then gunshots rang out, shattering a celebration that brought out more than 200 people to the banquet hall to rejoice over the re-election of President Barack Obama.

Only after the gunshots stopped, and the people ran from the balcony toward the front exit, did the carnage become clear.

“One brother murdered,” Assistant Prosecutor James Scott said. “Another brother affected for the rest of his life.”

Scott delivered the powerful line during closing arguments Wednesday, in the second trial of two men charged with Batie’s murder.

Maurice Skillman and Hykeem "Tex" Tucker, whose first trial this year ended in mistrial, sat motionless as the prosecutor pointed to the evidence he said shows they are responsible for the corrections officer’s death.

Defense attorneys threw out names of two individuals – alleged Bloods gang member Shaquel Rock and Edward Acosta, a man convicted of shooting another city man in the face in 2013 – who they say may be responsible for Batie’s murder.

They also pointed to a “blind spot” on surveillance tapes that captured the inside and outside of the banquet hall, in an attempt to deflect blame from their clients.

“The truth is stranger than fiction,” said Nicole Carlo, Skillman’s attorney.

The tapes are the cornerstone of prosecutors’ case against Skillman and Tucker.

Scott said they show the men “plotting and planning” in the parking lot of the banquet hall minutes before the shooting.

"They weren't talking about sports," he said.

Trenton Police Detective Scott Peterson testified he noticed Tucker at the banquet hall wearing a varsity jacket.

He poured over hours of surveillance, tracing the steps of “Varsity Jacket” and “Tall Guy” – the nickname for Skillman – before concluding they were the killers.

He said a shadowy figure who raised his arm toward the packed balcony around 1:15 a.m. was Skillman. And Tucker acted as a lookout, even waiving to a group of women moments before the shooting.

Scott said the varsity jacket and Maurice’s light-colored shoes stood out “like a light bulb” on the surveillance tapes and made it easy for Peterson to identify them among 200 or more people at the banquet hall.

While tapes inside the club appear to clearly capture Tucker and Skillman, defense attorneys have stressed the identification of the men from parking lot footage is an open question.

And they hammered the point during interruption-plagued closing arguments that took nearly five hours, and required four stoppages, book-ended by technical difficulties.

A juror also took a break for an emergency phone call and jurors had an hour for lunch. Closings ended around 4 p.m., leaving Judge Andrew Smithson with no time to charge jurors on the law.

They will return for the charge Thursday and then begin deliberations, possibly coming back Friday.

In a lot of ways, the imperfect pace of the day symbolized the murder case at hand: an imperfect investigation of an imperfect crime, with gaps on both sides that lend themselves to “speculation” prosecutors cautioned jurors against.

It’s the same “speculation” introduced by defense attorneys to try to wiggle their clients out of the possibility of life in prison if they are convicted of murdering Batie.

Hykeem Tucker

Carlo told jurors Peterson made a number of fatal flaws that led to the prosecution of an “innocent man.”

She said surveillance tapes could not be relied upon to convict the men.

Tucker’s attorney, Christopher Campbell, called the tapes, and screenshots taken from them, “grainy, awful, discolored and terrible.”

Carlo said Peterson was “not a bad person but he made a mistake. He tried to fit things together … like a puzzle.”

“He wasn’t there that night,” she said. “Alexis Feliciano was.”

She pointed to an altercation Feliciano’s brother, Luis, had with Rock about an hour before the banquet hall was shot up. '

Trenton Police officer Jason Woodhead testified about the altercation.

Rock was upset when Luis Feliciano wouldn’t let him in the club after he flashed a fake ID.

Woodhead intervened. Rock walked across toward the street and shouted at Woodhead that he was going to return and shoot up the club.

Woodhead recalled Rock telling him that his badge “wouldn’t save him from a bullet.”

Rock was later charged with making terroristic threats. He was questioned about the murder.

Investigators searched his cousin’s car and found a Champion varsity jacket, which was shown to jurors at trial.

Prosecutors say that is not the same varsity jacket worn by Tucker. His jacket was never recovered.

Despite failing a lie-detector test and providing a phony alibi to law enforcement, Rock was never charged in connection with the corrections officer’s death.

“This is not a level-headed person,” Carlo said. “This is not person who is afraid of law enforcement. He’s threatening to come shoot up the place, but we have to believe this is coincidence?”

Scott countered: “You have heard a lot about Shaquel Rock, Shaquel Rock, Shaquel Rock. What you didn’t hear is what Shaquel Rock looked like.”

Peterson testified Rock was shorter and wore different clothes than the shooter.

Feliciano testified he caught a glimpse of the shooter, a left-handed man in a gray hoodie standing on top of the hood of a car in the parking lot.

Feliciano was on top of a wooden stoop overlooking the crowd and was the “only eyewitness” to the shooting.

Scott said Feliciano was “stressed” after being shot at, and his testimony about the shooter being on top of the hood wasn't supported by surveillance tapes.

“He’s telling you what he thinks is the truth,” Scott said.

Scott said the tapes tell the whole story and unravel lies Tucker told detectives during an interrogation following his arrest.

“The surveillance tapes don’t lie,” he said. “They are what they are. They saw what they saw. They recorded what they recorded.”

Carlo said the tapes, and the witnesses brought in to testify, were used to “solidify Peterson’s ultimate conclusion."

The conclusion comes from the mouth of a “bad cop,” Campbell said.

“You heard him mumbling for an hour,” Campbell said of Tucker's interview with police. “You heard Peterson bullying him, shuffling around his papers in frustration until good cop comes in to try to smooth things over. … If you give someone a hammer, all they’re gonna see is nails.”

Judge won't dismiss murder charges in Batie slaying, cop testifies about threat

Isaac Avilucea — Tue, 07 Jun 2016 13:24:20 -0400

Citing the "powerful" case prosecutors finished putting on Tuesday, a Superior Court judge refused to throw out murder charges against two men suspected of killing off-duty corrections officer Carl Batie in 2012.

Judge Andrew Smithson said a third-party guilt defense offered by suspected triggerman Maurice Skillman was "fanciful."

Skillman is being tried a second time along with Hykeem "Tex" Tucker after their first trial earlier this year ended in mistrial when a jury couldn't reach a verdict.

Maurice Skillman

Tucker is accused of acting as a lookout while Skillman fired 22 shots at the packed balcony of the Baldassari Regency banquet hall in the early-morning hours of Nov. 11, 2012.

Batie was struck in the head and was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

The judge cited surveillance tapes that showed two men getting in and out of a white conversion van parked in the lot of the banquet hall minutes before the murder.

The lead detective in the murder case, Scott Peterson, previously testified that after reviewing hours of surveillance footage from inside and outside the banquet hall, he identified the men in the parking lot as Skillman and Tucker.

Saying jurors could use the tapes to determine whether the two men are guilty, Smithson denied defense attorneys' request for a directed verdict after prosecutors rested their case.

Prosecutors finished presenting their case to the jury after calling a ballistics expert and the county medical examiner, Dr. Raafat Ahmad.

The ballistics expert reviewed shell casings recovered from the murder scene and testified he believed at least 19 of the 22 shots were fired from the same handgun, possibly a TEC-9.

Earlier in the day, a Trenton Police officer testified about being threatened by an alleged Bloods gang member about an hour before shots rang out at the banquet hall.

The man, Shaquel Rock, told the cop that his badge wouldn't "save him from a bullet," said Jason Woodhead, now a sergeant at Trenton Police.

Rock is at the center of defense attorneys' third-party guilt defense.

Woodhead also testified about his interactions with Maurice Skillman on the night of the murder.

Woodhead said he was partnered with Detective Sgt. Anthony Manzo at the banquet hall.

Clad in their police uniforms, they assisted bouncers with keeping order at the club, where as many as 200 people gathered for a party celebrating the re-election of President Barack Obama.

Woodhead and Manzo were stationed at the front of the banquet hall.

Woodhead said he was called over to intervene when one man in line grew unruly with bouncer Luis Feliciano.

Rock, an alleged Bloods gang member, came unhinged when Feliciano refused to let him in the club after he flashed a fake ID, Woodhead said.

Woodhead said he confiscated the identification and told the man to leave.

While Rock walked away from the banquet hall and into the street, he shouted at Woodhead, who was standing next to Feliciano, the brother of Alexis Feliciano, a convicted felon and bouncer who testified that he was posted up on a wooden stoop on the balcony at the time of the shooting.

Woodhead read from a police report that quoted Rock threatening to kill him.

“I don’t give a f--- if you’re on duty or off,” Rock said. “That badge don’t mean sh--. That badge ain’t gonna save you from a bullet.”

After hearing the threats, Woodhead said he walked toward Rock. But the man ran off.

Woodhead didn’t chase him because he had a good lead on him.

Woodhead later looked through a mug book and identified Rock as the man who threatened him.

Rock was arrested and charged with making terroristic threats. But he was never charged in connection with Batie’s slaying.

But Rock has emerged as the key figure in the defense put on by Nicole Carlo, the defense attorney for Skillman.

Peterson, the lead detective, testified earlier that he eliminated Rock as a suspect in Batie’s murder. He said Rock did not fit the physical description of the shooter.

Hykeem Tucker

Woodhead said several skirmishes broke out in front the banquet hall after shots rang out at about 1:15 a.m.

He said he and Manzo got into ab unmarked police vehicle they had driven in to the banquet hall to sweep surrounding streets for suspects after they were given an initial description.

Manzo testified people described seeing two shooters, clad in black and white sweaters.

“Sometimes it’s right,” he said. “Sometimes it’s wrong.”

Woodhead said the two returned to the banquet hall when they learned someone was shot.

Manzo went inside the club while Woodhead waited outside, near the parking lot, keeping an eye on the frenzied crowd. The crowd bottle-necked at the front door as people poured out.

People screamed and shouted, Woodhead said.

He said his attention was drawn to a black man who walked back and forth in the street in front of the banquet hall.

Woodhead said he told the man to leave the area.

The black man was arrested by another officer for fighting. He was identified as Maurice Skillman.

Prior to being arrested, Skillman walked around a U-Haul truck parked in the street and remained there for a few seconds, Woodhead said.

Woodhead said after Skillman walked off, he went with his flashlight and searched around the U-Haul to make sure Skillman didn’t leave something behind.

Manzo, a 30-year veteran at Trenton Police, watched video surveillance of himself posted near the door, pointing himself out to the jury as well as Tucker, Maurice and Marquis Skillman.

He said he knew the Skillman twins because he watched them grow up while working the capital city streets for three decades.

He referred to Maurice as “Tall Skillman,” using similar language as Peterson. Peterson referred to Maurice Skillman as “Tall Guy.”

Manzo said he noticed Tucker as he walked into the club because of his distinctive jacket.

“It reminded me of when I used to play football,” said Manzo, a tattooed hulking 6 foot man with a shaved head and carefully manicured goatee.

'Tex' was identified by FBI agent's confidential informant

Isaac Avilucea — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 15:18:06 -0400

A city police detective caught a “big break” while investigating the murder of off-duty Mercer County corrections officer Carl Batie.

Trenton Police detective Scott Peterson testified under cross examination Thursday that, until he got a phone call from someone from the FBI, he didn’t know the government name of a man who was later charged in Batie’s slaying at the Baldassari Regency banquet hall in November 2012.

Peterson said he obtained a photo of a man who was at the banquet hall in the early-morning hours of Nov. 11, 2012.

Hykeem Tucker

After showing the photo to Marquis Skillman during an interview in January 2013, the detective learned the man’s street name was “Tex.”

Skillman also told the detective he drove to the banquet hall with “Tex” and his brother, Maurice, in his girlfriend's blue Chevrolet Impala.

Maurice Skillman was later charged with Batie’s murder. Prosecutors believe he fired the fatal shot that struck Batie in the head while he stood on the packed balcony.

Armed with the street name, Peterson went to a violent crime meeting of local law enforcement. There, he passed out photocopies of the picture of Tex.

He said sometime after that he received a phone call from James McCaffery, the FBI special agent who is best known for finding $2,500 in marked bills in wallet of Ralphiel Mack during a corruption investigation that also netted his brother, former Trenton Mayor Tony Mack.

McCaffery told the Trenton detective a confidential informant identified “Tex” as Hykeem Tucker.

Tucker apparently earned the nickname because he is originally from Texas.

Christopher Campbell, Tucker’s attorney, asked Peterson why he didn’t include information in his police report about how he got his client’s name.

Peterson said it wasn’t relevant.

Peterson acknowledged he didn’t doubt the special agent’s word or ask him questions about his confidential informant.

“Confidential,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to know his name.”

Campbell said it was possible the confidential informant was at the banquet hall the night of the murder and had additional information.

Peterson shrugged off the suggestion.

“I have a lot of faith in James McCaffery,” he said. “If his informant had told him anything more about Hykeem Tucker, [McCaffery] would have told me.”

Suspected Batie killer to detective: 'Kiss my black a--'

Isaac Avilucea — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 13:47:35 -0400

Hykeem Tucker took a drag from the cigarette a police detective sparked up for him. It was all “bullsh--,” he exclaimed.

Offering to take a lie-detector test, he said the “rats” feeding city police detective Scott Peterson bad information about his alleged involvement in the murder of off-duty corrections officer Carl Batie in 2012 could “kiss my black a--.”

Hykeem Tucker

“Wherever you go the information … I didn’t kill nobody,” Tucker said. “I’m getting charged with something I didn’t do.”

During an interview with police in January 2013, after he had already been charged, a defiant Tucker repeatedly told detectives he had nothing to do with the murder of the Mercer County corrections officer.

The interrogation was played for jurors Thursday, prior to defense attorneys beginning their cross examination of Peterson.

Tucker was charged with Batie’s murder Jan. 24, 2013. Maurice Skillman, the alleged gunman, was also charged in the slaying. They are being tried together a second time after their first trial earlier this year ended with a hung jury.

Tucker was interrogated by Peterson, the lead detective assigned to the case, the same day he was charged.

After pouring over hours of surveillance tapes, Peterson has testified “Varsity Jacket,” referring to Tucker, and “Tall Guy,” the nickname for Skillman, were responsible for Batie’s death.

He said he drew his conclusions after tracking the men’s movements from numerous camera angles that showed the exterior and interior of the banquet hall.

The surveillance tapes are the cornerstone of prosecutors’ case.

Relevant portions of the tapes were culled from more than 50 hours of footage and shown to jurors on an overhead projector screen.

The gritty images have been fleeting, forcing jurors and those in the courtroom gallery to strain their eyes to try to see what the detectives said he saw.

Peterson referred to the tapes several times during his interrogation of Tucker.

He told Tucker he knew he was involved with Batie’s murder, and that if he wasn’t, he needed to stop offering “half-assed answers.”

“You’re on video,” Peterson told Tucker. “You cut through the bulls---. … You know what you’re looking at? 60 years.”

Batie was shot in the head while he stood with a bouncer, Alexis Feliciano, on the deck of the Baldassari Regency banquet hall in the early-morning hours of Nov. 11, 2012.

The shooting happened around 1:15 a.m.

Tucker is accused of acting as a lookout while Skillman fired the fatal shot that struck Batie. Batie was with his brother, Karshawn, attending a party celebrating the re-election of President Barack Obama.

About 50 people were on the balcony, while hundreds were also inside the banquet hall at the time of the shooting.

But only two said they got a glimpse of the shooter, a man in a gray hoodie.

Feliciano, a convicted felon who along with his brother worked security at the club, was standing on a wooden stoop overlooking the crowd on the balcony when gunshots rang out.

He testified at both trials that the shooter, clad in a gray hooded sweatshirt, was on the hood of a car in the parking lot below when he opened fire. He did not get a look at the shooter’s face.

Maurice Skillman

Peterson showed Tucker pictures from the club, some of them of a man closely resembling Tucker.

“That’s you,” the detective thundered.

Tucker placated the police detective but later in the interview said he was not agreeing that he was the man depicted in the photos.

But Peterson knew better. He had interviewed Marquis Skillman, Maurice’s twin brother.

Marquis told the detective that he drove his brother and a man he knew as “Tex” – Tucker’s nickname – to the banquet hall in his girlfriend’s blue Chevrolet Impala.

Maurice Skillman’s attorney has acknowledged he was at the club with his brother to have fun and ended up wrongfully accused of murder.

Tucker told the detective he wouldn’t have stuck around Trenton if he killed Batie.

“I would be somewhere else, hiding,” he said. “I wouldn’t be outside waiting for no officer to come pick me up.”

Defense attorney Nicole Carlo began what is expected to be a lengthy cross examination of Peterson.

As part of a third-party guilt defense, she focused on other unsavory characters who were at the club the night of the shooting and who she surmised were more likely suspects.

She mentioned a city man named Shaquel Rock, an alleged Bloods gang member who was enraged when he had been denied entrance to the club that night.

She also asked questions about Edward Acosta, a Trenton man who is serving a 6-year prison sentence for shooting a man in the face. His DNA turned up on a New York Giants that was found on city streets surrounding the banquet hall.

Acosta has a bad backstory.

He was with another man, Timothy Miller, who was shot by Trenton Police Officer George Wilson after he drew down on him during a foot chase May 2, 2013.

Rock, however, was a person of interest early on in the Batie slaying.

He threatened a police officer and club bouncer when they didn’t let him in the club and confiscated his ID.

Rock was charged with terroristic threats for threatening to shoot up the club. But he was never charged in Batie's murder.

Carlo pointed out the club was shot up about 40 minutes after the confrontation with Rock and his associates. Rock threatened off-duty cop Jason Woodhead along with bouncer Luis Feliciano, Alexis' brother.

Peterson said he eliminated Rock as a suspect in Batie’s murder because he didn’t match a description of the shooter.

He said Rock, a slender man standing about 5 feet 6 inches tall, was captured by video at the front entrance in light-colored clothing.

At least two people told the detective the shooter wore a gray hoodie.

Carlo pointed out that her client, Maurice Skillman, was arrested for fighting outside the club following the shooting. He was wearing a black hoodie with a red emblem rather than a gray hoodie.

He also did not have a gun on him when he was arrested.

The detective agreed.

She also asked Peterson about results of a lie-detector test given to Rock, which showed he acted deceptively with detectives. Rock also apparently lied about having an alibi.

Because they are considered notoriously unreliable, lie-detector tests are not admissible as evidence in New Jersey courts.

Peterson is expected to testify the rest of the day. This story will be updated.

Trenton detective tells tale of the tapes in Batie murder retrial

Isaac Avilucea — Wed, 01 Jun 2016 18:24:25 -0400

Veteran city police detective Scott Peterson believes he has a keen eye for criminals.

But will jurors in the second murder trial of two men suspected of killing off-duty Mercer County corrections officer Carl Batie see what the Trenton Police detective sees on surveillance tapes?

Peterson, the husky homicide investigator, remarked with an air of exactitude during hours of testimony Wednesday that he knows Maurice Skillman and Hykeem Tucker were behind the murder of Batie.

Maurice Skillman

Peterson’s convictions on the stand were steeled from reviewing numerous camera angles that showed the exterior and interior of the Baldassari Regency banquet hall in the early-morning hours of Nov. 11, 2012.

“I continued to watch the video, hours and hours,” he said, noting how his attention was drawn to the man wearing the distinctive varsity jacket.

The surveillance tapes are the cornerstone of prosecutors’ case against the two suspected killers.

Relevant portions of the tapes were culled from more than 50 hours of footage, then shown to jurors on an overhead projector screen.

The gritty images were often fleeting, jurors and those in the courtroom gallery having to strain their eyes and reach for the Visine after a long day of testimony.

Even Peterson, with his trained eyes, at times had a hard time gazing from the witness stand. But he’s has seen these videos for so long, they are almost a part of him.

He said the “Tall Guy” who appeared on the tapes was none other than suspected shooter Maurice Skillman, Tucker, the alleged lookout, “Varsity Jacket.”

Defense attorneys have portrayed the tapes as black-and-white footage that does not clearly show the shooting, let alone whether their clients' alleged involvement.

Partly for that reason, the men are on trial a second time, in what has turned into a Gordian knot of a murder case for prosecutors. As it goes, there is no motive and no murder weapon.

On some level, the case rises and falls with the tapes and with the word of Peterson, a towering man with jagged salt-and-pepper hair and a paunch that is on par with most middle-aged men.

Dressed in a dark suit and a neatly tied tie, Peterson put his best foot forward for jurors. But they are really being asked to rely on his eyes.

Peterson told the panel how he reached out to NFL Films and a law enforcement consultant group to see if they could enhance surveillance to draw out his suspects more.

Guiding jurors through the tapes, Peterson focused in on “Tall Guy” and “Varsity Jacket” because of their give-away clothes, mannerisms and actions leading up to the murder.

Hykeem Tucker

He said he traced their steps – from the moment they arrived with in a blue Chevrolet Impala that belonged to the girlfriend of Marquis Skillman, Maurice’s twin brother – to the time he said a shadowy “silhouette” raised an outstretched arm around 1:15 a.m. and let off 22 shots in seconds on the packed deck of the banquet hall.

Batie was shot in the head while he stood with a friend. He was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Last time, a jury was not convinced.

A trial in February resulted in mistrial when a jury couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict, guaranteeing a second round of Peterson and Co.

This panel must also decide if Peterson's vision is on the money.

The detective, once again, played the part of outsized tour guide, gesturing to jurors to take note of certain times on the tapes when he said Skillman and Tucker set their plan in action.

He described the garb the two men wore, Tucker dressed in a varsity jacket, bearing decals on the left breast and left arm of the jacket.

A man bearing a strong resemblance to Tucker was also captured wearing a dark-colored varsity jacket with what appeared to be white arms inside the club.

Jurors were shown a blown-up photo of the man standing next to Marquis Skillman, who was not charged in connection with Batie’s murder.

Marquis Skillman may prove key for prosecutors. The twin brother was called as a witness this week and largely dodged prosecutors’ questions on the stand when asked about what he told Peterson during an interview in January 2013.

Jurors were shown the interview a day later, in which Marquis Skillman marked up photos for Peterson, pointing out himself and a man he knew as “Tex.” Tex is Tucker’s nickname.

He also told the detective he was at the banquet hall with his brother, Maurice.

Maurice Skillman’s defense attorney has always acknowledged the brothers were at the club that night, to have a good time. But Nicole Carlo said her client ended up wrongfully accused of murder.

For Peterson, Marquis Skillman’s interview proved critical in helping him identify Tucker and Maurice Skillman at later times during the tapes.

Marquis Skillman

While Peterson’s vision may be 20/20, and prosecutors hope jurors believe his word is golden, it is difficult to tell whether two men who rifled through a white van and walked back and forth from alleyways near the parking lot of the banquet hall minutes before the murder are the same men who appear to resemble Tucker and Maurice Skillman on surveillance tapes inside Baldassari.

Peterson testified that both men climbed inside a white van, apparently to retrieve something. He used a laser point to explain to jurors that one surveillance angle capturing the rear of the van showed Varsity Jacket – Tucker – reaching into the back seat.

He said if jurors looked closely they would see Tucker’s white-armed varsity jacket poking out from the rear window.

Nonplussed by the defendants’ claims of innocence, Peterson said Maurice Skillman was also captured by the tapes fleeing shortly after the shooting, with his arm by his side and “a black object” in his hand.

Peterson is back on the stand Thursday.

Batie murder suspect's brother mostly mum on witness stand

Isaac Avilucea — Tue, 31 May 2016 17:29:06 -0400

The tantrum-throwing, paper-tossing twin brother of a suspected killer behaved a bit better on the witness stand the second time around.

Marquis Skillman

The last time he was on the stand a few months ago, Marquis Skillman, the twin brother of suspected killer Maurice Skillman, tossed the written statement he gave Trenton detectives to the ground and kept his eyes downcast, never eyeballing jurors.

He wasn’t helpful to prosecutors or defense attorneys at the first trial for Maurice Skillman and alleged accomplice Hykeem Tucker, who are charged with murder in the slaying of off-duty Mercer County corrections officer Carl Batie.

Batie was shot in the head in the early-morning hours of Nov. 11, 2012 as he stood on the deck of the Baldassari Regency banquet hall.

At the first trial in February, Marquis Skillman, who was not charged in connection with Batie's murder, cursed at court officials and responded 57 times that he didn’t know or didn’t remember what attorneys were talking about when they asked him about information he provided to authorities during a January 2013 interview with Trenton Detective Scott Peterson.

On Tuesday, during the murder retrial, Marquis Skillman still wasn’t much help to prosecutors, repeating the same foggy memory routine.

But he wasn’t as combative with Assistant Prosecutor James Scott.

Wearing a crisp white button-up shirt, his hair in tight cornrows and a scraggly beard on his face, Marquis Skillman largely refused to testify about what he told detectives in the interview. He had acknowledged in the interview that he and his brother had driven together to the banquet hall on the night of the murder.

Hykeem Tucker

But this time, Marquis Skillman didn’t toss his statement. He just played dumb when the prosecutors asked him whether he met with Peterson on Jan. 9, 2013.

During the interview, Marquis Skillman picked Tucker -- whom he knew as “Tex” -- and his brother out in photos.

As defense attorneys pointed out, he was not asked to identify them as the suspects in a murder.

Marquis Skillman, who is incarcerated awaiting sentencing on his own robbery charges, pretty much told the prosecutor he couldn’t pick Peterson out of a photo lineup of to save his life.

The portly Peterson is one of Trenton’s most recognizable detectives.

Marquis Skillman was asked if it would help him remember if Scott described the husky homicide investigator.

He’s white, standing about 6 feet 3 inches tall and weighing 270 pounds, the prosecutor said.

Marquis Skillman stared back blankly. Didn’t jog his memory, he said.

He remained that way for most of the 30 minutes he was on the witness standing, responding marginally better to questions from defense attorneys.

Prosecutors plan to show jurors the tape of Marquis Skillman's interview with detectives.

Maurice Skillmans.

The tapes from Baldassari were also the focus of much of Tuesday’s testimony.

Ronald Kinnunen, a detective in Trenton Police’s technical services unit, was pressed up about the process it took to get surveillance footage off the banquet hall’s “antiquated” surveillance system.

Kinnunen said he copied the footage minute-for-minute onto a camcorder in a time crunch.

Detectives rode him to get large swatches of the tapes so they identify people who they needed to speak with as part of the investigation into Batie’s murder.

He was asked repeatedly, and responded again and again, that he felt the quality of the surveillance tapes was not impacted by the steps he was forced to take to ensure the surveillance was preserved.

Kinnunen often used techie jargon, which was made worse when combined with his cop-speak-riddled testimony, in explaining to jurors the steps he took to download the surveillance tapes.

The tapes are the cornerstone of the prosecutors’ case against Maurice Skillman and Tucker.

Peterson, the lead detective, is expected to guide jurors through the surveillance tapes begining Wednesday. He is expected to testify the rest of the week.

Crime scene detective goes over finer details in Batie murder retrial

Isaac Avilucea — Tue, 31 May 2016 14:13:06 -0400

A crime scene detective testified Tuesday about some of the finer details of an investigation that led to the arrest of two city men who are suspected of killing off-duty Mercer County corrections officer Carl Batie.

Marcellos Rosa Delgado, a crime scene technician with Trenton Police, described combing the murder scene for evidence outside of Baldassari Regency banquet hall in the early-morning hours of Nov. 11, 2012.

She was called out to the scene shortly before 2 a.m., after chaos engulfed the banquet hall when a gunman opened fire on the packed balcony, striking Batie in the head. He was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Maurice Skillman

Maurice Skillman and Hykeem Tucker are on trial a second time, charged with murder in Batie’s slaying. Skillman was the alleged gunman, while Tucker acted as a lookout, prosecutors said.

Their first trial this year ended in a mistrial as a jury could not reach a unanimous verdict.

By the time Rosa Delgado arrived, the murder scene was roped off with yellow crime scene tape and secured by police officers who stood watch outside

She meticulously collected and photographed evidence from the scene. She collected 22 spent shell casings in the parking lot of the banquet hall, along with two bullet fragments.

Rosa Delgado processed some of the cars in the parking lot for DNA and fingerprints. She said she lifted seven fingerprints off a blue Impala, but only two were “suitable” for comparison of others kept in a fingerprint database used by law enforcement.

The fingerprints turned out to be a dead end, Rosa Delgado said. No hits came back connecting anybody to the fingerprints at the scene.

Rosa Delgado also took pictures of vents outside of the banquet hall deck that had “strike marks,” from where some of the bullets ricocheted. Jurors were shown photos of the vents, bearing a pair of apparent bullet marks.

She collected a New York Giants Snapback hat, a black winter hat, a dark ski mask and a black bandanna from streets surrounding the banquet hall. DNA tests were run on some of the items.

Jurors were informed at the first trial that DNA belonging to an individual named Edward Acosta was present on the Giants' hat. Acosta was, for all intents and purposes, a mystery man at the first trial.

He was never connected to or charged with Batie’s murder, and all authorities could say about the individual is he was on a city street near the banquet hall where a murder took place, and he left his hat.

Hykeem Tucker

Prosecutors said they don't plan to have a forensic scientist testify about the DNA link to Acosta at the second trial.

They believe the DNA evidence, which was offered to show police conducted a thorough investigation, may have confused the last panel, leading it question the judge about whether it could consider alternative theories.

Prosecutors tried to eliminate prospective jurors with a yearning for arm-chair detective work from the second trial by asking them whether they had watched the popular Netflix docuseries "Making a Murderer," which chronicled the life of convicted killer Steven Avery, of Wisconsin.

Prosecutors believe the influence of the show has made their job more difficult, similar to the so-called CSI effect, discussing the impact the crime-scene detective show has had on jurors in criminal trials.

Some legal experts say the phenomenon is largely anecdotal and point to studies that discount its effect on jurors.

One legal expert told The Trentonian that the question about “Making a Murderer” appeared to target specific jurors who may be more skeptical of law enforcement and the criminal justice system.

Prospective jurors in other parts of New Jersey have not been asked about the show during jury selection.

The trial resumed this afternoon.

Brother of slain Mercer corrections officer recounts horror of banquet hall murder

Isaac Avilucea — Thu, 26 May 2016 17:53:58 -0400

Life was good for Carl Batie.

The former corrections officer had a flourishing career. He had just bought a new BMW and planned to take it for a spin with his brother, Karshawn, to the Baldassari Regency banquet hall on Nov. 10, 2012.

The two brothers were a few years apart but inseparable whether at home or in the bathroom. They headed to the banquet hall around 10 p.m. for a party celebrating the re-election of President Barack Obama.

Maurice Skillman

When they arrived, Carl flaked out $50 to pay both he and his brother’s cover charge.

“He treated me,” Karshawn said on the witness stand Thursday.

Karshawn, 28, a burly corrections officer in Burlington County whose form-fitting black shirt hardly contained his ripped biceps, was the first witness to take the stand in the retrial of two men suspected of fatally shooting his brother on the deck of the banquet hall.

Maurice Skillman and Hykeem Tucker are charged with murder, Skillman for allegedly pulling the trigger while Tucker acted as a lookout in the early-morning hours of Nov. 11, 2012.

"We know the who but we don't know the why," Assistant Prosecutor Heather Hadley told jurors in openings.

Nicole Carlo, Skillman’s attorney, said her client also went to the club with his twin brother, Marquis, to have a good time. She said he ended up “wrongfully accused” of murder.

She said the police rushed to charge her client, based on Trenton Police detective Scott Peterson’s review of grainy surveillance footage, and his word that a tall, slender man who appears in the tapes is Skillman, the shooter.

“We're not talking about a house party. We're talking about Baldassari Regency,” Carlo said. “Were there no other tall, slender individuals there?”

Chris Campbell, Tucker’s attorney, said prosecutors must prove his client was somehow involved in the murder. He said he and his client could sit back and “twiddle our thumbs” and have no obligation to put on a case.

Campbell said Batie’s death was tragic, but added “convicting someone who was not involved in this is not going to bring him back.”

Like he did at the first trial, Karshawn described the unfolding horror from the moment gunshots rang out shortly after 1 a.m. He and his brother had stepped out onto the packed balcony to get fresh air before they left the banquet hall for the night.

Karshawn said his brother didn’t like the area where he parked his new whip, in an elementary school parking lot not far from the banquet hall. They planned to leave around 1:30 a.m., ahead of the crowd so they could beat traffic.

As the brothers walked of the glass doors onto the deck, Carl saw Alex Feliciano standing on a wooden plank near the balcony.

Hykeem Tucker

Feliciano testified he was working security detail at the club and was perched on the plank to keep a watchful eye on the crowd.

He also had a good view of the parking lot below, where a suspect in a dark gray hoodie emerged from “out of the shadows,” Hadley said.

The shooter sprayed 22 shots in rapid succession from on top of the hood of a car and then ran off down an alley, enveloped by darkness, Feliciano said. He didn’t get a look at the shooter’s face, as he was forced to duck for cover when the shots rang out.

Feliciano’s testimony mirrored what he said at the first trial in February, which ended in a hung jury.

A convicted felon, Feliciano has served time at the county jail where he ran into Batie. They had also played basketball together in the past.

Karshawn said his brother immediately recognized Feliciano. They smiled at each other and he went over to greet him, while Karshawn remained near the doors.

His eyes, however, remained fixed on his brother, until the shots rang out.

Batie and Feliciano discussed the correction officer’s dog breeding business. While Batie showed Feliciano pictures of dogs on his phone, a burst of gunfire sent everyone to the floor.

Karshawn said a woman grabbed him and told him to get down. After the gunfire stopped, he scanned the panicked crowd for his brother but didn’t see him.

“You're gonna look for your brother forget everybody else,” Karshawn said.

He finally spotted him on the floor of the balcony. He had been shot in the head, about two inches above his right eye, Karshawn said.

Batie’s eye watered, blood squirting from the bullet wound, onto the patio deck, Feliciano said. Batie appeared to try to say something but couldn’t muster the words.

Karshawn ran to his brother’s side, begged him to stay with him and looked out on the streets. People ran in all directions, others fought. He saw an ambulance down the block, but it was blocked by the panicked patrons.

He heard someone tell him to call his mother to tell her what happened.

“How do you tell your mother something like this?” he said, his voice cracking as he reached for a tissue to wipe tears from his eyes.

When the paramedics arrived, Karshawn asked them if his brother was going to make it.

“They didn't say anything,” he said.

Asking jurors about ‘Making a Murderer’ in Trenton homicide retrial a bad idea, experts say

Isaac Avilucea — Sun, 22 May 2016 20:27:14 -0400

Lady Justice is supposed to be blind.

Prosecutors and Mercer County Superior Court Judge Andrew Smithson, however, may be slipping off the blindfold and tipping the scales in an upcoming murder trial, legal experts said.

Maurice Skillman

Smithson has indicated he will allow prospective jurors in the murder retrial of two Trenton men accused of gunning down off-duty Mercer County corrections officer Carl Batie to be questioned about whether they watched “Making a Murderer.”

The hit Netflix docuseries chronicled the life of Steven Avery, a Wisconsin convict who has been held out as the poster child for flaws in the criminal justice system.

Prosecutors want to know if prospective jurors have watched the show, and if so, whether it has shaped their views of the criminal justice system.

However, one legal expert said asking such a specific question targets jurors who may be skeptical of law enforcement and the criminal justice system, which could impact the fairness of the retrial for suspected killers Maurice Skillman and Hykeem Tucker.

“You’re giving the prosecutor an extra tool for jurors to strike,” said Jules Epstein, law professor and director of advocacy programs at Temple University Beasley School of Law.

While Epstein stressed the judge can allow for the question to be asked of prospective jurors, he said a more pragmatic route exists for prosecutors to zero in on potential jury bias.

Joseph Coronato told The Trentonian in a recent phone interview his prosecutors do not ask about “Making a Murderer” in homicide cases in Ocean County, nor was he aware of prosecutors in other New Jersey counties being allowed to ask about the influence the show has or hasn’t had.

“That may be somewhat fact-generated.,” Coronato said. “The facts of that case may be similar to what is on the TV show that [the judge] feels it’s appropriate.”

Smithson admitted, during a recent pretrial conference, he has never watched the show.

But after hearing Assistant Prosecutor James Scott’s rendition of what the show depicts, Smithson felt it is relevant to ask prospective jurors in Mercer County, despite no connections between the circumstances in “Making a Murderer” and Batie’s murder.

Batie was a corrections officer who was shot in the head on the balcony of the Baldassari Regency banquet hall in Trenton in 2012. He and his brother were attending a party celebrating the re-election of President Barack Obama.

Prosecutors in Trenton suggested Skillman used a TEC-9 to spray up the balcony, while Tucker acted as a lookout. The authorities believed Batie was an innocent bystander of a gang-related shooting.

Attorneys for Skillman and Tucker made clear to jurors in the first trial that no evidence suggested their clients knew Batie or that he was targeted because he was a corrections officer.

Hykeem Tucker

Compare that with the case of Avery, a Wisconsin man who spent 18 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of rape.

Released from prison after being cleared by DNA evidence, Avery sued the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Department for $36 million.

Two years later, he was charged with killing Teresa Halbach, a 25-year-old freelance photographer who worked for the magazine Auto Trader. She went to his family’s salvage yard to take pictures of a van on Halloween in 2005.

Avery and Halbach had been acquainted as she had been out to the property to photograph other cars, Wisconsin prosecutors said.

They said at trial Avery phoned the magazine the day of Halbach’s disappearance and requested her for the photo shoot.

The woman’s remains were eventually found in a burn pit on Avery’s property. Avery and his nephew, Brendan Dassey, were convicted of killing Halbach and are serving life sentences.

That is one example of the stark differences between the murders.

Scott, the Mercer County prosecutor, also admitted the investigation into Halbach’s disappearance in “rural Wisconsin” was not the way investigators operate in New Jersey.

Yet, Scott, who didn’t hide his disdain for the filmmakers’ slant, still wants prospective jurors in Trenton questioned about the show.

The prosecutor will get his way, barring a sudden reversal by Smithson.

But legal experts said Mercer County prosecutors should be careful because the question could open up Pandora’s Box.

“Normally, I would not ask anybody about a TV show,” Coronato said. “Once you say ‘TV show,’ how many cops TV shows are there? Where do you stop, once you open up that door? Where do you go with that?”

Epstein said prospective jurors who were unaware of the show may become curious and watch it.

“Why are you stirring up these waters?” he said.

'Making a Murderer' making it tough for Mercer County prosecutors

Isaac Avilucea — Wed, 18 May 2016 19:02:41 -0400

Call it the “Making a Murderer” effect.

When jury selection kicks off next week in the second murder trial of two men accused of killing Mercer County corrections officer Carl Batie, prosecutors will ask prospective jurors whether they watched the popular true crime Netflix docuseries and if it impacted their views on police, prosecutors and the criminal justice system.

Hykeem Tucker

During jury selection, prospective jurors are regularly asked about the types of newspapers, magazines and books they read and televisions shows and movies they watch.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys do so to focus in on potential juror biases and will do so moreso in the retrial of suspected killers Maurice Skillman and Hykeem Tucker.

Their first trial, held earlier this year, ended in a mistrial – one of four hung juries and an acquittal in the last six murder trials tried in Mercer County.

The trend has befuddled legal experts who debated whether something is wrong with the way prosecutors present murder cases or if it reflects views of jurors in Mercer County.

This is the first time in Trenton, and possibly New Jersey, that jurors are being asked whether they watched the series, which chronicled the life of Steven Avery, a Wisconsin man who was exonerated by DNA evidence 18 years after he was wrongfully convicted of rape only to end up convicted of murdering 25-year-old photographer Teresa Halbach years after he was released from prison.

A former New Jersey prosecutor said not to discount the impact “Making a Murderer” has had in heightening awareness of wrongful convictions and shaping jurors’ perceptions of law enforcement, especially following round-the-clock coverage of police actions in Ferguson, Baltimore, New York and elsewhere.

“It’s created a shadow over law enforcement,” said Lewis Korngut, who spent six years as homicide chief for the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office and now does criminal defense work for the Trenton law firm Kamensky Cohen & Riechelson. “You’d be surprised of the people I’ve spoken to who believe everything they hear about that case. It’s created a higher burden for prosecutors in murder cases.”

Avery was charged with Halbach’s murder while his lawyers were litigating a $36 million lawsuit against the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Department.

The filmmakers of the 10-episode series have been applauded and criticized, some suggesting they uncovered flaws in the criminal justice system while others believe they highlighted aspects of the case that created compelling television but provided an incomplete look of the evidence against Avery and his nephew, Brendan Dassey, who was also convicted of killing Halbach.

Even members of the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office were swept up in the fervor over “Making a Murderer.”

One Mercer County prosecutor and his wife attended a speaking event in Philadelphia for Dean Strang and Jerome Buting, even having their questions for Avery’s now-famous attorneys read at the forum.

Maurice Skillman

Not everyone is a fan, though.

Assistant Prosecutor James Scott said the filmmakers’ slant provided an “editorialized” narrative that portrayed Avery as a victim of a frame job at the hands of overzealous police and prosecutors.

Avery’s defense attorneys suggested at trial that Manitowoc sheriffs planted evidence because Avery was suing the department for its role in the rape investigation that led to his wrongful conviction.

In recent years, prosecutors, defense lawyers and judges have focused much attention on the so-called CSI effect, referring to the influence of the crime-scene show on jurors’ expectations of forensic evidence in criminal cases.

While Korngut compared the possible effects of “Making a Murderer” to how CSI has impacted jurors over the last 16 years, other legal experts say research suggests any link between the two is anecdotal, relying on lawyers’ opinions in surveys.

Hard data, they say, does not back up the so-called CSI effect.

“Making a Murderer is a paradigm for the new realism in the jury pool,” said Jack Furlong, a criminal defense lawyer in Trenton.

Furlong said prosecutors’ decision to ask jurors about the show demonstrates they are cognizant of the “proposition that not every law enforcement official is a saint and not every prosecutor is interested in the pursuit of justice.”

For decades, jurors had an “unconscious bias in favor of police officers,” Furlong said.

The O.J. Simpson murder case changed everything as the football star’s attorneys pressed upon the frayed nerve of disenchanted blacks who had been brutalized, harassed and watched Los Angeles Police officers get away with beating Rodney King in the early 1990s.

Korngut said trust in law enforcement lost during The Trial of the Century was restored after the September 11 terroristic attacks.

Both Furlong and Korngut agree a spate of police brutality cases have again eroded trust in law enforcement, offering an opening for defense attorneys in a system where prosecutors must prove cases beyond a reasonable doubt.

“The pendulum is swinging back and everyone is trying to figure out how far it swung and how they can get around that,” Furlong said.

“Jurors like to be sleuths,” Korngut said. “They like to solve the case themselves and they sometimes inject facts and they tend to speculate when it’s not there. Speculation is dangerous. The old, ‘To assume is to make an ass out of you and me.’”

That came into play at Skillman’s and Tucker’s first trial.

During deliberations, jurors passed a note asking if they could consider alternative theories.

Korngut said picking juries is tough.

Mercer prosecutors rely on their experiences and do not consult jury experts for help, spokeswoman Casey DeBlasio said.

“A lot of it is demographics,” Korngut said. “What jobs they have. Where they live. Do they have children? Do they have a stake in the community? But a lot of it is feel, from their non-verbal communication. You have to read the jurors.”

No success in murder trials could impact nomination of Mercer County prosecutor

Isaac Avilucea — Tue, 17 May 2016 20:12:52 -0400

Shaheed Brown is shaping up to be the new “Boom Bat” of Mercer County.

Brown’s murder case has drawn comparisons to convicted murderer and Latin Kings leader Jose “Boom Bat” Negrete because of the difficulties prosecutors have had trying the cases.

Shaheed Brown listens to testimony from State Police Detective Joseph Itri. Gregg Slaboda - The Trentonian

It has also shined a bright light on a spate of mistrials and acquittals that have legal experts debating the way prosecutors try homicide cases in Mercer County and whether a “string of bad luck” could impact the future of Angelo Onofri.

Onofri may already have an image problem because of close ties to former prosecutor Joseph Bocchini.

Weeks after prosecutors packed the courtroom and celebrated the hard-fought conviction of Negrete, news of Bocchini’s alleged sexual harassment overshadowed the win and Onofri’s coronation as top cop.

Legal experts say that blaming the lack of success in murder cases on the acting Mercer County prosecutor doesn’t take into consideration other factors. But while experts say the trend is cyclical, they agree the timing of the mistrials and acquittals could be problematic for Onofri as he vies for the nomination from Gov. Chris Christie for Mercer’s top law enforcement position.

“The issue is: Are they getting not guilty [verdicts] on cases they should be getting guilty [verdicts] or are they taking tougher cases to trial?” said J.C. Lore III, a law professor at Rutgers University. “I think that is something a governor would want to know.”

‘Boom Brown’

Jose "Boom Bat" Negrete

The Boom Bat case is the last successful murder prosecution for Onofri’s office.

Since Negrete was convicted in April 2015 of ordering the execution-style killing of gang queen, Jeri Lynn Dotson, as well as a botched murder attempt on gang turncoat Alex Ruiz, prosecutors have been dealt the following blows:

Keith Wells-Holmes is acquitted in May 2015 of fatally shooting city graffiti artist Andre Corbett.
Isiah Greene’s murder trial for allegedly shooting Bloods gang member Quaadir “Ace” Gurley to death in 2013 ends in mistrial in October.
Thirteen days later, Brown’s first trial for allegedly shooting Enrico Smalley Jr. to death ends in mistrial.
About three months later, a jury for the third time in three months can’t reach a verdict in the murder trial of suspected killers Maurice Skillman and Hykeem Tucker, who are charged with gunning down Mercer County corrections officer Carl Batie.
And finally, last week, a jury says it’s deadlocked in Brown’s second murder.

After two failed attempts to convict Brown, legal experts say prosecutors must consider how likely a conviction is in a time where television and radio shows influence everything from the types of evidence jurors expect in criminal trials to their beliefs about the criminal justice system.

Further, there are the haunting images from places like Ferguson and Baltimore, which make jurors more skeptical of police officers and fearful of sending someone to prison for life in circumstantial cases like Brown’s where they are asked to believe the word of law enforcement, legal experts say.

“I do think 20 years of cops and robbers is going to have some impact on the way people look at cases,” said defense attorney Mark Fury, who represented Boom Bat at his first trial and also represents suspected killer Isiah Greene. “The jury pool comes from the community, and the community is questioning police and prosecutors. The fact they have a badge or title doesn’t make their mouths a prayer book.”

Furlong, the garrulous defense attorney who has been practicing law for 40 years, called it the “pissing in the milk effect.”

“If you take a 2-year-old kid and stand him along a 2,000-gallon vat of milk and he takes a leak in that milk, it might have an ounce of baby’s urine,” he said. “But when you’re offered a glass, you’re still gonna say, ‘That’s OK. I’ll pass.’ There only needs to be one viral video of a cop dropping a Taser … to contaminate the credibility of police departments nationwide.”

Prosecutor responds

Speaking generally about the difficulties prosecutors face when trying murder cases, Onofri in a statement cited, among other things, the “CSI effect,” referring to the influence the popular crime-scene television show has had on jurors in Mercer County and elsewhere. He also lauded his staff for commitment to their cases.

“This is an issue that is not unique to Mercer County,” he said. “In cases where we have had the ability to speak with jurors after a verdict, jury expectations for forensic evidence based on television and movies, are issues that may come into play. You can also never discount the potential for jury nullification. We have been experiencing witnesses that are reluctant to come forward and/or testify in court.”

Onofri would not address whether he believes his possible appointment will be impacted by the four hung juries and an acquittal in the last six murder cases his office has tried since he took over for Bocchini.

Edward Heyburn

Brown’s attorney, Edward Heyburn, speaking generally about the climate in Mercer County because of a gag order in his murder case, faulted prosecutors for the recent bout of juror indecision.

Touting as an example the criminal cases of Ed Forchion, a marijuana activist known as NJ Weedman who was arrested following a drug raid on his Trenton businesses and for disparaging a city cop, Heyburn said: “The upper echelon of the prosecutor’s office has to go. If you publish this, my concern is if anyone reads this online I might get charged with cyber-bullying.”

Trenton murder trial ends in hung jury, third recently in Mercer County

Isaac Avilucea — Fri, 12 Feb 2016 12:37:57 -0500

Carl Batie’s family, friends and colleagues dutifully showed up to court day after day over four weeks as prosecutors laid out the case against two men suspected of killing the Mercer County corrections officer in 2012.

Carl Batie

They must do it all over again.

Prosecutors have tried three murder trials in the last four months. Less than a half hour into their fourth day of deliberations in the murder trial of suspected killers Maurice Skillman and Hykeem Tucker, a jury announced it was deadlocked, and a judge was forced to declare a mistrial for the third time.

Judge Andrew Smithson, who presided over two of the three mistrials, polled jurors before releasing them from the courtroom. They said further deliberations would not be fruitful.

The judge lamented jurors’ indecision as an indication the criminal justice system in Mercer County is either “working better than ever or broken.”

James Scott, the assistant prosecutor who tried two of the three murder cases which ended in mistrials, said he believed this jury wanted “absolute certainty” Skillman and Tucker were responsible for Batie’s death outside the Baldassari Regency banquet hall on Nov. 11, 2012, in what the authorities said was a gang-related shooting.

Batie, an innocent bystander, was shot in the head while standing on the balcony. He and his brother, Karshawn, were at the banquet hall celebrating President Barack Obama’s re-election.

Maurice Skillman

Scott admitted his case against Skillman and Tucker was circumstantial and relied on grainy video surveillance tapes that made it hard for jurors to identify the assailants.

Scott lacked DNA evidence to prove the case, but the judge credited him for putting on what he described as a masterful closing argument, the best the judge heard in more than two decades sitting in a courtroom.

It still was not enough for prosecutors.

Just as is the case with Isiah Greene and former Newark gang member Shaheed Brown, whose cases also ended in mistrials within two weeks of each other in October, prosecutors must retry Skillman and Tucker.

Scott said he was prepared to retry the men as soon as possible but a date was not set.

It gives Scott time to reflect, but he left the courtroom Friday feeling secure in the way he presented the case to jurors.

Nicole Carlo, Skillman’s attorney, said she, like Scott, was left “reading the tea leaves” about why the jury didn’t reach a verdict.

Christopher Campbell, Tucker’s attorney, said: “I wouldn’t be taking it to trial unless I thought I had a good chance of convincing jurors he was not guilty.”

Rumors swirled around the courthouse that 11 of 12 jurors believed Skillman and Tucker were guilty, but a lone holdout was unswayed despite rancorous discussions that led the judge to dismiss jurors 90 minutes early Thursday for them to “recharge their batteries.”

Reporters were not given an opportunity to interview jurors after sheriff’s officers deliberately guided the hung jury away from reporters and the public, possibly on orders of Smithson, in an unprecedented maneuver that surprised legal experts who opined what happened was illegal.

Hykeem Tucker

“Whatever was done, I suspect, was done to deny you access to jurors, not to protect them from some perceived threat in the community,” said Jack Furlong, a criminal defense attorney who practices in Trenton.

He said sheriff’s officer erred when they forced a Trentonian reporter to conduct interviews outside of the courthouse, which is open to the public.

“That’s an outrage,” Furlong said. “The sheriffs have no lawful authority to order you out of courthouse. Less than zero.”

A spokesman for the Mercer County Sheriff’s Office acknowledged in a statement reporters are allowed to conduct interviews inside the courthouse. But spokesman Ernie Cerino said sheriff’s officers can change the policy “on a case-by-case basis.”

“This is routine for high-profile cases and such was the case [Friday],” he said.

Jurors were led to an awaiting jury bus stationed in a restricted portion of the courthouse parking area where The Trentonian was not allowed.

Chief Mercer County Sheriff’s Officer Christopher Kenyon said the unprecedented measure was put in place because of “security concerns.”

Kenyon would not say whether threats were made against jurors, and Scott, the prosecutor, said he was unaware of any threats made against jurors.

Kenyon conceded the bus is normally parked at the front of the courthouse on South Warren Street. This time the bus was parked around back, in a gated portion outside of the courthouse.

Kenyon said it “didn’t matter” when he was asked if jurors were steered away from the public at Smithson’s direction.

Smithson declined to comment.

“My friend, I can’t talk to you,” he said.

A judiciary spokesman also declined to comment.

The decision to intentionally segregate jurors from the public and not give them an opportunity to accept or decline interviews with The Trentonian was onerous because the public was left wondering what factored into their indecision. It also did little to quell rampant speculation that a single juror’s opinion held up a verdict.

The jury appeared deadlocked before it entered its fourth day of deliberations, passing an odd note to Smithson on Thursday morning asking if it could consider alternative theories.

The judge told jurors they should constrain deliberations to assessing the evidence presented at the four-week trial, which included testimony from 17 state witnesses and a single surveillance expert put on the stand by defense attorneys.

Smithson told jurors “hypothecations” shouldn’t play a role in their decision. He brought jurors into the courtroom Friday morning around 9:30 a.m. and told them they were “judges” of the facts not “partisans.”

Prosecutors’ case was straight forward. They said Skillman used a TEC-9 to spray a crowd of party-goers who stood on a packed banquet hall while Tucker acted as a lookout.

The defense pointed to who they say were more likely suspects, alleged Bloods gang member Shaquel Rock and his associates. Rock had threatened a police officer earlier in the night after he was not allowed into the club.

Trenton Police Detective Scott Peterson testified he identified Skillman as the shooter and Tucker as his accomplice after pouring over more than 30 hours of surveillance footage, which the jury asked to re-watch numerous times.

For prosecutors, in all three cases, it’s back to the drawing board. They will have to figure out how to present the cases better, without having the benefit of input from past panels.

Smithson is partly to blame for that since this appears to be the second time he has interfered with the press’ ability to interview jurors.

At Brown’s trial, which also ended in a hung jury, Smithson chastised The Trentonian as an “irresponsible tabloid” and implied a reporter violated a court order by obtaining a recording of a private conversation the judge had with a juror.

The recording was unsealed and obtained lawfully by The Trentonian. That didn’t stop Smithson from singling out a reporter in the courtroom and warning jurors, “Be careful what you say.”

Legal experts said the judge’s behavior was unethical and infringed on the press’ rights to act as a watchdog of government.

In the case of jurors in Skillman and Tucker’s trial, Furlong said the judge may have leeway to protect identities of jurors if they told them they did not want to be interviewed.

“Jurors are like a protected class,” he said. “The press is entitled to attempt to speak to them upon their discharge of service. What happened was not interest of the Fifth Estate and the First Amendment.”

Odd question highlights jury deliberations in Batie murder trial

Isaac Avilucea — Fri, 12 Feb 2016 10:49:04 -0500

“Making a Murderer,” anyone?

The hit Netflix series that spawned a legion of Internet sleuths may be encroaching upon the thinking of a Mercer County jury, which appears divided about whether two men are guilty of killing Mercer County corrections officer Carl Batie in 2012.

Carl Batie

Judge Andrew Smithson met privately with one of the jurors Thursday afternoon, ramping up speculation outside the courtroom that there is animosity between two jurors about whether Maurice Skillman and Hykeem Tucker are responsible for killing Mercer County corrections officer Carl Batie outside of the Baldassari Regeny banquet hall on Nov. 11, 2012.

The 12-member panel enters its fourth day of deliberations Friday after pouring over the evidence most of Thursday. Smithson sent jurors home about 90 minutes early, fearful they were exhausted after protracted and rancorous discussions throughout the day.

Jurors have been sealed off from the public during deliberations, but have repeatedly emerged from the jury chambers with a whole host of questions. Some of them have been speculative and jarring, grabbing the attention of prosecutors and defense attorneys.

The biggest shocker came Thursday morning, when the jury foreman passed an odd note to Smithson, who admitted he was “thrown for a loop.”

The note said: “Can we consider alternative theories?”

Theories prosecutors and defense attorneys put in the case were apparently not enough for the curious dozen.

Maurice Skillman

Prosecutors case was pretty straight forward. Skillman used a TEC-9 to spray a crowd of party-goers who stood on a packed banquet hall while Tucker acted as a lookout. The defense pointed who they say was a more likely suspect, a man who had threatened a police officer earlier in the night after he was not allowed into the club.

Nicole Carlo, Skillman’s attorney, said she wondered if the question had anything to do with binge-worthy podcasts and television shows like “Serial” and “Making a Murder,” which traced the steps of convicted killers Adnan Syed in Baltimore and Steven Avery in Manitowoc County, Wisc.

She said she has faith that Mercer County jurors will not veer dangerously off course like some of the crazed Internet sleuths that have obsessed about Syed’s and Avery’s cases.

Jurors were sternly warned by Smithson to constrain their thoughts and deliberations to assessing the evidence presented over the four-week trial, which included testimony from 17 witnesses.

“Fanciful hypothecations play no role” Smithson told jurors of their deliberations. “Keep it real. This is the real world.”

Carlo said she believes the “alternative theories” note was telling.

“If you have an alternative theory, to me that means you don’t think the state proved its case,” she said.

Christopher Campbell, Tucker’s attorney, said he didn’t know what to make of the note — one of the “millions of questions jurors have had” over the last four days.

Hykeem Tucker

Some of the confusion may stem from the mountains of evidence prosecutors put before jurors.

The judge criticized assistant prosecutors James Scott and Heather Hadley for not putting on evidence that linked Skillman or Tucker to Batie’s murder.

Scott defended the practice, saying he needed to assure jurors police did a thorough investigation and to tactically guard against defense attorneys arguing the authorities rushed to judgement about their clients.

The case boils down to identity, and whether jurors buy the word of Trenton Police Detective Scott Peterson or want to assess independently whether they believe it is Skillman and Tucker on the tapes.

Peterson was unequivocal when he took the stand, telling jurors he identified Skillman as the shooter and Tucker as his accomplice after reviewing more than 30 hours of footage downloaded from the banquet hall’s surveillance system.

Peterson referred to Skillman and Tucker, respectively, as “Tall Guy” and “Varsity Jacket” throughout the trial, referring to their height and clothing.

Defense attorneys contend that police misidentified their clients as the killers, and put on a third-party guilt defense blaming an alleged Bloods gang member, Shaquel Rock, or his associates, for killing Batie.

Rock threatened to shoot up the banquet hall after he was denied entrance the club earlier in the night.

Defense attorneys also pointed to a varsity jacket and gray and blue hooded sweatshirts that were found by investigators inside a champagne-colored vehicle belonging to Rock’s cousin, Edgar Williams.

Peterson testified he eliminated Rock as a suspect because he didn’t fit a physical description of the shooter. Rock was shorter and wore a white sweater whereas the shooter was described as taller and wearing a dark-colored sweater.

The jury resumes deliberations Friday.