Murder trial closes with defense attacking the case

After nearly a week of testimony, the trial of Keith Antoine Carter wrapped up yesterday afternoon, with Carter's attorney putting up no evidence in his defense.

Rather than put Carter on the stand, his attorney, David Freedman, attacked the prosecution's case in closing arguments, saying they had presented no evidence proving that Carter was guilty of first-degree murder.

"Don't leave common sense at the door," Freedman said to the jury yesterday. "There's nothing in this person's background that he would be a person bent on murder."

Carter is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Winston-Salem police Sgt. Howard Plouff. Carter is accused of fatally shooting Plouff in the early morning hours of Feb. 23, 2007, outside the Red Rooster nightclub on Jonestown Road. Plouff had gone to the nightclub to help off-duty sheriff's deputies break up fights that had started inside and spilled out into the parking lot.

After closing arguments and jury instructions, the jury deliberated about three hours yesterday afternoon without reaching a verdict. It will reconvene at 9:30 a.m. today.

The jury has the option of finding Carter guilty of second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter or involuntary manslaughter.

Assistant District Attorney David Hall said in closing arguments that Carter was a man consumed with anger who wanted revenge on the people who beat him up in the Red Rooster nightclub. He fired a 9mm handgun seven times into a crowd, with one of the bullets hitting Plouff in the right side of the neck, Hall said.

"We have seen every fact, every cause of that shooting and senseless murder centered around three things -- this defendant, his 9mm semi-automatic handgun and his anger," Hall said.

Carter said in a statement to police that he fired the gun into the air and never meant to hurt anyone. Freedman argued that the physical evidence, including the fact that the bullet traveled in a downward trajectory once it struck Plouff, is consistent with Carter firing the gun in the air. He argued that damage to the bullet resulted from it hitting something and ricocheting before striking Plouff.

The fighting at the Red Rooster on Feb. 23, 2007, was a critical part of the trial. Prosecutors decided to pursue first-degree murder against Carter under the felony murder rule, in which someone is considered guilty of first-degree murder if that person committed the killing during the commission of another felony. Typically, that underlying felony is burglary or robbery.

In Carter's case, the underlying felony -- the prosecution says -- is engaging in a riot with serious bodily injury.

Freedman spent much of the trial and his closing arguments attacking the prosecutor's use of the felony murder rule in this case. He said that the charge of felony engaging in a riot is unconstitutional, vague and broad.

And, he argued, under the state's theory, many of the partygoers at the Red Rooster could have conceivably been charged with first-degree murder. But only Carter was charged with engaging in a riot, Freedman said.

In his closing arguments, Hall urged the jury to convict Carter of first-degree murder under another theory -- premeditation and deliberation.

Presenting two theories for first-degree murder is a risky move for prosecutors, said Carol Turowski, a professor of law at Wake Forest University and co-director of the law-school's Innocence and Justice Clinic.

But this case has a unique set of circumstances, she said, and prosecutors may want the jury to have two theories for first-degree murder in case the jury doesn't convict Carter on one.

And prosecutors are using the felony murder rule in an unusual way by having felony engaging in a riot as the underlying felony, Turowski said.

"That's a tough charge to make," she said.

Turowski said that Carter was the only one charged with felony engaging in a riot, and that raises the question of why others weren't, including Joseph Hensley, the bouncer who said he fired shots in the air to disperse the crowd outside the nightclub.

"If you have a riot, why do you have one person charged," she said.

But Hall argued in court that Carter intended to kill someone that night, even if it wasn't Plouff, and he knew that when he fired into the crowd, he was aiming at people.

"If you're going to convict this defendant of manslaughter, then just let him go," Hall told the jury.

mhewlett@wsjournal.com | 727-7326