Cashcow
Sr. Member
Posts: 2,843
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« on: March 10, 2005, 03:56:37 PM » |
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The death penalty isn't justice. It's freedom. Instead of releasing the killers, why not create a system of hard labor? It should be obvious that I don't believe in hell, so it is our responsibility to create hell on earth for people like this:
Three teenagers convicted in Fishtown murder
By Jacqueline Soteropoulos
Inquirer Staff Writer
In a trial marked by accounts of brutality and adolescent treachery, a jury yesterday convicted three Fishtown teens of first-degree murder for beating their friend Jason Sweeney to death in 2003.
"My son got justice today. That's all I cared about," said the victim's father, Paul Sweeney, with his wife, Dawn, at his side.
When the jury foreman announced the verdict in the tense courtroom, Domenic Coia, 19, and his brother, Nicholas Coia, 18, showed no reaction.
Their accomplice, Edward Batzig Jr., 18 - once the victim's best friend - dropped his head, bit his lip, and appeared to fight back tears. His mother, seated in the courtroom behind him, wept.
The jury of eight men and four women deliberated about 21/2 hours before convicting the three of all charges, including conspiracy, robbery, and possessing an instrument of crime.
When the Coias and Batzig are sentenced May 6, each faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole. Common Pleas Court Judge Renee Cardwell Hughes could elect to add 321/2 to 65 years to each life sentence for the other crimes.
Sweeney was 16 - and believed he was on a romantic rendezvous with his first girlfriend, Justina Morley, who confessed to the crime - when he was clubbed and hacked to death with a hammer, a hatchet and a rock. He was murdered for the $500 he had earned working in construction with his father.
"We just kept hitting him and hitting him. We took Sweeney's wallet and split up the money, and we partied beyond redemption," Domenic Coia confessed, adding that he used the proceeds to buy marijuana, heroin and pills.
As they fled the murder scene, the killers engaged in a "group hug."
"It was like we were all happy [with] what we did," Domenic Coia told detectives.
Prosecutors intended to ask the jury to sentence Domenic Coia, the eldest defendant, to death. But last week, in the middle of the trial, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a different case that killers under age 18 may not be executed. Coia was 14 days shy of his 18th birthday when Sweeney was slain in a vacant lot.
The trio's accomplice, 17-year-old Morley, will receive a 171/2-to-35-year prison term when she is sentenced March 21. Morley, who was 15 at the time of the slaying, admitted she lured Sweeney to his death with the promise of sex.
She was the prosecutor's star witness during the eight-day trial in adult court. However, her violent and sexually graphic jailhouse letters were used by both the prosecutor and defense attorneys to demonstrate the group's depravity.
"I'm a cold-blooded [expletive] death-worshiping bitch who survives by feeding off the weak and lonely. I lure them, and then I crush them," Morley wrote last year to Domenic Coia.
Assistant District Attorney Jude Conroy told reporters yesterday: "We had to pick our poison, and Justina was exactly that."
Morley's letters, Conroy added, were "just affirmation of what we knew all along - that she was a cold-blooded killer."
But defense attorneys used the letters to try to convince jurors that Batzig and the Coia brothers were no more culpable than Morley, who they argued was the mastermind of the deadly plan.
Morley glorified violence and used sex to manipulate the teens, they maintained.
The defense attorneys asked the jurors to find the trio guilty of third-degree murder, with the hopes that one day their clients could be released.
"I'm disappointed and sad," said Nicholas Coia's attorney, Barbara McDermott, after the verdict. "I'm not just sad for Nicholas Coia, I'm sad for all of us... . We as a community have really failed to address the needs of our youth.
"I think Nicky's reaction was acceptance [of the verdict]. He knew what he had done was wrong," she said. "There's been remorse as soon as these kids got off of the drugs they were on."
Police Detective Aaron Booker, the lead investigator on the case, said: "In my 10 years in homicide, this is the most unique case, and I've never seen anything quite as brutal."
Jason Sweeney's face was unrecognizable from the 20 to 40 powerful blows, a deputy medical examiner testified during the trial. Every bone in his face, save one, was fractured, and the wounds were so severe that investigators could not initially determine whether he was young or old.
When the jurors announced their verdict, Paul Sweeney bowed his head in his hands. Dawn Sweeney's eyes filled with tears, and she put her arm around her husband.
After the killing, they launched the Jason Keel Sweeney Foundation to fund scholarships to the Valley Forge Military Academy. Their son had planned to join the Navy after he turned 17. The Sweeneys have a 17-year-old daughter.
Leaving the courthouse with his family after the verdict, Paul Sweeney told reporters: "My son was special, and it's the beginning of trying to have a life again."
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