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Sitting in the courtroom as the jury retired to deliberate the sentence, Robb confronted George Coleman, an alternate juror who was dismissed after closing arguments, and then told the press that he believed Berry was "100 percent guilty."

"You think he's guilty, don't you?" Robb said. "I have to tell you I don't agree at all. I think he was guilty of obstructing justice, and probably of lying, but not of murder."

"That's your opinion, then," Coleman said.

In Coleman's mind, the prosecution made a clear case against Berry as an individual, not a symbol. And in Coleman's eyes, the worst evidence against Berry was Berry himself. "When he was on the stand, it was lie after lie after lie. To me, you could see straight through him, like a ghost," he said. "Everything he said turned to a lie."

Coleman admitted to having difficulty understanding what Berry's motive might have been. Still, he couldn't shake his conviction that the young man was guilty. "I stayed up for the last two days, talking and talking to myself, trying to put the pieces together. When I did, it all came back to one thing: Berry must have been the driver. If I was back there with the jury, I'd be going for the same sentence as those other two guys. I believe Berry was worse than the other two. He was the driver for sure; he was in full control of the situation."

After finding Berry guilty, the jury listened to more than two hours of often emotional sentencing testimony from Berry's friends and family, many of whom begged the jury -- several members of which broke into tears -- to spare Berry's life. But while the prosecution treated weeping friends and family gently, it tore into defense attorney Lum Hawthorn's expert witness, a psychiatrist named Ed Grapone.

Grapone had testified against both Brewer and King, saying both men posed a threat to society. But he testified on behalf of Berry, saying he posed no such threat. However, under cross-examination, he admitted the likelihood that if Berry were given a life sentence, having been convicted of the most brutal racially motivated hate crime in recent American memory, he would probably join a supremacist group in prison.

Nonetheless, the jury failed to sentence Berry to death.

The sentence and the finding of capital murder is Jasper's attempt to show the world its ability to dispense justice. "I think it sends out a pretty good message that any of that sort of monkey business isn't going to be put up with in this town," said one observer, standing across the street from the courthouse.

Shaking his head inside the courthouse, Robb had a different take on the verdict. "The greatest tragedy that ever happened to Jasper County was this dragging death. The second greatest tragedy is the conviction of Shawn Berry for capital murder."
salon.com | Nov. 18, 1999

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