Transcription
I need one person on that jury felt enough sympathy, mercy for you that they decided that you did not deserve the death penalty. So for that, I don't have to make that decision. It's not something that I ever wanted to do or wish to do. But if there was ever a case that I've ever heard that, well, people would have decided that death was appropriate, this is probably it. But that's their decision.
I believe wholeheartedly in the judicial system, and I believe that those twelve people made up their mind, and that sentence will be imposed on you. But I also agree with the victims in this case. This was the most selfish, self-centered, evil thing that I've ever heard. That you took this man, you said, if you did all this for your son, it's ridiculous. Your son was in the house when this occurred. He was either in the room or within 65, 70 feet of when you shot his mother, shot at his grandfather, and then waited five hours, by your own admission, to walk downstairs and beat his grandmother to death.
In those five hours, you must have sat in that house with yourself. He was there. It's six o'clock in the evening. He's not asleep. He's not locked in his room. You're sitting there with your son, with his dead mother, his dead grandfather, and a man who gave his life for those people. You sat there with him and went downstairs and finished off his grandmother. And you did that for your own selfish reason. Maybe it was your age, video, is that you felt that they had done something to do that you needed to get revenge for. But there was no remorse. Just saying you're sorry doesn't make it so. You're not sorry for what you did yet. Maybe someday you will be. You weren't sorry that day. You weren't sorry when you took it standing. You're not sorry yet.
You're still moving along without your mother, and without grandparents, and without a father, just as you get. But worse than you, he will grow up without a father because he will know that his father murdered his mother and murdered his grandparents. There's no worse life than that. Hopefully, with the love that he has in the piles and the Browns and all the other family relatives that he has, he will learn to understand and be happy and learn the things about his mother he did not know because you took her at such a young age of his. There's nothing worse than losing a parent at a young age, but to have them take it from you by their father, I can't imagine. So hopefully, some way, somehow, through the love of the family that he has here, he will grow up to be a healthy, happy, productive, hard-working, loving person. But that's not because of you.
So to say that Tristan is your whole world, I don't believe that. I don't believe Tristan was your whole world. I believe that you did this because you are selfish. And based on the decision of the jury, I sentence you in count one and count four, the life in prison without the possibility. And counts two and three, I sentence you to life without the possibility of parole. However, that's with a firearm discharge, including charging death, which means hopefully, and no matter what happens with the legislature, no matter what we decide on life or death in your case, you will never, ever be released from prison.
Can you afford to hire an attorney for your appeal? No. All right. So at this point, I will appoint the public defender. Thankful for appeal. State, is there any cost associated there? You're asking me to impose.