BishopAccountability.org
	Some Baker Jurors Speak, Others Hold Their Tongues By Tommy Witherspoon Tribune-Herald January 23, 2010 http://www.wacotrib.com/news/content/news/stories/2010/01/23/01232010wacbakerfolo.html WACO (TX) -- Betty Hall found herself in an unusual position. The 65-year-old M&M Mars retiree is not shy about speaking her mind. However, as an alternate juror on the Matt Baker murder trial, Hall sat through the eight-day trial but was not allowed to participate in any of the jury's deliberations. She listened in but could not speak, under orders from the court. "I almost bit a hole through my tongue," she said. "I was about to test how much it was going to cost me to get thrown out of there because I couldn't just sit there and not say nothing. I am just that type of person." Hall can't see to drive at night, so she was excused Wednesday after about three hours of jury deliberations in the guilt-innocence phase so she could get home before dark. She said she was torn because she was concerned about the tone of the deliberations at that point. Jurors deliberated for seven hours, returning a guilty verdict shortly before 10 p.m. Wednesday in the April 2006 murder of Baker's wife, Kari. "I was worried to death to leave," she said. "There were so many people sitting on the fence. They just seemed so wishy-washy. About four or so said they didn't think the state proved their case. I was scared to death to go home. It wouldn't have taken me near as long to decide he was guilty." She said several jurors did not seem to believe Baker's mistress, Vanessa Bulls, who told jurors that she and Baker had a four-month affair near the time of Kari's death. Bulls also testified that Baker recounted to her how he drugged his 31-year-old wife with sleeping pills and then suffocated her with a pillow while she was handcuffed to their bed. "I didn't like Vanessa, but I believed her," Hall said. "That is what convinced me. She had nothing to gain by being up there and telling that horrible story. But the stuff she told, it matched up exactly with what Baker was saying in e-mails and interviews. He told her everything, but there was other evidence that backed it up." Hall also was more certain than her peers about how she would have voted on punishment. She said at least two on the panel started their punishment deliberations thinking Baker deserved 20 years. His request for probation was never seriously considered, she said. The jury decided on 65 years. "He ought to hang high. I would have given him the maximum sentence and never wavered," Hall said. "He is guilty as sin. I don't know what was wrong with those other people on the jury. I just don't think they took it as seriously as they should have. It scares me to death because I wonder how many others have been tried by juries like this." Hall declined to give specific examples for fear of jeopardizing the verdict on appeal. "There were a lot of people who did not want to be there, and they just didn't do what they should have done," Hall said. "I don't want to say much more, but some didn't do their duty. That's what it looked like to me." At least five other jurors contacted by the Tribune-Herald Friday declined to be interviewed. James Maske, a 63-year-old retired L-3 engineer who served on the jury, said he would not voluntarily line up soon for additional jury duty but added that it was an interesting experience. "I was impressed by the professionalism of the court," Maske said. "Judge (Ralph) Strother is an excellent judge and did a fantastic job. The prosecution did a good job. The defense did as good a job as they could for the circumstances. They might have been more proactive in some cases, but I don't really know what else they could have done." Maske views the seven-hour deliberation by the jury in a different light than Hall. He said they took only one formal vote at the end of an extensive, thorough review of the evidence. "We were going over the evidence and we wanted to make sure we went over everything," he said. "We discussed what we were seeing and examining very closely the comparisons between the 9-1-1 audio and the timeline provided and his subsequent statements to witnesses and others about what had occurred that night." Maske declined to give his thoughts about the 38-year-old Baker, except to say that he appears to be a "sexual predator." Of Bulls, Baker's mistress, he said that "she is not someone you would want your son to marry." "I'm sure her testimony is costing her," Maske said. "It was not in her best interest to testify." Bulls, 27, a Harker Heights middle school teacher, was suspended after her trial appearance, pending an internal school investigation. Maske said one revelation from trial testimony that sat badly with him and others on the panel was the investigation into Kari's death by the Hewitt Police Department and the subsequent suicide ruling by Justice of the Peace Billy Martin, who did not visit the scene and made that determination over the telephone. "Hopefully, because of the way this one was handled, if something like that happens again, some lessons have been learned," he said. Contact: twitherspoon@wacotrib.com
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.