Part VI: Second Thoughts

“I went back and looked at a whole lot of stuff that was covered during trial and comments that were made. I had frustration that none of it was based on facts, on what actually happened. I think it was his dad who talked to the reporter and said, “He pretty much admitted to it because he said “He ran and I shot him.” It wasn’t even a full sentence. It was a fragment of sentences. Shortly after that he said, “I thought he was going to kill me.” You have to give the same credibility to ‘He ran and I shot him’ as you do to ‘I thought he was going to kill me.” – Tim on the body camera footage

It was not until Tim got home from his jury service and did his own research that he learned of the felony status of the Violation of Oath of Office charge. Jurors are not allowed to conduct their own research or watch media coverage during the trial, but Tim said the new understanding changed his opinion of the charge. 

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It would be another two weeks – via the sentencing hearing – before Tim would learn that the Violation of Oath charge was tied to the two charges of which Presley had been acquitted. “I felt like we obviously didn’t understand and we took it too lightly,” Tim reflected.

Not long after the conclusion of the trial, he was contacted by Presley’s attorney who was reaching out to as many jurors as possible in hopes of gaining some understanding of the thought processes from the deliberations. She reiterated that Presley would be challenging the verdict based on the fact that the violation of oath conviction did not match up with the evidence presented at trial.

“Never once, and we read it multiple times, never once was it brought up that the violation of oath was specific to any one situation. And I will tell you, nobody in that room thought it was a felony and carried up to five years in prison,” Tim said reflecting on the case. 

Tim says his research showed him a disappointing side of the media coverage and that’s why we decided to speak up about what really happened. “None of it was accurate. I can tell you that during the trial and during deliberation race never came up.”

Continue to Part VII: The Sentencing…
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