Mother And Son Indicted For Jury Tampering
A Shreveport man, already condemned to die for killing his pregnant ex-girlfriend in a grisly homicide, was indicted along with his mother Wednesday for interfering with the jury-selection process in an effort to get a sympathetic juror to sit in judgment of him.
LaMondre Tucker, 20, and his mother, Alicia, 42, were charged by the Caddo Parish grand jury with conspiracy to commit jury tampering.
Tampering with a death-penalty jury can result in a sentence of more than 30 years.
Tucker last month was sentenced to die for the slaying of his former girlfriend, Tavia Sills, who was killed after Tucker found out she was pregnant.
The district attorney's office said Ms. Tucker tried to get a prospective juror she and her son knew to change her testimony about her feelings on the death penalty. It was an effort to get a sympathetic person on the jury, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said the prospective juror was called in a three-way phone conversation with Tucker and her son, who was held at Caddo Correctional Center. The conversation was recorded by the jail, which routinely records calls to and from inmates.
The prospective juror originally said during questioning that she was opposed to the death penalty. She later changed her testimony to say she could consider both the death penalty and a lesser sentence, which made her eligible to hear a death-penalty case.
That juror felt threatened, District Attorney Charles Scott said.
Tavia Sills, 18, was shot twice and had flammable liquid poured on her before she jumped into a pond to wash it off, prosecutors said. She was then shot again.
Prosecutors said Sills told Tucker he was the father, although DNA testing later determined he was not.
http://www.ktbs.com/news/27617234/detail.html
Bookmarks