The case of a six-year-old murder at a South Beach home on Seagrape Drive in the Oceanside community is expected to be the first capital crime tried by a jury in Indian River County since the pandemic lockdown closed courts in March 2020.
Asbury Lee Perkins will be representing himself on first-degree murder charges for the November 2015 shooting death of his business partner and estranged wife of nearly 25 years, Cynthia Betts, when the case likely goes to trial this summer before Circuit Court Judge Dan Vaughn, who inherited the case from Judge Cynthia Cox when judicial assignments shifted in January 2019.
When asked about the timing, as more than a dozen depositions were recently scheduled indicating that things are now moving along on the case, Assistant State Attorney Chris Taylor said “maybe July, August. It has not been set yet but we’re working hard to get things done to have it ready to go.”
The status of Perkins’ legal representation has delayed the case, apart from the pandemic, as Perkins has dismissed several court-appointed attorneys working for and with him to prepare his defense.
Perkins is not an attorney, but presumably is of above-average intelligence as he owned and ran a highly technical electronics company catering to military clients for nearly 20 years. Having the defendant and the defense counsel being one and the same will make this trial very different even if COVID-19 was not a factor in court procedures.
State Attorney Tom Bakkedahl said on Friday that non-capital criminal trials, which only require six-person juries, have been going forward as Judge Vaughn works diligently to push through the backlog of cases on his docket. Since these cases are lesser known and don’t get much press attention, smaller jury pools can suffice to get a qualified jury seated.
Jurors are socially distanced in the jury box, and masks are required everywhere in the courthouse.
Bakkedahl said it’s unclear what rules might be in place by late summer when Perkins’ case might be ripe for trial, as it depends a great deal upon what trajectory the pandemic takes in the meantime. Right now, he said, lawyers are leery about embarking on capital trials with a person’s life potentially at stake.
“Everybody must wear a mask, that means the judge, the attorneys, the witnesses and the jurors,” Bakkedahl said. “Some attorneys feel that makes jury selection difficult because you cannot see the person’s facial expressions.”
It also makes it tougher for prosecutors and defense attorneys to gauge the credibility of a witness on the stand, or to establish a rapport with the jury, not to mention the challenges it poses to the hearing impaired who rely on the reading of lips and facial expressions to decode everyday conversations.
Even if all the parties agree to proceed with a capital case under COVID-19 restrictions, Bakkedahl said it can be tough to get enough potential jurors to seat a 12-person panel plus alternates. For high-profile criminal trials in the past, the court has called upwards of 200 jurors to find a dozen people without bias.
“For this type of trial we’d call a minimum of 70 jurors. With social distancing, only 20 can be in the courtroom at a time. That means going through all of the instructions and questioning four times,” Bakkedahl said.
Coupled with a pro se defendant who is not experienced in the jury selection process, it could take several days to seat a jury. Bakkedahl said the issue of whether someone is vaccinated or not has not been part of the jury selection process, but that people who are genuinely concerned about the virus can be excused.
