Ex-Santaluces student found guilty in killing
The 21-year-old could get life in prison for 2012 killing.
Frank Quarles was 15 when he shot Michael Coogle-Robertson to death in 2012; jury convicts him of second-degree murder.
In the minutes after a Palm Beach County jury announced they had a verdict in Frank Quarles’ murder trial, bowed heads stretched across both sides of the courtroom.
In the back, two men who came with Quarles’ family lowered their heads in prayer, hoping that jurors would find Quarles guilty only of manslaughter in the Feb. 8, 2012 shooting death of fellow Santaluces High student Michael Coogle-Robertson, or even acquit him outright. Several rows in front of them, Coogle-Robertson’s mother, Janice, had her head down, too.
It had been five years for her, a long painful road to justice, she would say later. But in that moment she looked up just long enough to exchange hopeful glances with Assistant State Attorneys Jill Richstone and Chrichet Mixon, who on Thursday told the jury that Quarles was guilty of nothing short of first-degree murder.
The jury of six men and six women filed into the courtroom and looked out — some into the crowd, others at Quarles and others still straight ahead — as a court clerk announced the verdict that embodied every conclusion that lawyers on both sides of the case had urged them not to make.
They convicted Quarles, who was just 15 at the time of the shooting but charged as an adult, of second-degree murder.
The verdict rejected defense attorney Michael Salnick’s arguments that Quarles, by his own admission, had shot Coogle-Robertson by accident after the two argued over Coogle-Robertson’s purchase of Quarles’ stolen bike.
But it also negated Richstone and Mixon’s claims that Quarles premeditated the killing in the time it took for him to reclaim his bicycle, ride home to get a gun he’d stashed under his bed, and ride back to the home in the 3600 Block of Kewanee Circle where Robertson and his friends were hanging out.
“I’m going to accept this. I have no other choice but to accept it, but I’m OK with it,” Janice Coo-
them in court Friday mistakenly included portions of the interview that Circuit Judge Samantha Schosberg gle said of the verdict. “If he Feuer previously had ruled would been found guilty of that jurors were not allowed manslaughter, or found not to hear. Specifically, a detecguilty, that would’ve been tive in the interview told a humiliation for us. But at Quarles he “looked like a least they found him guilty stone-cold killer.” of murder. I’ll take that.” Salnick moved for a mis
The jury returned the trial based on the mistake, verdict, a lesser included but Feuer denied the request. offense of the first-degree The jurors also asked to murder charge, after about examine the murder weapon six hours of deliberations during their deliberations.A that began late Thursday and major point in the case was was marked with a mistake Quarles’ claims to the detec- that could potentially bring tive that the gun had a light the case back on appeal. trigger pull and had gone off
Jurors at one point in after he “tapped it.” Rich- their deliberations asked stone in closing arguments to rehear a recorded state- reminded jurors that she ment Quarles gave to a detec- had allowed them to exam- tive shortly after the shootine the gun during the trial ing. The version replayed for and that a witness testified that the gun actually had a pretty heavy trigger pull.
“It didn’t happen the way he said it did. No way, no how,” Richstone said of Quarles during closing arguments Thursday, which ended a week-long trial.
Sentencing for Quarles, who was 15 at the time of the shooting, is set for Feb. 12. The verdict means Quarles still potentially faces up to life in prison when he is sentenced.
Though he did not take the stand in his own defense, Quarles trial featured testimony from several witnesses to the shooting, who said Coogle-Robertson was mostly laid-back during both his con- frontations with Quarles. The 16-year-old football and basketball star appeared not to believe Quarles would shoot him even after he pulled the gun out, and at one point told him he wasn’t afraid of the gun.
After the verdict, Quarles’ parents, extended family and friends, gathered in a circle and prayed together. Janice Coogle said she understood their pain, but would trade places with them in a heartbeat if she could.
“To be honest with you, I would’ve took it the other way around. I would’ve taken the jailhouse visits,” Coogle said. “But I don’t get to watch my son grow up. I don’t get to see him have kids. And Michael was a good kid. If my son was here today, my son would’ve made me really proud of him.”