Lawyer questions jury verdicts in rape trial of ex-Vandy player
A jury Friday evening delivered a mix of acquittals and guilty verdicts for former Vanderbilt University football player Brandon E. Banks, decisions blasted by Banks’ lawyer, who said the jury did not understand its job.
“They didn’t understand the aggravated element of the two charges they convicted him of,” lawyer Mark Scruggs said.
Scruggs said he will ask the judge to consider whether the jury’s verdicts were inconsistent. If Criminal Court Judge Monte Watkins agrees, Scruggs said the judge could reduce the two convictions to lesser crimes or grant Banks a new trial on those counts.
Prosecutors, however, contended the jury aced its job during 15 hours of deliberation across two days.
“Their verdict showed that they meticulously went through everything in the law, and we’re very satisfied,” Deputy District Attorney Roger Moore said Friday evening.
“It is so gratifying when we heard the words ‘guilty of aggravated rape.’”
The jury found Banks, 23, guilty on the two charges representing acts Banks committed himself. Those crimes: Penetrating an unconscious woman with a water bottle and touching her vagina.
On the five other counts, on which prosecutors charged Banks aided his teammate Cory Batey in the rape, the jury said Banks was innocent.
But Scruggs noted all the counts involved a legal theory that guarantees a longer prison sentence when a victim is incapacitated and when multiple suspects aid each other.
He said the verdicts showed the jury did not understand, because they found the four teammates acted together on the two physical acts committed by Banks, but did not act together on the others.
That split suggests the jury believed Banks when, taking the stand in his own defense, he said he felt threatened by his teammates if he did not comply.
“I think the jury took that into consideration,” Scruggs said. “They certainly for some reason found him not guilty of the criminal responsibility elements related to five of the counts. So they must have accepted the idea that he acted under duress. That’s why we’re a little puzzled by the verdict as well.”
The lawyer said the defense did not count on a slate of acquittals, but instead that the jury would consider less severe crimes of rape and sexual battery.
Because Banks was guilty of aggravated rape, he faces a minimum prison term of 15 years, and up to 25 years, at a sentencing hearing set for August.
The verdicts, delivered through the cracking voice of the jury foreman Friday, came four years to the day since the rape at Vanderbilt. Four football players were dropped from the team and school and later charged with raping an unconscious woman in a dorm in the early morning hours of June 23, 2013.
As of Friday’s verdicts, three men have been found guilty in the case. Brandon Vandenburg, 24, and Batey, 23, are serving prison sentences of 17 years and 15 years, respectively.
Jaborian “Tip” McKenzie also was charged and has pleaded not guilty. Plea negotiations are expected to begin in his case.
“Yes, four years is a long time,” Moore said after the verdicts. “But if it was going to take another four years, I think we’d be in for that as well.”
Banks’ sentencing is set for August.