Jury clears man in child’s death
Davis acquitted after less than 6 hours of deliberations
TROY >> A former professional basketball player is a free man after a Rensselaer County Court jury Thursday afternoon found him not guilty of causing the death of his girlfriend’s 2-yearold daughter.
The eight-man, four-woman jury needed less than six hours of deliberations before acquitting Michael Davis, 30, of firstand second-degree manslaughter and endangering the welfare of a child in the February 2015 death of Viola Davis. Michael Davis was released from the Rensselaer County jail shortly after the verdict was announced following a week of testimony.
“It’s a happy day for him,” Davis’ attorney, William Roberts of the Rensselaer County Public Defender’s Office, said outside the courtroom, “but it’s also very sad because he’s not the same man he was when he lost his daughter, and he’s going to have to deal with that.
“After he recognizes the joy because he’s been set free, he’s going to think of that little girl, and he misses her. He’s always missed her. He’s always expressed his love for that little girl.”
The jurors asked at the end of deliberations Wednesday for Judge Andrew Ceresia to detail for them the elements needed to decide guilt or innocence on each count against Davis, then asked early Thursday afternoon to hear Davis’ testimony again. At about 1:45 p.m., they sent one final note to Ceresia to say they had reached their verdict.
“His humanity flowed from that witness stand,” Roberts said of Davis’ testimony, “and the jury weighed in on it appropriately. The jury came up with the right
decision here.”
Police claimed Davis squeezed the child to death Feb. 26, 2015, inside the one-bedroom apartment at 856 Fourth Ave. they shared with Viola’s mother, Rebecca Parker, causing internal injuries including two fractured ribs that lacerated the toddler’s liver five times and caused her abdomen to fill with blood. Davis, however, testified that he found Viola unresponsive in her bed and tried to perform CPR on her before running across the street to a local restaurant to call for help.
Rensselaer County District Attorney Joel Abelove admitted the case against Davis, prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Cindy Chavkin, was not a strong one, but he added that he did not regret pursuing it.
“We trust juries to sit and listen to all of the evidence,” Abelove said after the verdict was announced, “and I trust they did do that, so we respect their verdict. Obviously, it’s not the verdict we were hoping for, but they’re the ones who get to decide
that after listening to all of the evidence.”
On the morning Viola died, Davis said he woke up as Parker was getting ready to go to work and helped Viola go to the bathroom. He said as he helped her, he noticed she didn’t seem her normal, energetic self, acting lethargic and sullen, which Parker also observed in her testimony earlier in the trial.
Davis said he tried to give the girl some food and water, but she didn’t eat or drink any of it. He then put her back to bed, saying he thought she may have just still been tired. When he woke back up after dozing off while watching a movie, he said he called out to her, but she didn’t answer, so he went into her room and found her lifeless body still in bed. He said he tried to nudge her to wake her up, then began to panic and tried to perform CPR, even though he admitted he had never been trained and only tried to emulate what he had seen on television and in movies.
Since Parker had the only working phone with her, Davis said he ran across the street to the home of a friend, Willie Robinson, with whom he had watched
basketball the night before, to try to call for help. After finding no one home, he said he ran back to check on Viola again, tried CPR one more time, then ran to Testo’s restaurant, where somebody gave him their cellphone and he called for help.
As he ran back to the house, Davis said he found Parker outside with Russell Brown, a co-worker who had given her a ride home after her shift ended. Davis said he told Parker to call an ambulance and started to run back into the house just as the first police officers and firefighters arrived.
“Obviously, the jury was able to see what type of man Michael Davis is, and they based their decision on what evidence was presented to them,” Roberts said. “Frankly, I think they saw the man who testified and that the truth of who he was one of the deciding factors.”
As much as Roberts said he felt Davis’ own testimony was critical, he also thought jurors were swayed by Dr. Shaku Teas, a Chicago-area
forensic pathologist who questioned the determination by Dr. Michael Sikirica, the Rensselaer County medical examiner, that Viola died as a result of the injuries to her liver. Teas said she also could not agree with Sikirica’s finding that the death was a homicide, saying in both cases she would have ruled the cause and manner of death as undetermined.
Teas testified that closer examination of tissue samples from the toddler’s liver led her to conclude those injuries were likely the result of CPR — which Davis, city firefighters and medical staff at St. Mary’s Hospital all admitted they performed on the girl — but that the CPR was performed after she was already dead.
“I think her testimony was very compelling,” Roberts said, “and that may have swayed the tide relative to the scientific evidence presented to the jury. [Sikirica] probably did a thorough job. We disagreed with his findings, but that’s within the purview of opinion.”
Abelove said, however,
that he continues to have the utmost confidence in Sikirica, despite concerns expressed by Teas about the number of autopsies he performs, which he estimated at more than 700 per year, which Teas said is more than double the recommended amount by the National Academy of Sciences.
“I’m still very satisifed with his opinion,” Abelove said.
“I’ve known Dr. Sikirica for many years, and I find him entirely professional, very thorough, and I have no qualms about his qualifications or his abilities whatsoever.”
The 6-foot-10 Davis is a Brooklyn native who played college basketball at Seton Hall University from 200709, earning Big East Conference All-Academic Team honors before transferring to St. Francis College in Brooklyn. He never played a game for that school, however, but went on to play sparingly in the NBA Developmental League from 2010-12 and later played internationally, most recently in Uruguay.
As to what Davis’ plans for the future are, Roberts said, simply, “His future is life.”
“Michael’s going to go and live his life.”
Mark Robarge can be reached at 290-8362.