Describing himself as “the most hated man in the city of Chicago,” the sole holdout juror in the trial of the man accused of killing Chicago Police Officer Michael Ceriale said Thursday that he stood his ground in the face of threats and charges of racism by fellow jurors because of his doubts about the evidence.
More Top Picks Acer Nitro 16s Ai Review
“If I had been convinced he was guilty, I would have [had] no hesitation,” Sam Shipp, 63, said as he stood outside his Gresham neighborhood home. “It would have been much easier with all the pressure I had on me … to vote guilty.”
He said other jurors told him he “had an obligation to return a guilty verdict for the Ceriale family,” but he refused because he viewed the evidence as mostly circumstantial and insufficient to overcome his doubts.
“It has been hell,” said Shipp, standing in his shirt-sleeves and stocking feet. “I’m the odd man out. You’re damn right they pressured me. I’m not proud of myself; I’m not ashamed of myself.”
For more than two hours, Shipp, a retired CTA supervisor, described one of the longest jury deliberations in a criminal case in Cook County history. He said the first vote–taken before deliberations occurred–resulted in eight votes to convict, three undecided and his vote of not guilty.
Over 10 days and more than 70 hours of debate, he refused to budge from his initial vote, despite what he said were bouts of threats and name-calling by some of his fellow jurors–a charge sharply disputed by some of them. He refused to name names, but only said that he was accused of being a racist because he and the defendant, Jonathan Tolliver, are black and that some jurors called him “murder lover, gang lover.”
Other jurors, however, gave differing accounts of the tense deliberations and described a difficult, inclusive process that was conducted thoughtfully, diligently and according to the law.
“We did not say those things,” said juror Cecile Horsky, 42, when told of Shipp’s allegations of name-calling.
And while Shipp insisted the evidence was not sufficient, jurors among the 11 who voted to convict said they regretted that they were not able to find Tolliver guilty.
“I felt disappointed that 12 people came into a room, we all heard the same thing, we all listened to deliberations, and for 11 people, the facts were very clear. For one person, there was nothing else except for the views he gave on Day One,” Horsky said.
At times, Horsky said, deliberations evolved into discussions about race and how blacks are treated by law-enforcement officers, provoking some tensions among panel members.
She said that at one point Shipp told the group, `”When black people are born, they get two records–a birth record and a police record.'”
The deliberations began 10 days ago, about 4 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 30.
Initially, the jury took a vote about Tolliver’s guilt on all four charges against him–three drug-related counts and a first-degree murder charge. The vote on the murder charge was mixed so the group turned to the drug charges.
By Thursday, they agreed that Tolliver was guilty on one count of drug possession, but innocent of conspiracy. One juror said they were unsure prosecutors had proved that others were involved in a conspiracy.
“I voted guilty on the drug charge. I don’t like drug dealers. I don’t like gangbangers. If that had been the [only] case he would have been charged with, I would have had no problem,” Shipp said.
Next, the group turned their attention back to the murder charge. By Friday, jurors said the vote was split 11-1–with Shipp standing alone.
Early on in their talks, Shipp revealed that he had once been falsely accused of possessing crack cocaine. That 1999 charge was dismissed, records show.
“I shared this not knowing that it… would be turned against me,” Shipp said. “Every word I said was turned against me.”
Shipp’s revelation became central to the conversations.
“That’s not a fortunate thing to happen to anybody,” Horsky said of Shipp’s account of his arrest. “We all agreed in that room that sometimes things happen that shouldn’t. But we also agreed that we were not there to judge his case. We had to judge this case.”
Shipp’s arrest prompted another debate: Had he intentionally withheld the information during jury selection?
Shipp said his fellow jurors called him a liar, even though he said he never intentionally withheld the information.
“I was gonna tell [the judge and the lawyers] … but they stopped me,” he said. “I wanted to get off the jury. If they had just let me talk, I would have told them.”
Court transcripts show that Shipp was not asked specifically if he had ever been in a courtroom. He did offer that he had been to court many times as a CTA supervisor, sometimes as a witness in cases like turnstile hopping.
His revelation about the drug charge prompted Horsky on Saturday to send a personal note to the judge asking about perjury and obstruction of justice charges. Horsky said she told Shipp she was about to send the note.
“I felt it was my responsibility,” Horsky said. “I didn’t know if it was my responsibility or not, but I felt it was my responsibility to ask.”
The note later prompted prosecutors to ask Judge Dennis Porter to dismiss Shipp and replace him with an alternate. Porter declined.
Shipp also said jurors reacted strongly when they discussed the question of whether police officers had intimidated witnesses into giving false testimony before the grand jury that indicted Tolliver. Several of the key prosecution witnesses at Tolliver’s trial said they were threatened by police and recanted their grand jury statements when called to the witness stand.
“[The jurors were] saying that … if the police didn’t hit anyone, there’s no way they can intimidate a person,” Shipp recalled. “They was sitting there and all of a sudden I hit on the table. They jumped. I said, `That’s the way police can do it.’ One started crying.
More Top Picks Best Dishwashers
“I was only making a point and then one of them told me that you think you can scare people–I can scare you more,” Shipp said. “In essence, she was telling me that she could make life hard for me.”
On Sunday night, Porter called the jury into the courtroom to ask about progress in the deliberations. Uniformed Chicago police officers and others, believing that the jury had reached a verdict, jammed the courtroom.
When the jurors filed in, one female member began crying when she looked at the sorrowful face of Ceriale’s father, Tony Ceriale, and his partner, Officer Joe Ferenzi.
While the show of force in the courtroom was criticized by defense attorneys as potentially intimidating, Horsky said, “It was the most comforting sight to see the support for one another and the dedication to one of their own.”
But Shipp, again, had a different reaction.
“I looked out there and I [thought], `Should I tuck tail and give up my belief and save my hide or should I vote on what I saw, what the judge instructed me to do,” Shipp said. “Believe me, it was hard sitting in that courtroom.”
Shipp said he never got close to changing his vote.
“The idea was that they was going to outlast me,” he said. “We had all made up our minds. I’m not saying they are wrong. And I’m not saying I’m right. I voted according to the instructions the judge gave me and my ability to judge. That’s all I can do. I cannot say they was wrong. I cannot say I was right. I feel that I’m right as far as following the instruction that the judge gave me.
“Each night I went to bed, I thought it would be much easier if I would just go and vote guilty and … I don’t have to worry, my life is normal,” Shipp said. “But I got to live with myself.”
Horsky said, “I will sleep fine. I have complete peace with myself. I don’t like the outcome. But I don’t know what else I could have done.”
Asked if he would do it over, Shipp paused. “Do it over? I would, but I damn well don’t want to.”
Shipp said he had previously served as a juror on “four or five” other criminal cases, including one involving a black defendant accused of murdering a white man, and that he voted to convict in every case.
“I voted what I saw,” he said. “If I had been convinced this guy was guilty, I have no problem with that–I don’t want no cop killer on the street.”
When the trial ended Thursday, the 11 jurors who voted for Tolliver’s guilt met with the Ceriale family. Shipp, however, did not want to, and left the courthouse. Jurors also met with prosecutors.
“We told them we believe them,” said one juror, who asked that her name not be published.
“I pray I am never asked to do it again,” the juror continued. “Emotionally, it was unbelievable. My heart goes out to the Ceriale family and all the people who worked on this case.”
Shipp also said he did all he could do.
“But I had to live with myself,” he said. “Dr. [Martin Luther] King stated if you don’t stand up for something, you’ll fall for anything.”