IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEVADA

161LED
JOHN M. WATSON III, SEP 2 7 20W
Appellant(s), Case No: C230024
DEATH PENALTY Ri
SC No: 56721
STATE OF NEVADA,
Respondent(s),

RECORD ON APPEAL

ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT ATTORNEY FOR RESPONDENT

PATRICK E. MCDONALD, ESQ. DAVID ROGER, ESQ.
601 S. SEVENTH STREET DISTRICT ATTORNEY
LAS VEGAS, NV 89101 200 LEWIS AVE.
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89101
 ORIGINAL FILED IN OPEN COUR
STEVEN D. GRIERSON
CLERK OF THE COURT

JUN 1 k 2010
DISTRICT COURT
CLARK COUNTY, NEVADA

THE STATE OF NEVADA, )

)
Plaintiff, )
) CASE NO: C230024
vs. ) DEPT NO: V
)
JOHN WATSON III )
) Transcript of
Defendant. ) Proceedings
)

BEFORE THE HONORABLE SALLY LOEHRER, SENIOR JUDGE

PENALTY PHASE

FRIDAY, JUNE 11, 2010

APPEARANCES:

FOR THE STATE: MARC DiGIACOMO, ESQ.

Chief Deputy District Attorney
PAMELA WECKERLY, ESQ.
Chief Deputy District Attorney

FOR THE DEFENDANT: STEPHANIE B. KICE, ESQ.

McDONALD E. PATRICK, ESQ.

RECORDED BY CHERYL CARPENTER, COURT RECORDER

TRANSCRIBED BY: KARReporting, Inc.

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OPEING STATEMENTS:

By Mr. DiGiacomo 25

By Ms. Kice 30

WITNESSES FOR THE STATE:

JUAN ALFONSO WATSON

Direct Examination By Ms. Weckerly 32

Cross-Examination By Ms. Kice 34

MICHAEL WATSON

Direct Examination By Ms. Weckerly 37

Cross-Examination By Ms. Kice 40

ANDREW WATSON

Direct Examination By Ms. Wecker1y 43

Cross-Examination By Ms. Kice 46

LARRY HANNA

Direct Examination By Mr. DiGiacom 49

Cross-Examination By Ms. Kice 70

Redirect Examination By Mr. DiGiacomo 73

Recross Examination By Ms. Kice 74

CLOSING ARGUMENTS:

By Ms. Weckerly 85

By Ms. Kice 97

By Mr. DiGiacomo 103

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 1 attorney -- never mind about that part. Although he allowed

2 me to say it, I still don't want to talk about that part.

3 Okay. And most important, I wish my sons to know

4 the truth. Okay. No matter what you cannot change, your

5 verdict, but I can do my best to help my family see what

6 happened. All I ask that you -- this is the last part. I

7 only ask that you vote to give me the death penalty. Thank

8 you.

THE COURT: Thank you, Mr. Watson. You may return

10 to counsel table.

11 Do you have additional witnesses to call?

12 MR. McDONALD: No, Your Honor.

13 THE COURT: All right. Ladies and gentlemen --

14 MR. DiGIACOMO: Judge, they're not rested, though.

15 They have some documents that they're --

16 THE COURT: Oh, okay. I'm sorry.

17 You have no witnesses to call, but you wish to

18 introduce an exhibit.

19 MR. McDONALD: The State has stipulated to the

20 introduction of those documents that --

21 THE COURT: And that will be Defense Exhibit A?

22 MR. McDONALD: A.

23 THE COURT: All right. And those summarized are?

24 MR. McDONALD: The adjudication of insanity from

25 1958, the records from the institutions that he was at.

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1 THE COURT: Terrell, Texas and Rusk State Hospital.

2 MR. McDONALD: Correct. And Parkland Hospital was

3 also in those.

4 THE COURT: Defendant's Exhibit A will be admitted

5 as an exhibit.

6 (Defendant's Exhibit A admitted.)

7 THE COURT: Do you have additional exhibits to

8 introduce?

9 MR. McDONALD: No.

10 THE COURT: All right. Does the defense rest?

11 MR. McDONALD: Yes, Your Honor.

12 THE COURT: Does the State have any rebuttal?

13 MR. DiGIACOMO: No, Your Honor.

14 THE COURT: All right. Ladies and gentlemen, that

15 concludes the evidentiary portion of the penalty hearing. We

16 have jury instructions for you and we'll hand them out to you.

17 And in the State of the Nevada, the law says I give

18 it to you, not out of any of the books, and I'm going to tell

19 you what that law is. Okay. Everybody got a copy of the

20 instructions?

21 (Jury instructions read, not transcribed)

22 THE COURT: Counsel for the State, are you ready to

23 argue?

24 MS. WECKERLY: Yes, Your Honor.

25 THE COURT: You may proceed.

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1 STATE'S CLOSING ARGUMENT

2 MS. WECKERLY: This afternoon as you're

3 contemplating a sentencing decision for John Watson, as you

4 sit here, you may have more questions really than answers

5 about who he is as a person, but you do know that he's

6 methodical and you know that he's someone who's relatively

7 intelligent and you know that he's someone who's sort of

8 guarded because you heard his conversations with Detective

9 Hanna.

10 For his sons Juan, Michael, and Andrew there

11 probably was a time before all this happened that they thought

12 they knew a lot about their father. He was probably someone

13 who they thought was a disciplined person, somebody who was

14 obviously good at math, not as social as their mother. As

15 they sit here this afternoon, what have they learned about

16 their father? Like you, they've learned about what his past

17 consists of and they've learned about how he interacts with

18 the world. And from that, you know that he's someone who's

19 manipulative, he's someone who's deceitful, he's someone who's

20 selfish and he's certainly someone who's dangerous.

21 There's a lot of cases that you hear in the media of

22 what we call domestic homicides. A lot of times,

23 unfortunately, that occurs and it's under sort of a theme of,

24 you know, if I can't have her, no one can. In this case,

25 while it is certainly a murder that would qualify as a

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 1 domestic relationship between the defendant and the victim or

2 husband and wife, this really is a little bit set apart from

3 that. This isn't a crime that was driven by emotion. This

4 isn't a crime that's set in feelings that erupted. This is

5 something that was colder. This is something that was

6 calculated. And there's a lot more layers to his

7 dangerousness than someone who reacts out of emotion.

8 And as John Watson sits before you this afternoon,

9 you heard about some of his letters that he wrote to his sons

10 where he sort of expresses shades of regret or even sorrow

11 about what happened to his wife. What do you think he's

12 thinking about? The fact that his sons don't have a mother

13 anymore? Or do you think he's thinking about the mistakes

14 that he may have made? Like the story of her going to

15 Guatemala really wasn't a good choice, the story about her

16 getting a ride home with a stranger, that really wasn't a good

17 choice either because it didn't work out. Maybe he should

18 have cleaned that hotel room just a little bit better.

19 Now, Judge Loehrer just informed you on the law

20 regarding penalty hearings in first-degree murder cases in

21 Nevada and it's a little bit mechanistic and there's kind of

22 steps that you go through collectively as a group, but

23 basically what you're doing is you're answering two questions,

24 and the two questions are: Can you consider the death penalty

25 legally and what sentence is appropriate?

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1 In the State of Nevada, the legislature has

2 determined that there are certain factors that make people

3 eligible, it's never required, but it makes them eligible to

4 have the death penalty as a potential sentence. So not

5 everybody who is convicted of first-degree murder is even

6 eligible for a death penalty as a potential sentence.

7 And what that legislature has done is identified

8 certain factors that are indicating that a murder, even among

9 first-degree murders, are sort of set apart. These factors

10 make first-degree murders different than other forms of

11 first-degree murder. And obviously then you'll understand

12 that there are cases where you have a wilful, deliberate and

13 premeditated murder with no aggravating circumstances, and in

14 that situation, the person would not be eligible for the death

15 penalty.

16 So what are the aggravating circumstances that

17 occurred in this case? The law defines an aggravating --

18 well, I'll get to what the law explains as an aggravating

19 circumstance, but as Judge Loehrer explained to you, as a

20 jury, as a collective group, you have to determine whether an

21 aggravating circumstance has been proven to you by the State

22 of Nevada beyond a reasonable doubt. And the requirement is

23 that that has to be found unanimously.

24 In this particular case, the State has alleged that

25 there are three circumstances that legally aggravate this

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 1 murder, three circumstances that set this murder apart from

2 other cases of first-degree murder. The first aggravating

3 circumstance you actually found already technically with your

4 verdict in the trial phase of this case by convicting the

5 defendant of kidnapping.

6 One of the circumstances that the legislature has

7 identified as an aggravating circumstance is that the murder

8 was committed during the course of a kidnapping in the first

9 degree. You've already found that. Your guilt verdict or

10 your verdict in the trial phase of this proceeding indicates

11 that this was a murder that was committed during the course of

12 the kidnapping. And now as you sit here this afternoon, I'm

13 sure it's quite easy for you to contemplate that John Watson

14 is someone who is capable of tricking someone into coming to

15 Las Vegas. He's capable of telling his wife that this would

16 be a fun trip to celebrate her 50th birthday and he's capable

17 of luring her here with a very sinister plan in mind.

18 The second factor that aggravates this murder is

19 that it was committed for money. It was committed for

20 monetary value. And as Judge Loerher explained to you in the

21 instructions, as you sit here deciding the penalty hearing,

22 you're allowed to consider all of the information and all of

23 the testimony and really all of the exhibits that were

24 presented to you in the first part of this trial, in the trial

25 phase.

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1 And it was a little while ago that the very first

2 witness actually spoke to this aggravating circumstance, that

3 the murder was committed for financial gain, and that was

4 David Guerrero, the friend who met the Watson family through

5 the Judo practices. Remember, he said that he had a

6 conversation with Mr. Watson shortly before the murder

7 occurred where Mr. Watson was upset that his wife was going to

8 leave him and take essentially half his pension or half his

9 money with her and he didn't want that to happen.

10 And you also heard this afternoon, or actually,

11 rather, this morning, Mr. Watson actually discussing with

12 Detective Hanna how much money was sort of at stake.

13 Remember, he said on the tape that they had about a million

14 dollars. Mr. Watson clearly did not want his wife to take any

15 of that money and so the murder was committed for financial

16 gain.

17 The third aggravating circumstance that was

18 presented in this case was that this murder involved

19 mutilation of the victim. And you know this occurred. The

20 police, even four years later, have been unable to locate the

21 body of Everilda Watson. You heard a letter read this morning

22 where the defendant basically admitted to cutting up his wife

23 and cooking her. I mean, it's literally something that sounds

24 like it should be out of a movie and really maybe it should.

25 You know he used a bandsaw to do it and apparently that broke,

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1 according to him, but there's certainly absolutely no question

2 given the state of the evidence in this case that he mutilated

3 her body, which is a -- I mean, I don't think disrespectful

4 actually covers the nature of that kind of act, what he did to

5 her. But obviously this is an aggravating circumstance that

6 is without question present in this case.

7 The second step that you go through collectively as

8 a group is you decide if there are mitigating circumstances

9 and the law in mitigating circumstances is actually different

10 than aggravating circumstances. First, you don't need to find

11 a mitigating circumstance exists beyond a reasonable doubt.

12 If you believe it exists, you don't have to subject it to any

13 kind of weighing or any kind of standard of proof.

14 The second aspect of mitigating circumstances is it

15 does not have to be a unanimous finding. You all do not have

16 to agree that a mitigating circumstance is present. It's a

17 broader consideration for you as a sentence.

18 The third step in the process then is you simply

19 weigh the aggravating circumstances and mitigating

20 circumstances. The jury may impose a sentence of death only

21 if the jurors find unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt

22 that at least one aggravating circumstance exists; each and

23 every juror determines that the mitigating circumstance or

24 circumstances which he or she has found do not outweigh the

25 aggravating circumstance or circumstances; and, three, the

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1 jurors unanimously determine that in their discretion a

2 sentence of death is appropriate.

3 Now, as Judge Loerher instructed you, the death

4 penalty -- and I think we actually told you this several times

5 during the jury selection process -- the death penalty's never

6 automatic. You are to go through these steps and make a

7 collective and individual determination. If you determine

8 that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigation,

9 then you can consider among the four possible punishments in

10 this case. And when you're weighing those four options, I'd

11 ask you to consider the weight or the value that the defendant

12 placed on Everilda Watson. Apparently her life was worth

13 something less than $500,000 to him.

14 Apparently he suffered from some sort of mental

15 disabilities in the past, but you actually heard from his son

16 in the first part of this trial, when he came back from Las

17 Vegas, he was cold, he wasn't emotional, and he certainly

18 wasn't admitting what he did. You know that over the past

19 decades, couple of decades, that he is someone who was able to

20 work, able to function and able to control himself, but he

21 came to Las Vegas because he had to get rid of her because she

22 was going to take the money.

23 And when deciding your sentence, I ask you to

24 consider as well what has happened to his three sons in light

25 of his selfish conduct. Andrew was in high school at the time

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1 this occurred and this was news. Imagine what it was like for

2 him going to school knowing that people knew that this had

3 occurred in his family. Even if it wasn't malicious, going to

4 school knowing that people are talking about this event that

5 occurred --

6 MS. KICE: Objection, Your Honor.

7 THE COURT: Objection sustained.

8 MS. WECKERLY: All the brothers, all three of them,

9 now have this in their personal history. Anybody who gets

10 close to them, they will have to explain, well, what happened

11 between my mom and my dad, well, there was a murder. And what

12 was it like? Well, we didn't even know where her body was.

13 And that's part of their personal history.

14 And how was it for Michael during this process when

15 he got a call from dad about giving him some money on his

16 books on the hope, you know, maybe at some point he would tell

17 them where their mother's body was?

18 And how about Juan? He talked to you this morning.

19 On his wedding day, a day that he should have been happy and

20 without a care in the world, who do you think he was missing?

21 And he's held his sons essentially emotionally

22 hostage because he's never told them, without conditions,

23 where she is. And do you think now as -- over the past four

24 years, they haven't gone through and thought about every

25 family interaction they can remember and wonder if, like,

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1 there were signs there regarding what was to come? Or how

2 about questioning everything their father has ever told them?

3 I mean, he's taken away any memory that they could have had

4 that was positive from childhood and now made it something --

5 MS. KICE: Objection, Your Honor.

6 MS. WECKERLY: -- that they have to think about all

7 the time.

8 THE COURT: Objection's noted, but overruled.

9 MS. WECKERLY: What compensates them for that? Who

10 do they see about that? What is -- what is his accountability

11 for that?

12 Now, the State's position is that the nature of this

13 crime warrants consideration of all four possible punishments,

14 and as a group, we ask you to consider literally what he

15 deserves for what he did to Everilda Watson and everything --

16 taking into consideration everything you know about him. And

17 it's simple and sort of tempting sometimes to shift that

18 burden into the future and say, well, there's ultimate justice

19 or things take place outside a courtroom. But with all due

20 respect, that isn't your role as a criminal jury. Your job

21 and your responsibility is to fix a punishment. It's to make

22 a decision. And the State of Nevada will accept any decision

23 regarding sentencing that you make. We just ask you not to

24 put it off and not to delay it, but to make a decision and be

25 accountable for the decision that you make.

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1 In some ways, some of the surreal information you

2 heard this morning and a little bit this afternoon may have

3 been unexpected because you look at Mr. Watson on that Tuscany

4 videotape and he's with his cane and he's kind of tottering

5 around and he doesn't look that menacing, but you know what he

6 did at this point and you know what he's capable of and you

7 know what damage he's caused. And keep in mind that whatever

8 sentence you choose to impose for him, it won't ever be equal

9 or exact justice. He's not going to be attacked for no

10 reason. It's not going to be --

11 MS. KICE: Objection, Your Honor.

12 MS. WECKERLY: a surprise.

13 THE COURT: Objection is sustained.

14 MS. WECKERLY: May I just ask the grounds for that?

15 THE COURT: Well, you said he's not going to be

16 attacked for no reason. You don't know that.

17 MS. WECKERLY: By their sentence -- by your

18 sentence --

19 THE COURT: That's true.

20 MS. WECKERLY: -- he won't be attacked for no

21 reason. It won't be something that is a surprise. It won't

22 be over money and it won't be unjustified. It will be for

23 decisions he made. It will be for choices he made. It will

24 be for things he set in motion in the days and hours leading

25 up to this. I mean, he could have chose not to do any of this

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1 at all. That would have been the first step. He could have

2 chose not to do it in such a horrific way. He made a

3 different decision. He could have owned up to his sons on

4 that Sunday that he came back. He chose not to do that.

5 He chose to -- he could have chosen not to tell a

6 story about her going to Guatemala and a story about her

7 getting a ride and now a story about a suicide, to spare them,

8 but every time he's made a decision that's selfish for himself

9 at the expense of his children. And he tells you the sentence

10 he wants this afternoon, and you should not, absolutely not

11 impose a sentence because of something he wants. The sentence

12 you should impose should be what he deserves.

13 Thank you.

14 THE COURT: Okay. Counsel for the defense.

15 MS. KICE: Thank you, Your Honor.

16 DEFENDANT'S CLOSING ARGUMENT

17 MS. KICE: May it please the Court, ladies and

18 gentlemen of the jury, opposing counsel. I'd just like to

19 apologize up front because I'm very nervous. If at any point

20 in time my nerves get the better of me, I hope you don't hold

21 that against Mr. Watson. That's 100 percent my

22 responsibility. I'm nervous because I'm going to stand here

23 and ask you for something that the victim in this case didn't

24 get and that was mercy. I'm asking you to extend mercy to

25 John Watson.

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1 First I want you to think back to the beginning of

2 this trial maybe when you first came in and filled out your

3 questionnaires and you found out that it was potentially a

4 capital case. Think about the kind of person that you thought

5 was worthy of the death penalty. I submit to you that John

6 Watson is not worthy of a sentence of death. Mr. Watson is

7 almost 71 years old. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in

8 2006. He's been treated for high blood pressure. Mr. Watson

9 does not pose any future danger. In fact, in prior

10 incarceration or institutionalization settings, he adjusted so

11 well that he was able to be released on his own recognizance.

12 What Mr. Watson is is he's old, he's frail, he's

13 sick, and he's struggled with mental illness for more than

14 half a century. Mr. Watson has struggled with many demons.

15 You have in evidence mental health records dating back to the

16 Eisenhower administration where he was diagnosed with

17 schizophrenia. In the course of today, you've heard people

18 talk about multiple instances when he had thoughts about

19 killing himself.

20 As a result of a burglary in Texas where he was

21 breaking into a church to play the piano one last time before

22 he killed himself, he spent 18 months in a mental health

23 facility. After 18 months, he had adjusted significantly

24 enough, appropriately enough that they released him.

25 But I submit to you that those demons were still

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1 there, and I'd ask that you take the information that we heard

2 on the tape from Ms. Stonebreaker with perhaps a grain of

3 salt, because she told some pretty fantastic stories about her

4 time with Mr. Watson, including -- she claims that she made a

5 report to the police, but then when the police got there, they

6 decided that she was the one that was crazy. She claims that

7 he attempted to murder her mother in Guatemala. She claims

8 that he slept with bullets so that he could feel close to

9 death. She admitted that he did attempt to set their house on

10 fire, but contrary to what the State said in their opening, he

11 did not burn the house to the ground, just a portion of the

12 house burned.

13 She claims that he had inside knowledge of the

14 Kennedy assassination and that Mr. Watson knew Jack Ruby and

15 he knew that Jack Ruby was going to kill Lee Harvey Oswald.

16 She also stated in her statement that she gave over the phone

17 that she turned over a suitcase related to the Kennedy

18 assassination to the Secret Service, but we don't see any NCIC

19 report. Mr. Watson was arrested in connection with the

20 Kennedy assassination.

21 She also claims that Mr. Watson swam across a river

22 with a child on his back, and perhaps the most fanciful story

23 that we heard from Ms. Stonebreaker was that despite the fact

24 that Mr. Watson was a suspect in a potential murder, the

25 police let him decline walking around because he had on shorts

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1 and he didn't want to scratch up his legs.

2 There's a long period of time between John Watson

3 having serious mental health issues and where we are today.

4 And something happened in that intervening time and Mr. Watson

5 lives a life of almost remarkable averageness, but the demons

6 were still there. During this time frame, he goes to college

7 and he eventually obtains a master's degree. He taught school

8 in California for 30 years. He sponsored student activities.

9 He loved his children. We heard no reports when they

10 testified today of any abuse that went on in the home.

11 By all accounts, he loved his wife. His children

12 didn't report any physical beatings or arguments between the

13 two of them.

14 He provided for his family. He made time to take

15 them to Judo and activities that they were interested in. He

16 made sure that Michael was able to take advantage of advanced

17 math classes because he's obviously talented in that area.

18 He went to work. He paid his taxes. He invented a

19 device to help his son play the card game that he liked. He

20 took his family on vacation, and on a teacher's salary while

21 raising three sons, he was able to save close to $1 million.

22 34 years is over 12,000 days. For over 12,000 days

23 John Watson kept the demons at bay, but then something

24 happened. Mr. Watson finds out that he has cancer and this

25 sets off a chain of events that brings us to where we are

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1 today. Given his mental health history and coupled with the

2 fact that he now has a potentially fatal disease, something

3 snapped.

4 What happened? We don't know. This crime, I'll

5 submit to you, wasn't quite as well thought out and calculated

6 and methodical as the State might have us believe.

7 The State wants you to find the aggravators that

8 they allege outweigh the mitigating factors in this case. The

9 first aggravator is the kidnapping and that was part of your

10 decision in the guilt phase portion of this trial. It's up to

11 you to determine whether or not that's an aggravating

12 circumstance.

13 As to the issue of pecuniary gain, it's my

14 recollection that Mr. Guerrero testified that Mr. Watson told

15 him he was scared his wife was going to take all his money.

16 California's a community property state. She would have only

17 been entitled to half of the community property.

18 In terms of torture and mutilation, there's no

19 indication that Mrs. Watson was tortured prior to her death.

20 There's no compelling evidence that the body was mutilated

21 postmortem. The only evidence that the body was mutilated

22 after she was killed are the ramblings of a mentally ill

23 suicidal man.

24 What you do have is a picture of a tarp that was

25 found in Tulare County. That tarp looks like a shroud. It

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1 looks like it went around an entire body.

2 There's no evidence of Mr. Watson cooking parts of

3 his wife. There was no DNA found on the kitchen utensils in

4 Room N 120.

5 I ask you not only to consider the events that took

6 place in Las Vegas, excuse me, between July 11th and 15th of

7 2006. 1 ask you to consider the over 12,000 days where

8 Mr. Watson dedicated himself to his education, his profession,

9 his family and his community. There's an instruction that

10 says that the law does not require the jury to impose the

11 death penalty under any circumstances even when the

12 aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating

13 circumstances. I ask you to look at that instruction

14 carefully.

15 The other instruction I'd like to point out is that

16 the two mitigating instructions include if the crime is

17 committed under extreme emotional distress. I submit to you

18 it was. Mr. Watson had lived a life of quiet desperation. He

19 found out he could die and something snapped. That is the

20 extreme emotional distress he was under. And any other

21 mitigating circumstances.

22 John Watson struggled with his demons for almost

23 half a century and he won that battle every single day for

24 almost 12,000 days. As a teacher for 30 years, he had an

25 impact on thousands of young people's lives. He raised three

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1 sons and he contributed to his community.

2 Everilda Watson deserved better than the fate that

3 she got. Juan, Michael, and Andrew deserved to have the love

4 and support of their nuclear family as they go through the

5 milestones in their lives, but please don't let all the good

6 that John Watson did for over 30 years be washed away because

7 of five tragic days.

8 John Watson is old. He has cancer and he is utterly

9 and completely alone. He's lost everything because for five

10 days he let the demons win. And I ask that you extend him

11 mercy because there can be no justice unless there's mercy.

12 Thank you.

13 THE COURT: Thank you, Counsel.

14 State wish to rebut?

15 MR. DiGIACOMO: Thank you.

16 STATE'S REBUTTAL ARGUMENT

17 MR. DiGIACOMO: This morning I said to you that your

18 job is about justice and I said, you know, to a certain extent

19 it's going to be a truth finding function. I'd like to remind

20 you not to listen to what I say and not to listen to what

21 Ms. Weckerly said, and certainly Ms. Kice, while she just gave

22 you a very impassioned plea on behalf of her client, ask what

23 she actually said that there's evidence to support. Ask

24 what -- what evidence of there is this prostate cancer, first

25 of all, and then he told his sons afterwards that he has

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1 prostate cancer. Ask yourself what evidence there was that

2 this prostate cancer causes him to snap. Ask yourself what

3 evidence there is of his mental health problems. Really?

4 Because a doctor in 2008 says, even knowing what

5 allegedly happened in the '50s, says no mental health problems

6 whatsoever. Ask yourself, when she says he had demons, what

7 those records really say. Read Defense Exhibit No. A. Read

8 what it says. There's a lot of information in there, a lot of

9 things about some very disturbing crimes that Mr. Watson

10 allegedly committed back in the '50s as a teenager and into

11 his young years.

12 And at one point there is a suggestion that

13 potentially he's a sociopath and it says -- I mean, I'm sorry

14 schizophrenia, and it says "tentative" next to it. And you

15 look and someone says he tentatively might be a schizophrenic,

16 and then later in their reports they say actually he's just a

17 sociopath. That's what his diagnoses it. John Watson is a

18 sociopath.

19 Well, I don't know that you need records from the

20 '50s to make the determination that that's got to be true.

21 Have you seen one evidence of remorse on behalf of Mr. Watson

22 whatsoever? And I have to agree with Ms. Weckerly on this

23 point, please, God, do not give him the ultimate punishment

24 because he's asking for it. Your job is to do justice,

25 justice for Everilda, justify to John Watson, justice for

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1 those three boys back there. Make sure you define the justice

2 appropriately, not based on some request, whether or not that

3 request was really or unreal.

4 Then ask yourself about the aggravators in this

5 case. Well, the first one's established beyond a reasonable

6 doubt. You already established it. The suggestion was to you

7 still apparently that Mr. Guerrero is not telling you guys the

8 truth, that he wanted all his money. Okay. So a million

9 dollars versus 500,000. What's Everilda Watson's life worth?

10 Does it matter if it's 500,000 or a million? What's the value

11 that she had to those three kids?

12 And then ask yourself the mutilation. Did you need

13 those records? Every one of the 12 of you knew her body was

14 cut up. You knew it the moment you saw the video of that

15 bandsaw. You knew at that point that something happened to

16 her and certainly now when he says, hey, I cooked her and

17 there happens to be cooking utensils found in the room, wow,

18 surprise, surprise, or I cut her up into smaller pieces.

19 Really? You already knew all that.

20 And then they suggested to you that Mary

21 Stonebreaker just isn't telling the truth. Well, you know,

22 some of the things she says are pretty outlandish, you know,

23 and then you find out, oh, wait a second, it's not just that

24 she told the police that he killed a hitchhiker and sexually

25 assaulted her and buried her on a farm. Read the newspaper

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1 article. Mr. Watson tells the authorities, yes, I did that,

2 but they never found the body. And then look at his NCIC. He

3 was arrested for it.

4 Really? It's really strange that the Secret Service

5 was looking into him? Well, apparently he threatened to kill

6 President Nixon. That's in his NCIC and there's records

7 showing that's true.

8 Look at everything you know about John Watson and

9 ask yourself, well, that 30 years he was a teacher or the fact

10 that he has a high IQ or the fact that he did some good things

11 in life, ask yourself, does that mitigate his crime. This

12 isn't somebody who grew up in a horrible family and as a young

13 kid committed a crime and it's society's fault. This is a guy

14 who, I would suggest to you, being a teacher for 30 years,

15 being intelligent, having the ability to save money for his

16 retirement, to save $1 million, able to invent somebody [sic),

17 somebody who commits a murder who has all that ability in life

18 who has these three good sons back there, that's not

19 mitigation. That might cause you to choose a higher penalty

20 for him.

21 So I'm going to ask you to go back in that back

22 room, I'm going to ask you to talk about it. The first thing

23 I'm going to ask on behalf of State of Nevada, don't somehow

24 say something mitigated those aggravators. Don't do that.

25 Don't walk back there and say, hey, you know, he had some

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 • •
1 mental health problems in the '50s that somehow makes it okay

2 that he cut up his wife or that somehow reduces his

3 culpability. Get past that first stage.

4 And then go back there and look at those four

5 punishments and ask yourself, for a man who's 71, what is the

6 appropriate punishment? The fact that he's 71 probably means

7 that's there probably no difference between the first three

8 punishments for Mr. Watson. He's probably never getting out

9 of prison. And so for the boys, you would say, well, at the

10 very least, its got to be life without. But for Everilda

11 Watson and the boys, I think the only appropriate punishment

12 that you should be finding for Mr. Watson is one which defines

13 this crime, defines how horrifying this crime is and defines

14 how horrifying he's been to them and how little remorse he's

15 shown.

16 THE COURT: Thank you, Counsel.

17 Ladies and gentlemen, at this time the clerk is

18 going to swear our court officers to take charge of our jurors

19 and our alternate jurors. Our alternate jurors are the same

20 as last time, Peter and Cory.

21 Peter and Cory, you'll go with Janice. She'll

22 direct you down to the third floor. You will get your

23 vouchers from the jury commission office down there and they

24 will pay you and you will be finished with your service.

25 The 12 deliberating jurors, you will go with Al --

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1 you'll go with Al and he'll take you back to the jury

2 deliberation room where you will follow the instructions and

3 deliberate and determine an appropriate punishment in this

4 case. And as soon as you've done so, you'll let the bailiff

5 know and we'll reconvene here and receive your decision.

6 You can swear Al to take care of the jury.

7 (Officer sworn)

8 THE COURT: So, Janice, if you'll take the

9 alternates and take them down to the jury commission and get

10 them paid.

11 And if the other 12 of you will please go with Al.

12 Counsel, we need you to stay within ten minutes of

13 the courthouse, and we have to have your phone numbers. If

14 you've already given them to Janice, you don't have to give

15 them to her again.

16 Thank you. We'll be in recess.

17 (Court recessed at 2:37 p.m.)

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ATTEST: I hereby certify that I have truly and correctly transcribed

the audio/video proceedings in the above-entitled case to the best of

my ability.

KARReporting and Transcription Services

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