MELISSA MARVIN TRIAL
				Should Marvin be tried for murder? Discuss on our message board Background Jan. 11 Openings Jan. 12 Update Jan. 13 Update Jan. 13 PM Update Jan. 14 Update Jan. 14 (Closings) Jan. 15 (Sentencing)

MANTEO, N.C. (Court TV) —The fate of Melissa Marvin, the amateur surfer accused of killing four teenagers in a drunk driving accident, is now in the hands of the jury.

The nine men and three women began deliberating the four second-degree murder counts and one assault charge Friday evening. If convicted, Marvin, 30, could spend the remainder of her life in prison. The murder charges each carry a maximum sentence of 17 years and three years for the assault charge.

In closing arguments, the prosecution and defense disagreed widely on the blood evidence in the case and Marvin's ultimate responsibility for the deaths, but they agreed on one point.

"This is as tragic as it gets," said prosecutor Robert Trivette.

"This is as bad a tragedy as we'll ever see," said defense attorney Michael Sanders.

Police allege that on April 6, 1999 a heavily intoxicated Marvin barreled through a red light in the ocean resort town of Kill Devil Hills and crashed into a car carrying five 17-year-olds. High school juniors Shana Lawler, Megan Blong, Amanda Geiger and Angela McGrady were killed, and their friend Michael Horner sustained serious injuries.

Prosecutors Amber Davis and Robert Trivette in their closings portrayed Marvin as a repeat drunk driver whose selfish attitude and reckless behavior claimed the lives of four young women on the cusp of adulthood. Davis traced Marvin's tangles with law enforcement against the back drop of the victims' lives.

When the victims were in elementary school, Marvin was first arrested for driving while intoxicated. When they were in middle school, she was charged again. By the third arrest, after the fatal crash, she was "a veteran DWI offender" who knew the system and refused to submit to a breathalyzer test or otherwise cooperate with police.

"It's simple in this case. Three strikes, and you are out. She's had her chance," said Davis.

She told the jurors not to be swayed by Marvin's youth or appearance, but rather judge her "just as it would be appropriate to some 50-year-old alcoholic man with the same driving record as Miss Marvin's."

Trivette repeatedly reminded jurors that they did not have to find that Marvin intended to kill the girls in order to find her guilty of murder. Under North Carolina's second-degree murder statute, Marvin can be convicted without intent if the jury finds her actions were so inherently dangerous and showed such recklessness and wantonness that they reflect an utter disregard for human life and social duty.

Trivette urged the jury to view the previous DWI arrests and her actions on April 6 as proof that Marvin's actions were malicious. Mimicking her attitude, he said, "I'll drink and I'll drive and I'll speed without regard to anyone else's rights...Damn the torpedoes. I will live and act the way I want without regard to consequences."

Marvin's attorney responded by alleging that the state's case was riddled with contradictions and inconsistencies that, he suggested, called the whole case into question. He pointed to conflicting statements by eye witnesses about the speed and operation of Marvin's vehicle just before the crash, cautioning jurors that while eye witness testimony "can be powerful, it can also be inconsistent."

In what prosecutors ridiculed as a "conspiracy theory," Marvin questioned state testimony that Marvin's blood was .28, more than three and a half times the legal limit, at the time of the crash. He suggested the blood samples taken from Marvin in the hospital several hours after the crash may have been skewed by drugs administered there or by degradation that occurred when the blood samples were not immediately refrigerated.

He told jurors that Marvin's demeanor before and after the crash was inconsistent with blood tests indicating she was so intoxicated. He pointed to witnesses who did not even smell liquor on her breath. Even those who did notice it, did not observe the staggering and slurring of words that someone so drunk should have exhibited.

Sanders repeatedly reminded jurors that nailing down all these facts and ultimately bearing the burden of proof was the job of the state, not Marvin. The state's use of Marvin's driving record, including three speeding tickets, to prove she had the malice requisite for murder demonstrates how weak their case is, he said.

"They don't have any evidence of malice on April 6, 1999 so what they want to do is give you some old cases," he said.

He noted police had originally charged Marvin with "unintentionally causing those deaths and I submit to you that is the truth."

"She is not a murderer, and this case does not rise to the level of murder. It's terrible. It's the saddest thing, as I have said, that we'll ever see. But she is not a murderer," he said.

—Harriet Ryan