Jury spares life of killer ex-cop
(CNN) -- Jurors spared the life of a former Canton, Ohio, police officer who killed his pregnant girlfriend and tearfully asked them for mercy.
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Bobby Lee Cutts Jr. stared straight ahead as the jury announced its recommendation to spare him.
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<SCRIPT type=text/javascript _extended="true"> var CNN_ArticleChanger = new CNN_imageChanger('cnnImgChngr','/2008/CRIME/02/27/cutts.sentence/imgChng/p1-0.init.exclude.html',1,1);//CNN.imageChanger.load('cnnImgChngr','imgChng/p1-0.exclude.html');</SCRIPT><!--endclickprintexclude-->Bobby Lee Cutts Jr., 30, stared straight ahead as the verdict was read. He and his lawyer teared up as the jurors were polled about their decision.
Cutts could become eligible for parole in 30 years under the jury's recommended sentence.
The six men and six women deliberated for 12 hours over two days before agreeing that Cutts should not be executed for the murder of his unborn child.
The jury's verdict was merely a recommendation. Judge Charles E. Brown is hearing tearful statements form Davis' friends and family before making the final decision on Cutts' sentence.
On February 15, the same jury found Cutts guilty of murdering Jessie Marie Davis, who was nine months pregnant when she disappeared in mid-June, 2007. The baby, who was to be named Chloe, was due in early July.
It was Chloe's death that made Cutts eligible for the death penalty. Jurors convicted him of two counts of aggravated murder -- for terminating a pregnancy and taking her life during the commission of a felony.
All the members of the jury are white, as was Davis. Cutts is black.
Cutts, who has maintained Davis' death was the result of an accidental elbow to the neck, asked the jury to spare his life and offered a tearful apology at his sentencing hearing Tuesday.
Watch Cutts' tearful plea »
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I'm asking you to spare my life," he said. "To imagine that I was responsible for the death of Jessie, the mother of my children and my unborn daughter, is beyond any words that I can express," Cutts added, reading from a handwritten statement.
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Cutts' lawyer, Fernando Mack, urged jurors to recommend the lowest available penalty -- 25 years to life -- to allow him to play a limited role in his other children's lives.
Saying the death penalty should be used only on the "worst of the worst," Mack focused his argument on the heavy burden of handing down the "ultimate sentence of death."
"This is not simply about signing a name to a piece of paper," Mack argued. "This is about participating in the death of another human being. Not unlike Bobby, that's something that you will have to live with."
Mack acknowledged that many of the jurors might still be angry with Cutts for leaving his 2½-year-old son, Blake, home alone for more than a day while his mother lay dead in a field.
But sentencing Cutts to death hurts Blake even more, he argued. "That is still Blake's father, like it or not. The prosecutor here wants you to kill Blake's father, so now he'll have no parents."
Stark County Assistant Prosecutor Dennis Barr did not present victim impact testimony from Davis' family, but attacked Cutts' character and his sincerity on the stand.
A police officer should have known better, he said.
"Bobby Cutts took an oath to serve and protect," the prosecutor argued. "But on June 14, 2007, Bobby Cutts did not serve and protect. He destroyed."
He then took aim at Cutts' sobbing statement to the jury, in which he apologized to Davis' family and insisted he did not intentionally kill her or Chloe.
"Really, Bobby? Really?" Barr said, turning toward Cutts. "He had a chance to walk away, he had a chance to stop, he had a chance to try to save baby Chloe, but he didn't because he chose not to."
Davis was nine months pregnant when she disappeared in June 2007. Her body was found in a northeastern Ohio park after a 10-day search that brought national media attention
According to testimony, Cutts, 30, rolled Davis' body in a comforter and dumped it in a park, leaving toddler son Blake in the house alone at the crime scene in a soiled diaper.
<!--endclickprintexclude-->"Mommy's in the rug," Blake told police, according to testimony.
Prosecutors charged during the trial that Cutts buckled under the financial pressure of additional child support, killed Davis, and then created a cover story to try to get away with it
(CNN) -- Jurors spared the life of a former Canton, Ohio, police officer who killed his pregnant girlfriend and tearfully asked them for mercy.
<!--startclickprintexclude-->
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<SCRIPT type=text/javascript _extended="true"> var CNN_ArticleChanger = new CNN_imageChanger('cnnImgChngr','/2008/CRIME/02/27/cutts.sentence/imgChng/p1-0.init.exclude.html',1,1);//CNN.imageChanger.load('cnnImgChngr','imgChng/p1-0.exclude.html');</SCRIPT><!--endclickprintexclude-->Bobby Lee Cutts Jr., 30, stared straight ahead as the verdict was read. He and his lawyer teared up as the jurors were polled about their decision.
Cutts could become eligible for parole in 30 years under the jury's recommended sentence.
The six men and six women deliberated for 12 hours over two days before agreeing that Cutts should not be executed for the murder of his unborn child.
The jury's verdict was merely a recommendation. Judge Charles E. Brown is hearing tearful statements form Davis' friends and family before making the final decision on Cutts' sentence.
On February 15, the same jury found Cutts guilty of murdering Jessie Marie Davis, who was nine months pregnant when she disappeared in mid-June, 2007. The baby, who was to be named Chloe, was due in early July.
It was Chloe's death that made Cutts eligible for the death penalty. Jurors convicted him of two counts of aggravated murder -- for terminating a pregnancy and taking her life during the commission of a felony.
All the members of the jury are white, as was Davis. Cutts is black.
Cutts, who has maintained Davis' death was the result of an accidental elbow to the neck, asked the jury to spare his life and offered a tearful apology at his sentencing hearing Tuesday.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I'm asking you to spare my life," he said. "To imagine that I was responsible for the death of Jessie, the mother of my children and my unborn daughter, is beyond any words that I can express," Cutts added, reading from a handwritten statement.
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- Ex-cop guilty of murdering pregnant woman
Cutts' lawyer, Fernando Mack, urged jurors to recommend the lowest available penalty -- 25 years to life -- to allow him to play a limited role in his other children's lives.
Saying the death penalty should be used only on the "worst of the worst," Mack focused his argument on the heavy burden of handing down the "ultimate sentence of death."
"This is not simply about signing a name to a piece of paper," Mack argued. "This is about participating in the death of another human being. Not unlike Bobby, that's something that you will have to live with."
Mack acknowledged that many of the jurors might still be angry with Cutts for leaving his 2½-year-old son, Blake, home alone for more than a day while his mother lay dead in a field.
But sentencing Cutts to death hurts Blake even more, he argued. "That is still Blake's father, like it or not. The prosecutor here wants you to kill Blake's father, so now he'll have no parents."
Stark County Assistant Prosecutor Dennis Barr did not present victim impact testimony from Davis' family, but attacked Cutts' character and his sincerity on the stand.
A police officer should have known better, he said.
"Bobby Cutts took an oath to serve and protect," the prosecutor argued. "But on June 14, 2007, Bobby Cutts did not serve and protect. He destroyed."
He then took aim at Cutts' sobbing statement to the jury, in which he apologized to Davis' family and insisted he did not intentionally kill her or Chloe.
"Really, Bobby? Really?" Barr said, turning toward Cutts. "He had a chance to walk away, he had a chance to stop, he had a chance to try to save baby Chloe, but he didn't because he chose not to."
Davis was nine months pregnant when she disappeared in June 2007. Her body was found in a northeastern Ohio park after a 10-day search that brought national media attention
According to testimony, Cutts, 30, rolled Davis' body in a comforter and dumped it in a park, leaving toddler son Blake in the house alone at the crime scene in a soiled diaper.
<!--endclickprintexclude-->"Mommy's in the rug," Blake told police, according to testimony.
Prosecutors charged during the trial that Cutts buckled under the financial pressure of additional child support, killed Davis, and then created a cover story to try to get away with it
