Experts say Baldwin prosecutors likely to try Stephen Nodine again on murder, stalking charges

Published: Wednesday, December 22, 2010, 5:30 AM

BAY MINETTE, Ala. — A Baldwin County judge Tuesday set a new trial date for former Mobile County Commissioner Stephen Nodine on murder and stalking charges, but it will be up to the new district attorney to decide if the state moves forward.

A jury on Monday convicted Nodine of a misdemeanor ethics violation but could not reach a unanimous verdict on charges that he stalked and killed his girlfriend, Angel Downs.

Circuit Judge Charles Partin scheduled the possible retrial for Feb. 28. Hallie Dixon, who defeated Baldwin County District Attorney Judy Newcomb in the Republican primary, will take office next month.

Newcomb said Monday that she believes the new administration should try the case again. Dixon said that she wants a chance to review the case and talk to Downs’ family before making a decision.

The Feb. 28 date keeps the case in the system but is not a hard date. Either side could request a delay. Since Newcomb prosecuted the case herself, several experts suggested, Dixon would need more than two months to put a new case together.

Jurors have said they split 9-3 in favor of conviction, which experts said is an important factor in a decision to retry a case.

“I’d say if it was a 9-3 split the other way, I’d go home,” said Mobile County District Attorney John Tyson Jr.

Tyson, who leaves office next month, said he believes it is likely Baldwin prosecutors will give it another try. The split, the strength of the evidence and the type of crime are all factors to consider, he said.

“The more serious the charge, the more seriously you have to take a look at the evidence, and the more seriously you have to think about the decision to do it or not,” he said.

Dixon said that deadlocked juries sometimes can spur plea bargains. But defense attorney Dennis Knizley said his client has maintained his innocence from the beginning and that a plea deal has been “off the table” from the start.

Dixon said that in any case that ends with a deadlocked jury, she will re-evaluate the entire case to gauge how likely it is that a second trial will end in conviction. How the first jury divided is a factor, she said.

“It’s not a mathematical equation by any means,” she said. “But in a general sense, I think it does affect the likelihood of success in the future.”

If there is a second trial, Knizley said Tuesday, he anticipates asking that it be moved to another jurisdiction. Although Knizley did not ask for a change of venue before the first trial, he said media coverage would make it extremely difficult to get a fair jury.

“There was absolute saturation during the trial, including the Twitter,” he said, referring to blow-by-blow accounts provided by TV reporters through the social networking site.

Since prosecutors are elected, outside influences sometimes can enter the decision to retry a high-profile case, some said.

“Politics can be a factor,” said. Deborah Young, a former federal prosecutor who followed the Nodine case. “And public opinion can be a factor.”

Young, who now teaches at Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham, said part of a prosecutor’s decision springs from how strong he or she feels the case is.

“Prosecutors always retry a case when they’re surprised by the result,” she said.

Experts said a second trial gives both sides an opportunity to address shortcomings exposed by the first trial. Which side benefits more? Experts said that depends on the case.

“Often, only the prosecutor puts on real evidence,” said Young.

Others said the prosecutors usually have less knowledge about the defense strategy than vice versa before the first trial, which means prosecutors have the upper hand in a retrial.

“Conventional wisdom is that a hung jury is a victory for the defense because there’s no conviction,” said Don Cochran, a Cumberland professor who previously worked as a state and federal prosecutor in Jefferson County. “I never really viewed it that way as a prosecutor.”

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Baldwin prosecutors wrap up murder case against Nodine; defense pushes suicide theory

Published: Thursday, December 16, 2010, 5:00 AM

BAY MINETTE, Ala. — Baldwin County prosecutors wrapped up their murder case against Stephen Nodine on Wednesday with testimony from the victim’s neighbors and two men who said they had dated her during the last year of her life.

The former Mobile County commissioner’s attorneys, meanwhile, opened their defense by attempting to depict Angel Downs as a woman with reasons to kill herself and a suicide attempt in her past.

In addition to murder, prosecutors have charged Nodine with stalking and an ethics violation related to his alleged misuse of a government-issued pickup truck. The trial, which continues today in Baldwin County Circuit Court, likely will hinge on whether jurors believe the prosecution theory that Downs’ death from a gunshot to the head May 9 was a homicide, or the defense contention that it was a suicide.

Bolstering the prosecution’s assertions that Downs, 45, was trying to end her often-tumultuous relationship with Nodine, two men testified that they had dated her in recent months.

Scott Bedford, a financial planner from Gulf Shores, testified that he met Downs on April 2 through an online dating service and began seeing her. He told jurors that he met Nodine on May 4 in Gulf Shores at a news conference related to the BP PLC oil spill.

During their brief conversation, Bedford said, Nodine made a derogatory comment about Downs. “I found it offensive,” he said.

Bedford said Downs did not seem depressed in the weeks before her death.

Roland Naseman, who told jurors that he dated Downs in 2009, testified that Nodine on April 1 of that year alternately banged on the door and back window of the condo in Fairhope where Downs was living at the time.

Naseman testified that the banging went on for about an hour before Nodine finally passed out in his truck.

On cross-examination, Naseman acknowledged that he stopped dating Downs, in part, because he questioned whether her relationship with Nodine was over.

“He had come up several times in the relationship,” he said. “Until she was finished with him, I didn’t want to date her.”

Defense attorney Dennis Knizley used a letter that Downs wrote days before her death to contradict testimony from her friends that she was done with Nodine.

Knizley said Downs’ letter, a reply she apparently had written to a seven-page letter she received from Nodine the Thursday before she died, expresses her love for Nodine and her desire to spend the rest of her life with him. She also expressed her desire for Nodine to divorce his wife, Knizley said.

Several of Downs’ neighbors in The Ridge condominiums off Fort Morgan Road testified they heard a gunshot shortly before 8 p.m. on May 9. Lannie Hill that he heard the gunshot and went to Downs’ house after a neighbor knocked on his door. He testified that he called 911 after he saw Downs lying in the driveway.

That contradicted the statement to the 911 operator, in which Hill said he heard a gunshot and saw a red pickup leaving the subdivision. In fact, it was other residents who had mentioned seeing the truck.

One of those who did see the truck, Roger Whitehead, testified that he heard a gunshot and quickly walked outside to investigate. When he got outside, he testified, he saw a red pickup truck with a blue county license plate driving toward the exit of the subdivision. The vehicle blocked his view of Downs’ home, he said.

Questioned by Knizley, Whitehead testified that he believes there was some delay from the time he heard the gunshot to when he walked out and saw the vehicle. Knizley played a videotaped interview with a Gulf Shores police officer on the day of the shooting in which Whitehead said he saw the truck go by right after the gunshot.

The first person to arrive at Downs’ home after the shooting, Nancy Hill, testified that there was not nearly as much blood as is shown in a crime scene photo taken later by Gulf Shores police. She said that Downs’ blonde hair was beginning to darken with blood.

Hill’s testimony could help explain why investigators never found any blood on Nodine, on his clothes or in his truck. It also is consistent with testimony from Dr. James Downs, a medical examiner hired as a private consultant by the District Attorney’s Office. Downs told jurors that the blood would have oozed out of Downs’ body rather than spurted.

Ann Myers, a nurse who lives in the neighborhood, testified that she saw Downs’ long, blonde hair “fanned out, like a halo” from the top of her head.

“It was the most unusual thing, as a nurse, I’ve ever seen, as far as gunshot victims go,” she testified.

The defense introduced records showing that Angel Downs’ income from her job as a sales manager at Benchmark Homes was on track to drop from $83,754 in 2008 to about $45,000 this year.

On the day Downs died, an acquaintance testified, she complained about her financial problems.

“She told me that she could not pay her bills. She told me she was not making enough money to pay her bills,” said Patricia Callahan Owens, who knew Downs and Nodine from beach outings in Pensacola. “She told me she was working more and making less money.”

Testifying about a suicide call he was sent on in October 2006, former Gulf Shores police Officer Timothy Dennis told jurors that he found Downs naked and unconscious on her bed, with shallow breathing and a yellowish tint to her skin.

Dennis testified that he saw empty pill bottles and a suicide note that read, in part, “I’m sorry for all that I’ve hurt.”

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