This time all the sympathy was gone from Circuit Judge Dawn Nichols’s voice. She was terse. She was irked. She was, in her word, “done.”
Done trying to convince Derrius Bauer to take a plea deal that would be the difference between eight and a half years in prison against life in prison. Done waiting for him to cycle through yet another defense lawyer. Done extending him the kind of patience and courtesy many judges would not have put up with when he deigns to answer the judge’s questions in that intentionally defiant mumble.
This time when Nichols asked Bauer whether he was again turning down a plea deal and he answered in a blur under his breath, the judge scolded him with a glare and shot back: “Is that a yes?” He said yes.
Bauer’s mother, already in tears, stood up from her seat a few rows back in the gallery, clenching a tissue against her nose, and walked out. She was in sobs before she reached the hallway. Her sobs trailed into the courtroom. Her son stood as indifferently as he had less than two months ago when Nichols, in a more forbearing mode, had invited his mother to address the court and to stand within inches of her son as she pled with him to take the deal. He didn’t budge then, either.
It’s as if he’s been enthralled by the theatricality of his defiance–a dumb theatricality, really, the kind that doesn’t see beyond those minutes in court when everyone’s attention is riveted on him to those years in prison when nobody will care, nobody will remember his name or those hearings and only he will be serving that life term that Nichols attempted so many times to prevent.
As she did again today after all.
Bauer had not attended the trial of his friend Marcus Chamblin almost a year ago in the same courtroom, the Marcus Chamblin now serving life in prison after his conviction by a jury on a first-degree murder charge for the execution-style shooting death of Deon Jenkins as Jenkins sat in a car at a Circle K on palm Coast Parkway in the wee hours of October 12, 2019. Chamblin is 30 now, the same age as Bauer. Chamblin knew Jenkins.
Jenkins had made Chamblin’s brother mad over something that was never made clear beyond vague allusions to something extremely petty, possibly sexual. Chamblin got mad, decided to make Jenkins pay, got Bauer to drive him and to speak with Jenkins moments before the shooting–Bauer and Jenkins knew each other from interactions over drugs. After Bauer drove off, Chamblin walked behind Jenkins’s car and fired, also injuring a friend Jenkins was with.
The jury of 12 deliberated for just 48 minutes. Guilty on all counts.
Much of the same evidence will be marshaled against Bauer, who also faces a first-degree murder charge even though he did not pull the trigger. If he’s not convicted on that charge, he faces a charge of being a principal to murder, which carries a 30-year prison sentence. He also faces a charge of attempted second-degree murder. Based on the evidence of the first trial, Bauer’s chance of beating the charges are slim to none.
“I want this case to go to trial,” Nichols told Bauer this afternoon as Assistant State Attorney Jason Lewis said the case was more than five years old. “So I’m done. It’s time for trial. You’ve had for or five lawyers? First time I saw you I was new in Flagler. I’ve had this conversation with several gentlemen, and I’ve given them a speech, roll the dice, pay the price. Each one of them, I’ve sentenced to life. And they had the opportunity. I gave them every chance to try to get their case worked out. You’ve been offered 15 years. You’ve got four in already, right?” He’s served that time at the Flagler County jail, awaiting trial.
Nichols did some quick math, ending with the eight and a half years he would still have to serve, after gain time, or time off for good behavior.
Trial was scheduled for next month. Nichols ended up pushing the date to late summer or early fall, this time only because Bauer’s attorney, Wayne Henderson–who appeared in court today in a wheelchair–had unexpected health issues, and will need time to recover. Nichols said she wants him “on his A game,” and was not going to risk a lesser performance by rushing the trial date. But she’s given Henderson until next month to find a second-chair attorney to assist him, or to take over the case should Henderson prove unable, making the late summer trial date immovable.
Then Nichols tried again.
“Remind me how old you are?”
“30,” Bauer said.
“God, you’re young,” she said, dropping her head. “If you take the deal you’ll be out when you’re still in your 30s, and believe me, that’s still young. If you take this to trial and you lose, you’ll be spending the rest of your life in prison and at age 38 you’ll be kicking yourself. If you somehow, miraculously, miraculously win on the top charge, and they find you guilty on the accessory after [the fact], that’s 30 years. So again, at 38 you’re going to be kicking yourself that you could have been out. And I hate to see that happen. But that’s where we’re at. But just like the other guys who rolled the dice, there’s only one sentence that I can give you on the one charge if you’re found guilty. Everybody’s rolled the dice so far and they’ve all lost. They were absolutely sure they’d win.”
The judge paused. Bauer stared. “Still turning down 15?” she asked him. That was the moment of mumble. The judge told him to speak clearly. So he did. “It’s your decision to make,” the judge told him over Bauer’s mother’s wails.
