The jury that acquitted Michael Weisz of homicide charges Friday didn't think he meant to do it when he ran over and killed a security guard at a midtown nightclub, according to one member of the panel.
"I believe it was a tragic accident," the female juror, a 56-year-old warehouse worker who declined to give her name, said of her fellow panelists' take on the case. "That's what it amounted to, a tragic accident."
In an interview after the verdict, the juror said she and the other members of the panel also wondered why the security guard zapped Weisz with a "stun pen" just moments before the fatal hit-and-run.
After a little more than two days of deliberations, the seven-woman, five-man panel acquitted Weisz of second- degree murder and voluntary manslaughter charges in the Sept. 23, 2009, death of Leroy Berry Fisher III in the parking lot behind the Badlands, a popular K Street gay bar.
Jurors convicted Weisz, however, of felony hit-and-run. Sacramento Superior Court Judge Maryanne G. Gilliard remanded Weisz into custody and scheduled his sentencing for April 15. He is facing a maximum term of four years in state prison.
"It absolutely confirms my belief that there is a God," Weisz's mother, Penny Davis, said after the verdict.
Fisher's wife and other relatives walked out of the courthouse and responded with abrupt refusals when asked if they wanted to comment on the jury's decision.
At the Mercantile Saloon, another of the several midtown gay bars where Fisher, 64, worked the door in his security job, the bartender reacted in anger and others also disagreed with the outcome.
"It's upsetting to hear that we lost a really good person and not much is going to be done about it," said Eric Kern, 33, on the Mercantile's patio. "He was a great guy. He was always friendly and everybody loved him here."
Fisher and another security guard escorted Weisz, 24, and a friend out of the Badlands about 1 a.m. the morning of the fatal incident for upsetting some of the patrons with crude sexual come-ons and for what Weisz described in his own testimony as his pal's "obnoxious" behavior.
Given the boot, Weisz picked up a cup of water and threw it at Fisher, according to testimony at trial. The guards gave chase but Weisz and his friend Ross Konkel easily outran them. When they doubled back to get Weisz's car, Fisher confronted them in the bar's parking lot.
Weisz testified that Fisher came up behind him and jolted him with his stun pen. Konkel pushed Fisher away, Weisz said, before the guard gave him a shock, too.
Those two struggled with each other before Weisz hustled Konkel into his car and drove off, according to testimony, only to find out later that he had run over and killed Fisher.
Defense attorney Donald Masuda said everybody would have gone home safe if Fisher had kept the stun pen holstered.
"Mr. Fisher is probably a great guy and was a great guy, but he just made a mistake," Masuda said. "He shouldn't have tased him. When he tased him, it just changed the whole playing field."
The juror interviewed after the verdict said the panel found the security guard's stun blast to be inexplicable,
"Why?" the juror asked. "We don't want to blame the victim, but we all felt there was a missing part in there. He's supposed to be a laid-back, easygoing guy who could talk the situation down, and he goes in there and starts tasing?"
Deputy District Attorney Sheri Greco declined to discuss the jury's verdict.
Some of the prosecution's best evidence came in statements from Weisz's boyfriend, whom he called in the moments after the incident in the parking lot, who said the defendant told him he had hit someone with his car. Konkel's brother also told authorities his sibling had told him that Weisz hit the guard on purpose.
Still, the juror said, "In our minds, there never was an intent to run him over. We weren't real clear at what point he even knew he ran him over."
Weisz and Konkel took off for San Francisco in the hour or so after the parking lot incident. They were arrested there the next day.
Greco said the drive exhibited consciousness of guilt on Weisz's part, but the jury bought only that he ran from an accident, not a homicide.
"He realized that something horrible happened and he should have called police," the female juror said. "But we don't think he got behind the wheel to mow this guy down."
Weisz, meanwhile, was arrested on an unrelated DUI charge while he was out on bail awaiting trial for Fisher's death. Further proceedings in the misdemeanor case are pending.
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