Professors 'shocked' by quick verdict

IU legal experts said they were surprised that a Morgan County jury found John R. Myers II guilty of the 2000 murder of IU sophomore Jill Behrman after less than an hour of deliberation Monday.\nThe prosecution based its case entirely on circumstantial evidence.\nLaw professor Craig M. Bradley said it was strange that the jury returned the verdict so quickly.\n"I'm shocked, I have to say," he said. "I can never remember seeing a case where the prosecution's evidence was so thin."\nBradley said he has not formed an opinion about whether Myers is actually guilty, but he said he believes the evidence did not prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.\nThe speed of the verdict also surprised journalism professor Tony Fargo, who teaches communications law. Fargo said he has covered murder cases with obvious verdicts in which the juries deliberated longer than this jury did.\n"My guess is it sounds like the prosecution did a very good job, as far as the jury was concerned, in connecting the dots," he said. \nThe defense will likely file a notice of appeal between now and Myers' sentencing Dec. 1, Fargo said, but the actual appeal is typically filed after the sentencing.\n"The problem he's going to run into on appeal is he's going to have to prove that there was some sort of error made during the trial that would give (Myers) grounds for appeal," Fargo said. "It has to be something that would have changed the outcome of the case."\nBradley said the defense would "undoubtedly" appeal because the circumstantial evidence did not support the guilty verdict beyond a reasonable doubt. When Indiana State Police Detective Rick Lang testified Wednesday as a witness for the prosecution, he said police and prosecutors had no physical evidence against Myers.\nFargo said he believes the prosecution eliminated the possibility of someone other than Myers murdering Behrman.\n"I also think it may be a reflection of the jury being turned off by the defense's attempt to link various other people to the crime who seem to have even less of a connection to Jill Behrman than Myers did," he said.