http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/courts/robert-bates-convicted-of-manslaughter-in-shooting-of-eric-harris/article_153701c9-e022-5d7e-abcd-088149cd8582.html

By ARIANNA PICKARD & COREY JONES World Staff Writers | 48 comments
Related story: Nearly two hours of closing arguments set stage for Robert Bates' guilty verdict

A jury spent less than three hours deliberating Wednesday to decide that Robert Bates was criminally negligent and deserves criminal punishment for shooting and killing an unarmed suspect while on duty as a Tulsa County Sheriff's Office reserve deputy last year.
Jurors recommended the maximum sentence of four years in prison after finding Bates guilty of second-degree manslaughter for mistaking his revolver for his Taser and shooting Eric Harris.
Bates, 74, didn't show much emotion but stroked his chin after he heard the verdict and waited to be taken from the courtroom.
The room was filled beyond capacity with spectators and 12 deputies, and District Judge William Musseman said he would hold in contempt anyone who reacted audibly to the verdict.
Bates softly told family members he loved them as a deputy escorted him, handcuffed, from the courtroom to be taken to the Tulsa Jail, where he will be held without bail until he is formally sentenced on May 31. Bates had been out of custody on bond as his case progressed through the courts.
Local and national media merely caught a glimpse of him as deputies led him out a side door.
Tulsa County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Casey Roebuck told reporters security officers wanted to lessen Bates' exposure for his safety.
"We wanted to make sure he wasn’t getting special treatment, but we also wanted to make sure that his life wasn’t in danger," Roebuck said.
In the courtroom after Musseman read the verdict, Harris' sister-in-law visibly wept and was held by her husband, Andre Harris.
"I love (my brother) with all my heart, and now (Aidan Fraley) doesn't have a dad," Andre Harris told reporters afterward. "But we put the criminal behind bars."
The defense had called an out-of-state psychiatrist to testify that Bates mistakenly shooting Harris was reasonable given the stress of the situation, and before closing arguments jurors were instructed on the statutory requirements for "excusable homicide."
But after hearing from 21 witnesses in the 1½ week-long trial, jurors apparently agreed with prosecutors who asserted that Bates' failure to exercise reasonable caution when he shot Harris constitutes criminal negligence.
Within seconds of selling a gun to an undercover deputy on April 2, 2015, Harris was on the ground being restrained by multiple deputies when he was shot by Bates, witnesses testified.
But Bates' lack of "reasonable" care began the night before, prosecutors argued, when Bates called the leader of the Sheriff's Office drug task force and asked to volunteer the next morning in the take-down of Harris.
"He shouldn't have even been there," Assistant District Attorney John David Luton told jurors in his closing argument.
Deputies testified that the next morning, while awaiting the signal that deputies were ready to arrest the felon they'd been warned was dangerous and likely armed, they saw Bates nodding off in his personal vehicle.
As multiple deputies struggled to restrain Harris on the ground after a short pursuit, Bates approached holding a nonlethal weapon in one hand and a lethal one in the other, Luton reminded jurors.
Seeing a small area of Harris' body where he wasn't covered by deputies, Bates announced that he was going to use his Taser and shot a bullet that struck Harris inches from another deputy's head, witnesses testified.
And despite hours of technical medical testimony from the defense, the jury agreed that the bullet killed Harris.
Luton said after the trial that despite the abundance of expert testimony, he thought “common sense” was probably what “carried the day.”
Bates was convicted by a jury with no African American members. During the final stage of jury selection last week, the last two African American potential jurors were eliminated from the pool after the judge agreed that the defense had given "race-neutral" reasons for their excusal.
When asked whether he was satisfied with the jury's sentence recommendation, Andre Harris said four years in prison would "teach him (Bates) a lesson."
"That place ain't that nice," Andre Harris told reporters.
He said he hopes Bates learns that all lives matter, and he said Bates should not have been on a drug task force chasing supposedly deadly criminals.
"Not at 73," Andre Harris emphasized. "Not at 73."
He cited the 2009 Sheriff's Office internal investigation involving Bates, which contained allegations of falsified training records, intimidation of subordinates and special treatment that benefited the insurance executive.
Looking back at the county's changes prompted by exposure to the inner workings of the Sheriff's Office, Andre Harris told reporters that his brother "accomplished a lot in his death. I think maybe even more than he accomplished in his life."
Harris' death snowballed into a wide-reaching scandal that largely emptied the top shelf of the Stanley Glanz administration at the Sheriff's Office. Glanz himself resigned from his longtime position as sheriff following a grand jury's scathing accusation for his ouster and two indictments on misdemeanor crimes.
"He's going to be remembered as a guy who helped change the city for the better," Andre Harris said. "He'll be a guy who helped change the sheriff's department and helped to better the city in general, basically."
Assistant District Attorney Kevin Gray clarified to reporters afterward that prosecutors sought "justice" rather than "victory" because this was a case with "no winners."
"Mr. Bates had a long career and was a successful businessman, and now he will be a convicted felon who’s going to the penitentiary," Gray said. "For the Harris family, they lost somebody they loved."
Bates' attorney Clark Brewster told the Tulsa World by telephone that the "massive amount" of negative media reports his client attracted in the past year generated an "uphill battle" and "created a climate in which it was virtually impossible to defend (Bates)."
Brewster said he disagrees with the jury's decision and will evaluate appeal options.
"We certainly are obviously fresh from the verdict, so we need to understand more about our options going forward," he said.