Starkly different pictures emerged this week of a reputed Berkeley gang member accused in a series of killings roughly 15 years ago, painting the man as either a ruthless triple murderer or a falsely-accused victim of lies and deceptions.
Those contrasting views took center stage Tuesday afternoon as a jury began deliberating in the triple-murder trial of Joseph Carroll Jr., who is accused of killing three people and seriously wounding several others during a run of violence that stretched from 2009 through 2011. The deliberations come after nearly two months of testimony that was marred by allegations of witness intimidation, recanted statements or stony silence from people called to the stand.
In hours-long closing arguments this week that turned bitingly acerbic, prosecutors and Carroll’s attorneys both accused the other of manipulating the jury to win their case.
“Let’s seek clarity here — let’s disinfect the lies and the insidious nature of the prosecution in this case, and expose it for what it truly is,” said Carroll’s attorney, William Welch, while imploring the jurors to not give in to a complex web of “rumors and lies” that led to Carroll’s arrest.
In closing arguments, Welch described several witnesses in the case as a collection of “convicts, fraudsters and murderers” who had lied to police, gravely misremembered events or had simply blamed his client as a means to curry favor with authorities. He said the jury had been “misled” and “deceived” by the prosecutor on the case.
“Don’t be misled — don’t take that path of falsity,” Welch said. “Integrity matters. It matters in making a just decision.”
Prosecutor Natasha Jontulovich countered by framing those statements as a “tactic” aimed at making the case a “popularity contest.”
“You’ve been not-so-subtly invited to disregard the law,” Jontulovich said. “This is a distraction technique.”
Carroll, 36, faces a slew of felony charges in four shootings from 2009 through 2011, during a venomous rivalry between alleged gang members in Berkeley — where Carroll lived — and North Oakland. Three of the shootings turned deadly, while another left two men with a variety of injuries: punctured lungs, a lacerated spleen, broken bones and myriad health issues that lingered for years.
During the first shooting on April 23, 2009, authorities claim Carroll went to North Oakland and unloaded an assault-style rifle on men standing along 45th Street in a drive-by shooting that severely wounded one man and killed a brother of his, Nguyen Ngo.
Slightly more than a year later, on May 3, 2010, authorities say Carroll ambushed two North Oakland men over concerns that one of them was dating his child’s mother. Again, he unloaded a hail of gunfire, Jontulovich said, leaving at least 17 bullet casings behind at the scene.
The following month, prosecutors suspect, Carroll opened fire in broad daylight, fatally wounding Nehemiah Lewis, a man Carroll believed had witnessed the previous killing.
The final shooting came on April 13, 2011, when authorities claim Carroll was the gunman in a drive-by shooting on another car carrying four people. Andrew Henderson Jr. died, while three other people were wounded.
Use your common sense,” Jontulovich told the jury, arguing it would lead to the conclusion that “the defendant committed every single crime.”
Carroll was arrested and charged with three counts of murder years after the killings. A preliminary hearing on the killings happened in 2018, and police say that they’ve battled attempts to intimidate witnesses every step of the way since then.
Relatives of Carroll have been caught illegally photographing witnesses in court and posting an Instagram livestream of court proceedings. As a result, court security was beefed up to the extreme — a second set of metal detectors were set up outside the courtroom, and attendees were barred from bringing in anything but pen and paper.
Despite these restrictions, one of Carroll’s relatives was caught bringing a 65 gigabyte audio recorder — disguised in a pen — to a July 1 court hearing, authorities said. The woman claimed it was accidental and she believed it was just a pen.
The alleged witness intimidation attempts had some success. Several witnesses told investigators they were too scared to come to court, and police had to track down and arrest at least two for failing to comply with subpoenas. At a hearing earlier this month, one man took the stand and stared blankly at the prosecutor, refusing to answer a single question or identify himself by name, according to a minute order of the hearing.
A judge held the man in contempt of court and sent him to jail, records show.
As a result, prosecutor Jontulovich relied heavily on recorded statements that witnesses made to investigators years ago.
Jontulovich said the seeming campaign of intimidation and retaliation against witnesses may have been most apparent in a phone call between Carroll and the mother of his child, a key witness in the trial whose recorded statements to police years before the trial became a backbone to her case.
During the call, Carroll urged the woman that “it’s better for you to refuse; don’t say ‘I don’t remember,’ ” according to the prosecutor. Rather, Carroll allegedly told the woman to “say nothing — refuse to answer questions.”
Carroll’s attorney called the woman “a liar,” one who “will say anything” and has “zero in terms of credibility.”
But Jontulovich urged the jury to focus on Carroll’s alleged actions.
“That is what a guilty person does, ladies and gentleman,” Jontulovich told the jury. “She’s the person who’s closest to him. He knows he can control her — she is connected to him forever” through their child.
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