DeFUNIAK SPRINGS —Twelve jurors have spent seven days listening to testimony during the trial and penalty phases of the first-degree murder trial of Steven Cozzie.
Thursday, each will be asked to decide whether he or she believes Cozzie should be put to death or spend the rest of his life in prison.
In closing penalty phase arguments Wednesday, Assistant State Attorney Bobby Elmore laid out the reasons he believed Cozzie should die for the “heinous, atrocious and cruel” means he used to kill 15-year-old Courtney Wilkes of Lyons, Ga.
“Now it’s for you to decide whether what Steven Cozzie did to a special, precious, exceptional child deserves the ultimate punishment,” Elmore said. “I submit if it does not, no crime does.”
Defense Attorney Sharon Wilson pointed to the “parade of horribles” that Cozzie’s 23 years on earth have been and asked jurors to take mercy on “a very sick boy.”
“I call him a boy because mentally and emotionally he is a child,” she said.
Cozzie was convicted Friday of first-degree premeditated murder for the June 16, 2011, killing of Wilkes, who he lured away from the South Walton beachfront condominium she was staying at with her family.
He convinced Wilkes to visit Cassine Gardens Nature Trail in Seagrove Bach with him. When she mentioned she needed to leave, he attacked her with a shirt, strangled her into submission, then raped her and beat her to death with a heavy piece of lumber.
In addition to the murder, Cozzie was convicted of kidnapping, aggravated child abuse and sexual assault.
After they receive final instructions from Walton County Circuit Judge Kelvin Wells this morning, the jurors will retire to their quarters and decide individually what their recommendation will be. The conclusion of the majority will serve as the recommendation to Wells.
By law, Wells must give “great weight” to the recommendation, but ultimately the decision will be his. He can impose sentence immediately or take the jury’s recommendation under advisement and pass sentence at a later time.
Wilson noted in her closing that Cozzie’s “parade of horribles” had been laid bare during the course of the weeklong trial and two-day sentencing phase.
At trial, Elmore presented graphic evidence as he described the gruesome nature of the crime and the injuries inflicted on Wilkes one month before her 16th birthday.
During the sentencing phase, it was the defense team’s turn to discuss the awful circumstances of Cozzie’s upbringing. Family members and later psychologists described physical, emotional and sexual abuse inflicted on a mentally deficient child by his father, step-mother and siblings at home and by others elsewhere who found him “weird” and an easy mark for bullying and exploitation.
“I’m not asking you to forgive Steven Cozzie,” Wilson said. “Do we execute a 13-year-old in a 23-year-old’s body?
“Mercy is not something that can be earned. Mercy is something granted. I’m asking you all to grant mercy to Steven Cozzie,” Wilson said. “I’m asking each of you to recommend a life sentence for Steven Cozzie.”
Elmore told jurors Cozzie new what he was doing when he lured Wilkes to the place he intended to rape and kill her. He had attempted a violent sexual attack on a 14-year-old at the same place a week before Wilkes’ murder, he argued. Life in prison would allow Cozzie to see the sun and the stars, a luxury he did not afford his victim, Elmore said.
“He deserves the ultimate penalty for what he did, how he did it and for the thoughts he was thinking as he did it.”