DeFUNIAK SPRINGS — Barry Davis’ defense team is counting on his abnormal brain to keep him out of a cell on Florida’s death row.
Expert witnesses in the fields of clinical psychology and neuropathology testified Thursday that head injuries Davis suffered at an early age had caused traumatic brain injuries. Those injuries could well have turned him aggressive and affected his judgment and impulse control.
Coupled with growing up mostly unloved on the mean streets of Los Angeles, anxiety and depression brought on by a failing relationship and injuries Davis suffered playing football, boxing and in ATV accidents created a deeply disturbed individual, doctors Julie Harper and Joseph Wu told jurors.
The testimony, solicited by attorney Michelle Hendrix, came on the second day of the death penalty phase of Davis’ trial. He was convicted Monday of killing South Walton County resident John Gregory Hughes and his girlfriend, Hiedi Ann Rhodes of Panama City Beach.
Brain injuries to a young person are potentially more harmful later in life because the brain still is developing, Wu told jurors. A PET scan of Davis’ brain indicated an abnormal frontal lobe area, he testified.
“The frontal lobe is most susceptible to brain injuries that impact judgment and impulse control,” he said. “A damaged frontal lobe is like driving a car when the brakes aren’t working.”
Outside factors such as the environment one grows up in can exacerbate problems stemming from the brain injuries, Wu told the jury.
“I think Mr. Davis has several factors present,” he testified.
On cross-examination, prosecutor Bobby Elmore confirmed that Wu was well briefed in the grisly details of the murders of Hughes and Rhodes, including the beatings they suffered, the effort to make sure they were dead by placing their heads in a bathtub and the dismembering and burning of their bodies.
“Do you believe these deaths were the results of an impulse action?” Elmore asked.
Wu mostly shied from answering what he termed Elmore’s “philosophical” questions. But when asked if a person with traumatic brain injury can understand that it’s wrong to murder, he answered, “there’s a different type of knowing.”
“You can know murder is wrong but have the inability to regulate certain impulses,” Wu said.
Today is expected to be the last day of testimony in the second phase of what has been a four-week trial. The jury then will be asked to return with a recommendation to have Davis either sentenced to death or to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Walton County Circuit Judge Kelvin Wells will impose the sentence, but by law he must give great weight to the jury’s recommendation.