Judge sentenced Jermaine Hailes to 70 years in prison in the killing of Melvin Pate.
Before the photos flashed in front of Melvin Pate's face, the police detective gave the man in the hospital bed clear instructions: "Blink hard once for 'yes.' "
Police were showing Pate a photo lineup, asking whether any of the images showed the man who had shot him during a drug robbery and left him paralyzed. Unable to speak as a result of gunshot wounds, Pate squeezed his eyes shut, then reopened them while looking at a photo of Jermaine Hailes.
Six years later, a Prince George's County, Maryland, judge sentenced Hailes to 70 years in prison in the killing of Pate, who died in 2012 from his wounds.
Hailes's sentencing Thursday closed what prosecutors believe was only the fourth case in U.S. history in which a murder victim's nonverbal identification - in this instance, video of Pate blinking - was used as evidence at trial.
In June, a Prince George's jury convicted Hailes, 25, of first-degree murder and related charges in the slaying of Pate, 29.
"This case blows my mind," Judge Leo Green said at Thursday's sentencing hearing. "This case has lived with me longer than most murder cases do."
The sentencing hearing Thursday was emotional, with prosecutors asking the judge to issue a life sentence and Hailes and his family asking for a sentence that would keep open the opportunity for parole.
"I have not given up on myself," Hailes said.
But Hailes had many opportunities for reform in the past and had "thrown them away," said Christine Murphy, who recently left the Prince George's State's Attorney's Office but was allowed to represent prosecutors during Hailes's sentencing.
"This is a defendant who does not deserve to walk the streets the rest of us do," Murphy said.
Pate was shot during the drug robbery in 2010, leaving him a quadriplegic. Police instructed Pate to blink if he recognized his assailant in a photo array and recorded the identification.
The robbery and assault case turned into a homicide investigation in 2012 after Pate's death.
The case became complicated as lawyers argued about whether video of Pate blinking at the photo lineup could be shown to jurors at Hailes's trial.
Hailes's attorneys argued that showing the video deprived their client of the right to confront his accuser in court. But prosecutors said Pate's blink was exempted from the confrontation clause because it was a "dying declaration."
Even though Pate died two years after the video was recorded, doctors had told him that he had about 24 hours to live when police showed him the photo lineup. The state's highest court eventually ruled that Pate's video was indeed a dying declaration and admissible in court.
Pate's mother, Felicia Pate, said it was difficult to suffer the loss of her son, who was bedridden and in and out of the hospital for years. Felicia Pate said she had to bathe, feed and care for her son round-the-clock in addition to watching over Pate's daughter, who was 2 months old when he was shot.
"It was hard," Pate said Thursday. "I am just glad that justice was served for my son today."
©2016 The Washington Post
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