Chapter 19 – Mistrial?
Saturday December 7, 1968 – Friday February 21, 1969
After deliberating for a total of eight hours over two days, the jury in the second trial of Dennis Terry Sites for the beating death of Carrie Batdorff Layser had just informed the judge that they were not making any progress.
On receiving the “no progress” report Judge Meyer directed the jury to continue to deliberate. “When you come back the next time and tell me you can’t arrive at a verdict, I’ll have no other choice but to discharge you.”
Judge Meyer asked whether he could be helpful by clarifying his instructions or the law. Jury foreman McGee said that this was not the problem.
Judge Meyer emphasized that it was not uncommon for jurors to have differences of opinion, but he said that every effort must be made to resolve these differences. “It is important to both the defense and the commonwealth,” he added. He also told the jurors they have a real responsibility to the community, a responsibility they accepted when they became jurors. “I hope you’ll go back and give this your earnest consideration.”
An hour later at 12:07 PM, after about nine hours of deliberations altogether, the jury returned with a verdict of guilty of murder in the second degree.
Sentencing was deferred to permit the attorneys to file appeals.
The statutory limitation involved a maximum of 20 years for a second degree conviction with the minimum left to the discretion of the sentencing court. At that time Sites had already served three years of whatever sentence would be imposed.
On December 20 it was reported that the hotel bill for sequestering the jurors for the Sites trial came to $1189. Also noted was the annual cost per prisoner in a state institution was about $2500 which was billed to the county from which he came.
On December 28 Sites’s attorneys filed an appeal for a new trial.
On January 14, 1969, Sites’s attorneys, on consultation with their client, withdrew their appeal for a new trial.
On Tuesday January 28, 1969, Judge L. E. Meyer sentenced Dennis Terry Sites to 10 to 20 years in prison.
ADA George E. Christianson had asked for the maximum allowable sentence of 20 years, while his attorney pled for leniency. Because Sites had already served three years in prison, that meant that the minimum sentence in effect was seven years.
Judge Meyer told Sites, “In my opinion you are extremely lucky to have been convicted of second degree murder.” He said the elements of first degree murder were clearly established at the trial.
Judge Meyer told Sites it’s an unpleasant duty to sentence a defendant to the penitentiary, but he did not agree with the remarks of Defense Attorney Reilly that Sites would never again commit the crime of murder.
In his plea for leniency on behalf of Sites the defense attorney said a psychiatrist termed the death of Mrs. Layser the result of a psychiatric explosion, triggered by the facts that Sites’s wife was about to give birth to a child and he had been drinking.
In his argument Reilly contended that Sites would never again murder because he would not drink in the future and therefore the combination of sex and alcohol would not again motivate his action. Judge Meyer said he could not accept this as a fact.
On Wednesday February 5 Sites was taken once again to the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia.
On February 12 the following was published in the Letters column in the Lebanon Daily News:
On February 21 James T. Reilly and Frederick S. Wolf, court-appointed attorneys, received $750 each for their representation of Dennis Terry Sites. Wolfe also received $8.59 and Reilly $170.40 for expenses. The commissioners were informed that based on the minimum fee bill of the Lebanon County Bar Association, the two attorneys would have billed a paying client $7050 for their services.
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