Dugan jury from various backgrounds to decide killer's fate

For five weeks, the DuPage County jury sat just feet away from a man whose horrific sexual violence still haunts.

Members return to court Tuesday to write the final page of an extended tragedy in the 1983 abduction, rape and bludgeoning of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico of Naperville.

After listening to closing arguments, the jury begins deliberating whether Brian Dugan should be executed. Dugan, 53, has been imprisoned since 1985 for two other murders.

His life was spared back then in plea deals. Prosecutors refused a similar offer in Jeanine's slaying, but Dugan admitted his guilt, anyway, with the hope his jury will show him mercy.

Lawyers picked the seven women and five men after interviewing about 80 people earlier this fall. Those chosen denied having strong death penalty opinions and said they had minimal knowledge about the case, in which two other men spent years on death row before their 1995 exonerations.

The foreman is a 64-year-old Naperville Purple Heart recipient. Panelists range in age from 30 to 79. All vowed to have the fortitude to withstand peer pressure if alone in their decision.

The youngest juror is an engaged 30-year-old Addison network administrator who described himself as quiet and intelligent, enjoying "geeky endeavors," such as playing video games, but lacks much street smarts. His father has a military background.

"(The death penalty) is something to be respected and not to be taken lightly," the panelist told lawyers during questioning, "but I understand its function in society."

DuPage County juries are historically pro-death penalty, especially for a child's death.

In fact, jurors here haven't spared a murder defendant since June 22, 1998, when Levern Ward received a life sentence for the infamous Nov. 16, 1995 Addison triple murders. Members later told the Daily Herald that the four jurors who voted against death were concerned about the scant physical evidence placing Ward at the crime scene.

His two co-defendants received death sentences for the crime in which the killers snatched the unborn child of a dying mother, after cutting open her womb. The woman and two of her other children were murdered.

One of the quickest DuPage County death penalty verdicts came Sept. 27, 1995, when members took less than two hours before voting to execute Geno Macri for an Addison 1993 sex slaying.

Of course, much has changed in Illinois. Less than two months after Macri's verdict, former death row inmate Rolando Cruz was acquitted of the Nicarico murder during a third trial. Gov. George Ryan cited that case in 2000 along with other wrongful prosecutions when he issued a moratorium on executions and later commuted all death sentences to life terms.

The death penalty remains Illinois law regardless of the moratorium, but it is imposed far less regardless of several systematic reforms. Nationally, experts say, death sentences are down more than 60 percent since 1999 and actual executions were cut in half.

Lawyers grilled the potential Dugan jurors in the selection process to ensure they were being truthful regarding the death penalty. The issue arose in the 2007 death penalty trial of Juan Luna, serving life terms for the 1993 Palatine Brown's Chicken mass murder.

A Cook County jury spared Luna's life after several members said a lone panelist refused to impose a death sentence without offering an explanation. She told lawyers during questioning that she was deeply religious but, "depending on the crime, I'd be in favor of it."

Last month, two jury holdouts spared co-defendant James Degorski's life.

Tom and Pat Nicarico support the death penalty for their daughter's slaying. Their anguished testimony appeared to evoke the only visible show of emotion from an otherwise stone-faced jury.

But his defense team argues plenty of mitigation exists. They contend Dugan tried to do the right thing in 1985 when he first offered to plead guilty, if the death penalty was taken off the table. Three defense experts also testified that Dugan is a psychopath with an actual brain deficit in an area of that organ where emotion, control, judgment and inhibition are processed.

Besides the foreman and network analyst, the other Dugan male jurors are a 54-year-old Glen Ellyn CEO of a health-care company, a 50-year-old Naperville computer programmer, and a 79-year-old retired Carol Stream broker, never married, who enjoys watching crime shows. He was reading, "Hoffa's Man," about the Teamsters leader, when tapped for jury duty.

The female members include a Woodridge banker who won election to a local office in April. The panelist, 47, said that while she does not have strong death penalty views, she does not believe in "eye-for-eye" justice. A 50-year-old Darien Walmart supervisor with three adults kids said she believes in the concept of mercy and that people can change for the better.

The other women, 41 to 63, include a school secretary, HR assistant, administrative assistant, medical field worker, and a financial clerk who has a Cook County judge and Chicago police officer as relatives and donates to groups such as MADD and the Fraternal Order of Police. She drew laughs in an otherwise somber process when describing herself as a Green Bay Packers fan.

"I have to go with my conscience," she said of the appropriate sentence. "I try and look at everything with an open mind."

<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Related documents</h2> <ul class="morePdf"> <li><a href="/pdf/pat_75.pdf">Victim's impact statement from Pat Nicarico, Jeanine's mother</a></li> <li><a href="/pdf/tom_75.pdf">Victim's impact statement from Tom Nicarico, Jeanine's father</a></li> <li><a href="/pdf/chris_75.pdf">Victim's impact statement from Chris Nicarico, Jeanine's oldest sister</a></li> </ul> <h2>Video</h2> <!-- Start of Brightcove Player --> <div style="display:none"> </div> <!-- By use of this code snippet, I agree to the Brightcove Publisher T and C found at http://corp.brightcove.com/legal/terms_publisher.cfm. --> <script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript" src="http://admin.brightcove.com/js/BrightcoveExperiences.js"></script> <object id="myExperience43606475001" class="BrightcoveExperience"> <param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /> <param name="width" value="300" /> <param name="height" value="255" /> <param name="playerID" value="18011347001" /> <param name="publisherID" value="1659832549"/> <param name="isVid" value="true" /> <param name="@videoPlayer" value="43606475001" /> </object> <!-- End of Brightcove Player --> </ul> <h2>Photo Galleries</h2> <ul class="gallery"> <li><a href="/story/?id=325418">Images of Brian Dugan's victims </a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=325419">Images of Brian Dugan </a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=325420">Images of Nicarico's wrongly accused </a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=325421">Images from Brian Dugan's trial </a></li> </ul> <h2>Related links</h2> <ul class="moreWeb"> <li><a href="/story/?id=308729">Dugan's criminal background</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=308727">Timeline of Nicarico murder investigation, trials</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=326654">Brian Dugan's victims</a></li> <h2>Stories</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=326645">Cruz: Dugan confessed to save himself <span class="date">[10/02/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=325829">Jury picked to decide Dugan's sentencing <span class="date">[10/02/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=317249">Dugan says he tried to confess in '85 to Nicarico slaying <span class="date">[08/28/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=310026">The statement Brian Dugan wanted to read in court <span class="date">[07/28/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=310014">Nicarico neighbor recalls the search for Jeanine, painful aftermath?<span class="date">[07/28/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=310033">State moratorium on executions - 10 years and counting<span class="date">[07/28/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=310040">A timeline of the Nicarico-Dugan cases<span class="date">[07/28/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=308853">After a lifetime of violence, will jury show Dugan mercy?<span class="date">[07/23/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=308535">Guilty plea expected in Nicarico murder <span class="date">[07/22/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=203555">Did one Chicago-area killer create another? <span class="date">[06/05/08]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=308721">Inside the FBI files of Brian Dugan <span class="date">[01/07/07]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=308724">Grand jury indicts Dugan in Nicarico murder <span class="date">[11/30/05]</span></a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>