Verdict

LAST WEEK, we asked for your opinion on the verdict that found Jeffrey Marsalis not guilty of the rapes he was charged with. Jeffrey Marsalis was acquitted of rape because the jury thought these women had alcohol and everyone knows the minute you have alcohol, sex crimes take on a veneer of reasonable doubt. The testimony indicated he probably drugged these women and did what he wanted with them. I don't think all of the victims just decided to press charges against him. Because of defense lawyers who portray people as willing particapnts just because they had a few drinks, he got off on the rape charges.

A federal jury deliberated for a full day without reaching a verdict yesterday in the trial of an investment banker charged with lying to FBI agents investigating corruption at City Hall. The case against Denis J. Carlson, 50, is the first of the government's municipal corruption cases to go to trial. U.S. District Judge Michael M. Baylson sent the case to jurors late Wednesday. They met from about 9:20 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. yesterday, and thus far have not posed any substantive questions to Baylson.

The jury in the second murder trial of Wilfredo Santiago in the execution-style slaying of Police Officer Thomas Trench in 1985 completed its first full day of deliberations yesterday without reaching a verdict. Many of the witnesses in the case suffered credibility problems, and the jury has the unenviable task of deciding what was true. No physical evidence or eyewitnesses linked Santiago, now 44, to Trench's killing, and the prosecution's case has depended on circumstantial evidence.

Two tough city prosecutors may have gone too far in their efforts to convict two men of murder, but not far enough to warrant new trials for the defendants, the state Supreme Court has ruled. The court yesterday upheld the first-degree murder conviction and death sentence of DeWitt Crowley, 34, of Warrington Avenue near 49th Street, and reinstated the same verdict and life sentence for John Harvey, 32, of Passyunk Homes in South Philadelphia. Crowley was sentenced to death by a 1984 Common Pleas jury for the Dec. 19, 1983, fatal stabbings of his two teen-age nieces and their father.

IS MAURY POVICH'S wife working for the DA? Connie Chung's interview with Rep. Gary Condit last week was an interrogation - and a lousy one at that. Condit should have told her to shut up. The real issue is the missing girl. Trying to put words in Condit's mouth was so lame. It's a shame for Chandra missing all this time, but the fact is that she knew he was married, her parents warned her. Virge Ross, Philadelphia Condit is a weasel! That smirk in the very beginning of the show turned me off immediately.

Edward Paige's family left the courtroom satisfied that justice had been done after Common Pleas Judge Joseph D. O'Keefe convicted Paige's killer of felony murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment. But once the family was gone, and over the objections of the district attorney's office, O'Keefe vacated the life sentence and changed his verdict to third-degree murder. That carries a maximum penalty of 10 to 20 years. For Irene Thurston, Paige's daughter, and Romaine Paige, his sister, what O'Keefe did was a "cowardly" act. "We went home and I'm calling my family all around the country telling them it's a life sentence, and meanwhile the judge is changing the verdict behind our backs," said Thurston, 27, one of Paige's six children.

A five-year veteran cop threatened to quit his job in frustration yesterday after a jury acquitted a man he swore had robbed and tried to kill him last year. "I'm strongly considering leaving," said the shaken officer, Thomas Gitto. "This verdict is ridiculous. " The defense argued that the arrest of defendant Rashaan Wright, 19, for the holdup of Gitto's Overbrook deli was part of "a sinister police conspiracy. " Attorney Byron Houston said the cops were out to get Wright, and they pinned a bad rap on him last March 28. Houston claimed Gitto, 30, made a mistake when he identified Wright's picture shortly after being shot at in a chase from the deli at 64th and Callowhill streets.

The first-degree murder verdict floored the killer. Daniel Coach Sr., 44, fainted yesterday as jurors were about to be polled after convicting him of the execution-style slaying of a 16-year-old inside a North Philadelphia recreation center. As Coach collapsed, he struck the front of his head against the defense table and was unconscious when Common Pleas Judge C. Darnell Jones asked jurors to leave the room. Coach, of York Street near 7th, remained sprawled on the floor for about 10 minutes before being revived and taken to a hospital.

The families of the young men charged with killing Sean Daily sat in vigil awaiting a verdict yesterday outside the courtroom in which many of them have spent the last several weeks, listening to the charges against their sons. They waited in small clusters, sharing a few chairs, a small wooden bench, a particularly wide windowsill and a stack of two-by-fours pressed into service as seating. Elsewhere in the city, a jury deliberated over the charges against the defendants. Each of the seven men is charged with murder, conspiracy and possession of an instrument of crime.

A jury in Towson, Md., ordered two women to pay Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis $5,000 each, deciding yesterday their assault-and-battery lawsuit against the NFL star was filed in bad faith. The jury deliberated for several hours before announcing the verdict. Lewis' attorney, Ronald Cherry, said his client was satisfied with the outcome. Sherita Williams and Catrice Parker Hill sued Lewis for $6 million, claiming he punched Hill in the face and hit Williams on the shoulder during a fight at a Woodlawn, Md., bar in 1999.