Cop-killer Ronell Wilson’s lawyers have written a letter to the judge requesting that he rearrange the courtroom, which they say is currently prejudiced against their client. (Luiz C. Ribeiro)
Cop-killing, baby-making convict Ronell Wilson wants to turn the tables on jurors who will decide whether he lives or dies.
A lawyer for Wilson, who was convicted of murdering two undercover cops in 2003, wants a federal judge to rearrange his Brooklyn courtroom to help Wilson look less menacing in the eyes of the men and women deciding his fate.
Wilson was already condemned to die once, until an appeals court overturned the sentence due to a prosecution misstep.
The question of life in prison or death by lethal injection will be in the hands of another jury next month, but not before a federal judge rules on Wilson’s request for the courtroom makeover.
The current court configuration would place the cold-blooded killer and his legal team at the back of the courtroom, with the prosecution table between Wilson and the jury.
Lawyer David Stern wants the defense and prosecution tables turned 90 degrees so that they both face the judge and sit at an equal distance from the jury to the left.
“I write to ask that Your Honor reconfigure the courtroom so that the defendant and his counsel can see the witnesses as readily and from the same perspective as the government lawyers, and we may avoid the possibility that jurors will misconstrue the defendant’s distance from the jury as a reflection of his dangerousness,” Stern said in a letter to federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis.
“The proposed arrangement of the courtroom will enhance the fairness of the trial and ensure Mr. Wilson’s Sixth Amendment right to confront the witnesses against him.”
The prosecution team has not opposed the measure.
Wilson, 31, was convicted in 2007 for the murders of NYPD Detectives Rodney Andrews and James Nemorin on Staten Island during a gun-buy sting.
After Wilson became the first person sentenced to death in New York state in more than 50 years, the unrepentant thug stuck his tongue out at the cops’ families in the courtroom.
In recent months, Wilson made headlines outside the courtroom for fathering a baby — with one of his prison guards.
At least one death-penalty expert doubts the jury would be influenced by the location of the tables.
“My sense is that the jury focuses on evidence presented in the case,” said Paul Cassell, a former federal judge who teaches at the University of Utah law school.
“Generally, those challenges haven’t gotten anywhere.”
Feng-shui expert Laura Cerrano said rearranging the furniture probably won’t earn Wilson any points.
“The energy of a person never lies,” Cerrano said.