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Jason Young during his retrial on February 6, 2012. Young is accused of murdering his wife Michelle Young. Michelle was several months pregnant when her sister found her body on November 3, 2006, in the master bedroom of the family's suburban Wake County home. In June, Superior Court Judge Donald Stephens declared a mistrial after a hung jury failed to reach a verdict.
RALEIGH -- As lawyers present opening statements today in the second trial of Jason Young, there is likely to be a sense of deja vu for those who followed the first trial of the medical software salesman accused of killing his pregnant wife.
But there also could be key and subtle differences as Young again fights prosecutors' allegations that he bludgeoned Michelle Young to death in November 2006 in the Wake County home the couple shared.
The differences include a change in the prosecution team. Howard Cummings, Wake County's chief assistant district attorney, will take a more active role in the retrial.
Assistant District Attorneys Becky Holt and David Saacks argued the first trial, which ended in June with a deadlocked jury. Eight jurors were for acquittal; four were for conviction. Judge Donald Stephens declared a mistrial.
Cummings was in the courtroom for much of the first trial, but he spent several months before that prosecuting Brad Cooper, another Wake County man charged with killing his wife. Cooper was convicted in May 2011 and sentenced to life in prison after one of Wake County's most protracted murder trials.
Another change: The case will incorporate the defendant's testimony from the first trial.
Until his trial in 2011, Young refused to offer any accounts of his whereabouts to investigators, family or friends. A Raleigh lawyer with whom Young met several days after his wife's body was found advised him to take such a course.
Young testified that he was on a business trip in Virginia.
Prosecutors contend that Young, indeed, checked into a Virginia hotel, about a three-hour drive from Raleigh. They contend that, shortly after midnight, he headed back to his Wake County home, killed his wife and returned to Virginia for a medical software sales pitch later that day.
While under oath on the stand, he gave an emphatic "no" each time his attorneys asked him whether he murdered his wife or had anything to do with her death.
Defense lawyers pointed out that Young had no visible bruises or injuries when examined by investigators the day after his wife's body was found. His wife's bludgeoning death was violent enough to break her teeth and send blood splattering onto nearby walls, defense lawyers said.
Prosecutors likely spent time in the past six months reviewing that testimony and looking for any inconsistencies.
Experienced witnesses
At the first trial, prosecutors called old girlfriends of Young as witnesses in an attempt to show a pattern of extramarital affairs and a history of domestic violence.
Michelle Young was 29 and nearly five months pregnant when she was found dead in the master bedroom of her home. Blood covered the floor and walls. The couple's daughter, a toddler at the time, was found inside the home. The girl was not physically harmed, but had tracked small, bloody footprints from the master bedroom toward a bathroom down the hall.
Some of the women who testified to having liaisons with Young were very emotional on the stand as they elaborated on the extramarital affairs. None had seen Young since his arrest.
They will have familiarity with being witnesses, which could make it easier to keep their emotions in check.
Role of financial records
Also, financial records could play a larger role is the retrial.
In December, defense attorneys sought a court order to access documents and witness statements gathered by Linda Fisher, Michelle Young's mother, for a wrongful death civil suit she filed against her son-in-law.
In March 2009, a judge in Wake County awarded Fisher more than $15 million after Jason Young failed to respond to the civil claim against him.
Young is being represented by Wake County public defender Bryan Collins and Mike Klinkosum, a court-appointed attorney being paid by the state's Indigent Defense Services.
The defense team sought documents and witness statements not included in the public court files related to the 2009 civil suit in an attempt to raise doubt about testimony or theories used in the first trial.
In this trial, prosecutors and defense attorneys will have the benefit of knowing the theories offered during the first trial. They have had months to investigate inconsistencies and to hone arguments in a case that is largely circumstantial.
Picking jurors' minds
Prosecutors and defense attorneys also have been able to discuss the first trial with jurors, who could elaborate on what worked well and what didn't.
Finally, Young won't be restrained. He has been out of jail on a $900,000 secured bond since the summer.
During the first trial, he was being held in Wake County jail with no bond set. Stephens agreed to set bond for Young after the mistrial.
