A jury deadlocked after nearly five hours of deliberation Tuesday.
BY KRISTIN RODINE
05/19/10
After seven men and five women failed to agree on whether Danny Nicks, 55, criminally neglected his bedridden mother, 3rd District Judge Susan Wiebe declared a mistrial and set a new trial with a new jury.
The July 20 trial is one week after Nicks' identical twin, David, is scheduled for sentencing on the same charge: felony neglect of a vulnerable adult.
Shortly before they announced their deadlock, jurors indicated they couldn't agree on what constitutes a "vulnerable adult."
Canyon County Deputy Prosecutor Ty Ketlinski said Verda Nicks clearly was vulnerable because she couldn't get out of bed or care for herself and was dependent on help from her twin sons.
But Deputy Public Defender Scott James said the woman was lucid and living the way she wanted to live, whether or not others found those conditions disgusting.
The case against both twins was fundamentally the same: They moved from Oregon to Nampa in 2003 to help their ailing mother, but failed to provide adequate care. The brothers lived rent-free in a camp trailer behind Verda Nicks' home. She could not get out of bed, clean or dress herself, Ketlinski said. He stressed her emaciation, severe bedsores and the surrounding squalor.
James agreed that the evidence photos are horrific.
"Those pictures scream one thing: Make somebody responsible," James said.
The problem with this case, the defender argued, is that Danny Nicks isn't responsible. He argued that Danny was not his mother's caregiver, that his brother was in charge of hygiene and home care, and that Verda Nicks was determined to stay in her home and able to call for help if she needed it.
"This case is partly about Verda Nicks' right to live, and to die, where she wanted and how she wanted - at home, surrounded by her two sons, whom she loved," James said.
But Ketlinski called into question whether she wanted to live in the conditions that surrounded her.
"Where in the evidence did you see that Verda Nicks wanted to die in a bed filled with urine and feces and larvae?" Ketlinski said.
Testifying Tuesday afternoon at the end of his two-day trial, Danny Nicks said he visited his mother's room three or four times a day, but she was always covered by blankets and he never saw her urine- and feces-covered sheets until after police and paramedics removed her from her home. Verda Nicks died about six weeks later, but her sons are not charged with causing her death.
"Her bedsores were very, very severe," Ketlinski said. "Her spine pierced her skin. And the fact she was lying in a bed with urine, feces and larvae É He was supposed to be taking care of her."
SOURCE: IdahoStatesman
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