194

Three counts. Every aggravator found. And three times the foreperson read the same last word: life. The door his lawyer begged the jury to leave open stays open.

Blaise Taylor, the ex-Titans scout convicted of poisoning his pregnant girlfriend Jade Benning's pink lemonade with cocaine, killing her and their unborn daughter Ivy, is at the defense table to hear the last decision this jury will ever make. The same twelve people who convicted him on all four counts now hold his sentence: life with a parole look at roughly age 80, or life without parole and the door closed forever.

Watch the foreperson work down the verdict form count by count. On Ivy's counts the jury finds the victim-under-12 aggravator. On all three it finds the double-murder aggravator. Every box the state said its own verdict already proved, checked. Then watch what the jury wrote under each one, and watch Taylor as it gets read. The seam everyone expected from the guilt verdict, harsher where Ivy was concerned, never shows up.

His own lawyer called the poisoning horrific and asked the jury for arithmetic instead of mercy: parole at 80 at best means he dies in prison no matter which box they check. Three counts say the arithmetic landed. Count 1 and the merger questions come back September 9.

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WATCH WITH JUSTICE

0:20 to 1:07 - The decision is in before the jury is seated. Listen to the courtroom pencil a September date like it is any other Wednesday.
1:08 to 2:19 - Count 2, Ivy's count. Both aggravators found beyond a reasonable doubt. Then the sentence: imprisonment for life.
2:20 to 3:33 - Counts 3 and 4 run the same form. Every aggravator the state listed, found. Every sentence the same word. The Ivy split never comes.
3:34 to 4:09 - Signed by all twelve. Neither side has anything further, and the judge thanks the jury that decided both his guilt and his future.
4:10 to the end - The jury is discharged and Judge Dozier tells Taylor to his face that life on each count is now the judgment of the court. September 9 is the last date on this case's calendar.

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State of Tennessee v. Blaise Taylor. Davidson County Criminal Court in Nashville, Judge Steve Dozier presiding. Taylor faces two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of felony murder in the deaths of Jade Benning and her unborn child. He is presumed innocent. The state is seeking life without parole.

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