RICHLAND COUNTY, S.C. — The jury is deliberating in State of South Carolina versus Tracy L. Gordon, a trial surrounding a fatal boat crash on Lake Murray in 2019. 68-year-old Stan Kiser was killed in the wreck, which left his wife without her leg and his daughter with severe head injuries.
Just one day before the four year anniversary of the fatal 2019 boat crash, the jury is charged with deciding whether defendant Tracy Gordon is guilty of reckless homicide and boating under the influence.
“Are we really supposed to believe that he is fine? That a reasonably prudent person would drive a boat at night in his condition when it's pitch black outside in what is often a really busy part of the lake that he’s been to and seen was busy many times before?” ,Deputy Solicitor Dan Goldberg posed the questions to the jury, punctuated with pauses. “Would a reasonably prudent person drink all that and do that?”
Goldberg started the morning with closing arguments, pushing back against the defense’s claim that it was an accident when the boat Gordon was operating T-boned the side of a pontoon boat driven by the Kiser family. He laid out beer cans for the jury, walking them through the drinks Gordon testifies he had over the course of the day starting around 1 p.m. until the crash around 9 p.m.
During the visual illustration, Goldberg pointed out that Gordon refused a blood and breath test at the scene.
“Only a man who was materially and appreciably impaired would refuse those tests,” Goldberg suggested. “If you’re fine, why wouldn't you take them?”
Gordon argues that he didn’t know how to contact a lawyer at the time, and did not want to take a test in the absence of legal advice.
“I agree it was an accident in the sense that Mr. Gordon did not wake up that morning with the intention of completely destroying these peoples’ lives,” Goldberg said. “It’s unintentional in the case that he did not intend to strike the Kiser boat on purpose, but he did intentionally act. These acts were intentional when he drank those nine plus beers. That was on purpose.”
Instead, defense attorney Jack Swerling emphasized his team’s argument that their client did not see the Kiser boat since the red navigation lights were not emitting light properly.
“That’s the bulb from the boat. This is supposed to illuminate through those plastic covers enough so that other boats can see. Seven and a half watt bulb,” Swerling held out the bulb toward the jury. “Look how small it is. Do you think that this really sends out the signal it’s supposed to send out? I submit to you, no.”
Swerling also called into question the state’s appeal to emotion when describing the Kiser family’s graphic injuries and the prosecution’s lack of testimony from restaurant staff who saw Gordon leading up to the crash.
“Why didn't the state call Katherine Reedy from Catfish Johnny’s or the Rusty Anchor or anybody else? Why didn’t the state call an expert from the Criminal Justice Academy or privately retain expert to contradict Mr. Brantley’s conclusion?” Swerling asked the jury, referencing the defense witnesses who spoke on Monday to share their observations of Gordon’s behavior. “I submit to you the reason they didn’t do any of that is because none of it would have been favorable to their case.”
The state’s closing attempted to get the jury to focus on the choices Gordon made each time he opened a beer and proceeded to operate the boat, asking jurors not to get caught up in details.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this case is not about light beer vs. full-flavor beer. It is not about the shading on a lightbulb. It is not about whether the gate on a pontoon was open. And it’s certainly not about the morality of drinking. That’s not what we’re all here to talk about,” Goldberg told the jury. “This case is about holding him responsible for recklessly operating his boat Sept. 21, 2019 while he was under the influence of alcohol and then caused the death of Stan Kiser and the great bodily injury of Shawn Kiser.”
Swerling, however, stressed the importance of the jury being firm in their decision. He argued the state had not met their burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and emphasized that everyone has the right to be presumed innocent.
“In the courtroom, if you have a reasonable doubt there’s only one option,” Swerling explained to the jury. “You can’t still go ahead and find someone guilty because the law mandates if you have a reasonable doubt about the evidence in the case or the guilt of the accused, then you have to resolve that doubt in his favor.”
Jury deliberations began right around 2 p.m. and jurors had multiple questions for the judge throughout the afternoon.