Jury chooses voluntary manslaughter verdict in fatal stabbing

Zachery Holden broke down and his wife burst into sobs as a Columbus jury convicted him Thursday of voluntary manslaughter and aggravated assault in the New Year’s Day 2015 fatal stabbing of his friend Carlos Cordero.

Through tears he asked Judge Bobby Peters about his appeal rights, and whether he could have some time with his family before he went back to jail. He had been free on bond while awaiting trial.

Peters replied that defense attorney Mike Garner could explain the appeals, and Holden was in the custody of sheriff’s deputies who’d decide whether he could speak with his family. They refused.

“I love you,” Holden told his wife and mother as he was handcuffed and led away.

Jurors deliberated about three hours before announcing the verdict. Attorneys in their closing remarks Thursday morning argued jurors had three options: They could find Holden guilty of murder, guilty of voluntary manslaughter, or not guilty if the homicide was justifiable self-defense.

The latter option would have meant Holden stabbed his unarmed friend in defense of himself and a then-girlfriend, now his wife, he claimed Cordero struck twice in the face. Arguing that, Garner cited not only the law on self-defense but Georgia’s “stand your ground” law. A similar Florida law stirred controversy when George Zimmerman used it in defense of his fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin in 2012.

Voluntary manslaughter means killing someone while in the heat of passion.

While arguing which laws best fit Holden’s case, attorneys recounted witnesses’ testimony of what happened that New Year’s Day at 6228 Potomac Circle, where friends were smoking marijuana and playing online video games when Holden and Cordero got into two fistfights, the second leading to Cordero’s death.

The fight started over a marijuana pipe Holden accused Cordero of spilling. Their mutual friends said Holden kept picking at Cordero until the two went out in the street to brawl, before their friends broke it up.

The homeowner then ordered Holden to leave. He went inside to get a backpack and went to his then-girlfriend’s car parked in the driveway, but did not depart.

Holden and the girlfriend, who’s now his wife, testified Wednesday that Holden was trying to apologize through an open kitchen door when Cordero came dashing out and attacked him. Other witnesses said Holden was shouting insults at Cordero, baiting him to come back out.

One bystander said he could see that Holden had something in his hand when the second fight started. Prosecutor Don Kelly alleged Holden already was holding his knife, which had brass knuckles on its handle, as he taunted Cordero.

When the girlfriend tried to intervene, Cordero hit her in the face. She and Holden claimed it was deliberate, as Cordero hit her twice. Other witnesses thought Cordero inadvertently hit her once when she got between the two.

Holden started shouting, “You goin’ to hit my girl?” He opened the blade on the folding knife and started stabbing Cordero as Cordero backed down the driveway, eventually falling backward and hitting his head hard on the pavement.

A medical examiner testified Cordero had four stab wounds, two in his left arm, one in his abdomen and one in his left groin that cut his femoral artery, causing massive bleeding.

As others tried to staunch his wounds, Holden finally “snapped out of it,” witnesses said, and came over to help. The first police officer to arrive said Holden told him, “I have an anger problem.”

Cordero, who was 26, died in the hospital the next morning, 10 hours after the 5:15 p.m. stabbing.

Holden’s charges were malice or intentional murder, felony murder for killing Cordero during the felony of aggravated assault, aggravated assault and using a knife to commit a felony. Anyone convicted of murder faces life in prison.

Besides manslaughter and assault, the jury convicted Holden of using a knife to commit a felony. Prosecutors said the three-count verdict means Holden faces up to 45 years in prison. He is 22.

The defense

Defense attorney Mike Garner in his closing scoffed at his client’s murder charges: “It’s not cold-blooded murder. That’s stupid.”

If Holden committed any crime, it was voluntary manslaughter for stabbing Cordero in a rush of anger, the result of Cordero’s hitting the girlfriend, Garner said.

He cited the law that defines voluntary manslaughter as killing another “solely as the result of a sudden, violent, and irresistible passion resulting from serious provocation sufficient to excite such passion in a reasonable person.” The penalty for that alone is one to 20 years in prison.

The law adds some exceptions: It’s not voluntary manslaughter “if there should have been an interval between the provocation and the killing sufficient for the voice of reason and humanity to be heard,” in which case “the killing shall be attributed to deliberate revenge and be punished as murder.”

Holden testified Wednesday that he had to protect himself and his girlfriend: “I had to react,” he said, of Cordero adding, “He came and he attacked me.”

Garner in his closing also cited the law on self-defense, which allows Georgians to use deadly force “only” if they “reasonably” believe it’s needed to defend themselves or others from another’s “imminent use of unlawful force” likely to cause “death or great bodily injury.”

That law also has exceptions: no one can claim self-defense if he “initially provokes the use of force against himself with the intent to use such force as an excuse”; is committing a felony; or “was engaged in a combat by agreement unless he withdraws from the encounter.”

Garner also quoted the state law commonly called “stand your ground”: Those acting in defense of themselves or others have “no duty to retreat.”

The prosecution

Holden’s actions neither were justified nor voluntary manslaughter under the law, countered Kelly and prosecutor Pete Temesgen.

Holden could not have “reasonably” believed an unarmed Cordero posed a threat of causing anyone “great bodily injury,” Temesgen said.

“He was not justified,” Temesgen added, saying the evidence showed Holden acted not in self-defense but in “a spirit of revenge.”

Kelly told jurors Holden likely got his backpack after the first fistfight because his knife was in it, and he put the brass knuckles on with the blade still closed before he baited Cordero to resume the combat.

What Holden yelled into the house were not apologies; they were insults, Kelly said: “They were what we often call ‘fighting words.’ ”

When the girlfriend got hit, Holden flew into a rage, opened the blade and charged Cordero while the other man backed away, Kelly said.

Kelly also noted Holden stabbed Cordero not once, but repeatedly, leaving the other man bleeding so profusely his blood streamed down the driveway and pooled at the street as friends struggled to keep him conscious until an ambulance arrived.

After the verdict, Cordero’s family declined to comment on the case until Holden’s sentencing, which Peters set for noon Wednesday, Nov. 2. Some jurors leaving the courtroom stopped to speak with the family, expressing sympathy for their loss, and saying the verdict was difficult.

This story was originally published October 6, 2016 at 4:22 PM with the headline "Jury chooses voluntary manslaughter verdict in fatal stabbing."