Jury still deliberating verdict in Roberts trial after tense closing arguments

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF)- The jury in the Darryl Roberts trial is currently in the process of deciding his fate.

He is charged with first degree murder in the September 2023 shooting death of Christopher Wright, a shooting that Roberts himself testified that he committed last Thursday.

The jury called it a day at 6:30 on Monday evening during their deliberations on the Darryl Roberts murder trial.

They had gone for approximately three hours as they sent back to the jury room at 3:25 p.m.

Before they were sent back, they saw an intense back and forth set of closing arguments that got so heated it was stopped multiple times for objections.

Prosecutor Paul Moyle said, “You don’t get to kill somebody on a public sidewalk in Chattanooga, Tennessee and then get to argue passion after the fact.”

The crux of the defense’s argument was related to the testimony of Roberts last Thursday.

Roberts had testified that Wright had called him a racial slur twice.

Public Defender Steve Smith said, “If I were a minority, person of color, and somebody called me a racial slur more than once, and then a boy. That’s exactly why we have this in the law, this act of provocation. It could cause me to do something irrational. Would I kill someone, I hope not.”

However, the prosecution argued that Roberts was cold in his premeditation of the murder, and that there was no sign he reacted in a state of passion.

Moyle said, “He’s not doing anything but working himself up to the final act. He’s getting himself closer, and closer, and closer. He’s centering himself so that Chris Wright is looking right down the barrel of his 357.”

The prosecution also argued that the defense attempted what they called a character assassination on Wright by presenting him as a drunken racist, which is something the defense denied.

Smith said, “Do you think I’m really trying to assassinate his character? I’m trying to tell you what his state of mind was when he went down there and got into a confrontation with Mr. Roberts.”

The defense also argued that Roberts was overcharged for the shooting, saying that in Smith’s view, the shooting of Wright was at most a voluntary manslaughter.

Moyle called the intense focus on Wright’s drinking that evening ‘disgusting’.

Ultimately, the prosecution argued this case comes down to the piece of video that shows what went down. 

Moyle said, “Because he ended Chris Wright’s night at 11:50 p.m., in Chattanooga, on a public sidewalk, on the 28th day of September, in 2023.”

The jury will return on Tuesday morning as they continue their work to reach a verdict.