After less than then three hours of deliberation, a jury found Nathaniel Rowland guilty of all charges in the kidnapping and murder of 21-year-old Samantha Josephson. Quickly following the verdict, the judge passed down Rowland’s sentence: life in prison.
The judge was very vocal about his feelings toward the defendant. At one point, the judge even suggested that Rowland had “demons” inside of him that needed to be exorcised.
In a recent interview on Court TV, Denver defense lawyer and Court TV correspondent Jeffrey Wolf discussed some of the unusual behaviors taking place in the courtroom last week.
“Maybe this is the defense lawyer in me coming out,” explained Wolf, “but it really makes my blood boil…instead of comforting the family, the Josephson family, to let them know that the justice system has worked, your daughter’s murderer is going to go away for life…instead of doing that…what does he do? He tells Nathanial Rowland that he has a depraved heart, that he has demons living inside of him…The need of a judge to do that is beyond me.”
Uncharacteristically, the jury remained in the courtroom following the verdict to listen to victim impact statements, which included comments from the defendant’s family.
“He [the judge] really let Mr. Rowland have it,” continued Wolf. “But he also let Mr. Rowland’s parents have it, which I thought was a little unusual. He interrupted the mom, he yelled at the mom, he told her she was not allowed to talk about how she thought her son was innocent…”Watch the full video for extended commentary from Jeff Wolf or for more details about the case.
