Mother, lawyer don’t want Charlotte man to defend himself in murder trial

Derek Ward’s mother “just wants fairness.”

No trial will be fair, she said, with her son allowed to represent himself.

But Ward will continue to represent himself despite objections from his mother and his advising lawyer. It’s Charlotte’s first pro se murder trial — when a defendant represents themselves — since 2012.

Ward has been in jail since he was arrested in May 2010 on charges of killing and raping his cousin, Brittini Ward. The case also involved incest charges with Brittini’s mother — his aunt.

For 14 years, every time the case neared a trial date, a judge found Ward unfit to stand trial.

That’s until the case recently shuffled onto Mecklenburg Chief Superior Court Judge Carla Archie’s desk. After she allowed the case to progress to trial, Ward rejected representation from a lawyer and instead chose to represent himself.

According to prosecutors, Ward claimed “a demon had” Brittini after they charged him in her murder. Police say Ward killed his cousin at Providence Court apartments near Providence High School in May 2010. At the time he was 24, and she was 23.

In Mecklenburg County Courthouse Tuesday morning, at the start of the second day of jury selection, Assistant Public Defender Michael Kabakoff, who is working with Ward, told Archie he had concerns about the defendant’s mental fitness. Ward’s mother, who declined to give her name, also expressed concerns about whether her son should defend himself in trial.

Kabakoff said Derek Ward claimed he would “slay everyone in court” if he is acquitted. Ward also said there was a “poltergeist” in the room and that a potential juror was in the Illuminati, Kabakoff told Archie while the jury in was in another room.

Kabakoff had “copious notes” on all the claims, some of which were made during jail visits.

Ward denied most of them.

He said he never claimed that a poltergeist was affecting his hand, as the notes suggest, and he never said he was in contact with Hamas in a plan to kill Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“How could I be?” said Ward , referencing Mecklenburg County Detention Center’s GTL monitored messaging system.

Ward wore his jail uniform when he appeared in court this week. While North Carolina statutes prohibit sheriffs from requiring defendants to stand trial in a uniform, Ward refused the suit offered to him, Bill Bunting, the homicide chief for the Mecklenburg District Attorney’s Office told the Observer.

The last pro se murder case Bunting could remember was Todd Broderick’s 2016 bench trial. Boderick was charged with killing his 6-month-old child in 2012. That case ended in a mistrial, and a later trial in 2019 resulted in his conviction.

‘What happened to client confidentiality?’

“This is nuts,” Derek Ward said as he read the notes Kabakoff printed off for Ward and Archie to review.

Ward told the judge he didn’t claim former President Donald Trump would exonerate him. He admitted he discussed the presidential race between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, as is his “right as an American citizen,” he said.

Against Kabakoff’s direction, Ward continued to read the notes aloud.

Reporters could hear, Kabakoff warned.

“I don’t care,” Ward replied. “I’m saying this loud enough so nothing can be misconstrued… I wasn’t the one talking about demons and haunted houses for over an hour.”

Ward continued reading Kabakoff’s notes from their meetings aloud, asking, “What happened to client confidentiality?”

Kabakoff asked a deputy to escort him out of the room.

Archie, after reviewing 14 pages of Kabakoff’s notes, said the court will not impose a lawyer onto Ward.

“Although he is making choices that appear to be ill advised, they seem to be knowing, intelligent and informed decisions,” she said.

Archie sealed the notes after noting some of the main claims. Among them, Kabakoff said during a jail visit early this month, Ward asked for his business card to make a “show” of ripping it up and throwing it on the floor.

After Archie ruled that Ward could continue representing himself, he asked Kabakoff to move from the chair next to him to the row of seats behind the courtroom divider.

Demons and witnesses

In court Monday, Mecklenburg Assistant District Attorney Kimberly Gardner asked jurors their thoughts on demons, possessions, mental health and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Some arguments in the trial, Gardner said, could be based on claims of the supernatural. After police arrested Derek Ward in Brittini Ward’s death, saying he strangled and raped her, Ward told officers “a demon had her,” Gardner told potential jurors.

Weeks after his arrest, officers charged Dawn Ward — Brittini’s mother — with murder, accessory to a felony and incest in June 2010. The incest charge, police previously said, involved her relationship with Ward — her nephew.

One juror said the idea that claims based on religious beliefs and the idea of demonic possession was “a little ridiculous.” Ward had that juror removed.

Jury selection ended Tuesday afternoon, and opening arguments will begin Wednesday morning.