Judge orders makeover so robbery/murder suspect gets fair trial. http://goo.gl/BjFKwe 11:35 AM – 26 Jul 2016 Retweets likes (RNS) Jurors said they could not impartially judge a defendant with swastikas and other racist and anti-Semitic tattoos covering his face and neck – so the judge called in a cosmetologist.
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He’s inked up with neo-Nazi tattoos including the words “Baby Nazi” across the front of his neck, a swastika within a clover under his left eye and an Iron Cross on the back of his head.
The act wasn’t a desperate plot from a defense attorney aiming to get his client off, but rather a directive handed down by District Judge Richard Scotti. And neither did a cadre of potential jurors who told the judge last month that they could not give Morgan a fair trial because of his appearance. They say he broke into her home and hit her over the head with his gun so hard that the trigger guard broke on the weapon.
Morgan, 24, was accused of stealing a motorcycle at gunpoint in 2013.
Morgan also has been charged with murder in a separate case where a 75-year-old woman was killed says before the robbery.
Each day a professional cosmetologist meets Morgan prior to the jury being brought into the courtroom and applies his makeup.
By law, jurors are supposed to consider only the facts of the case, not a defendant’s appearance. Police officials have asked that the makeup be removed before he returns to the Clark County Detention Center.
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Morgan’s capital murder trial is scheduled for next month, when another judge may have to decide whether the tattoos should be covered again.
