Tucker Cipriano Update: Jury selection begins for Mich. men charged in attack on family
(CBS) PONTIAC, Mich. - Jury selection began Monday in the trial of Tucker Cipriano, a 20-year-old man accused of beating his father to death with a baseball bat in the family's Farmington Hills, Mich. home in April 2012, CBS Detroit reports.
Cipriano is being tried with 21-year-old Mitchell Young on charges of first-degree murder in the April 16, 2012 death of 52-year-old Robert Cipriano.
Tucker Cipriano and Young are also charged in the severe beatings of Cipriano's 51-year-old mother, Rosemary, and his brother, Salvatore, who was 17 at the time. Salvatore is reportedly still recovering from the attack, which is said to have been driven by a search for drug money.
Salvatore Cipriano's twin brother, Tanner Cipriano, and 9-year-old Isabella Cipriano were also in the home, but hiding, at the time of the attack. They are both expected to testify.
According to CBS Detroit, Rosemary Cipriano, who was recently released after months of rehab following a head injury suffered in the attack, has pressured Prosecutor Jessica Cooper into offering a plea deal instead of putting the family through a trial.
Cooper has refuted the request and issued a statement reading, in part: "No victim of violence and horror wants to testify in an open court and recount their experiences. Yet, countless people take the witnesses stand everyday to testify against defendants, not only because they are compelled to by court order, but because they want to make sure that no one else suffers as they did."
She added, "Evil can only prevail when good men do nothing."
But Rosemary Cipriano continues to fight the prosecutor's desire for a trial and has issued statements attacking Cooper's conduct. She says the reason she wants to avoid a trial is so her youngest child, 9-year-old Isabella, won't have to testify.
"The evidence in this case is overwhelming; if they cannot convict without my daughter then there is something seriously wrong at the Prosecutor's office. This is not a case where my daughter's testimony will make or break the case. I suspect that they merely want the emotional picture of my nine year old on the stand talking about the killing of her father," Rosemary Cipriano said, according to the station.
She reportedly added that she would like her son and his friend to get a "sentence of 40 to 50 years that would take them into old age but would not be a life without parole sentence."
If convicted of first-degree murder, the two men face life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The trial is expected to last two to three weeks.