Clarke County juries returned guilty and not guilty verdicts in the two trials held during the jury term of Clarke County Circuit Court last week in Grove Hill.

The trials went on simultaneously in the side-by-side courtrooms of Judge Thomas Baxter and Judge Stuart DuBose in the new courthouse annex recently opened.

Former teacher guilty

A former Coffeeville High School teacher was found guilty Wednesday, Oct. 24 of enticing two juvenile students for immoral purposes

Jurors deliberated for about three hours before returning the verdict against former Coffeeville High School teacher Sharon L. Rutherford, 32, of Thomasville around 7 p.m.

She was initially charged with having alleged sexual contact with at least four of her students at CHS, including soliciting one of them to kill her husband, James Rutherford who filed for divorce last year. The solicitation charge is still pending and was not brought out during last week's trial.

It was later learned that two of the students in question were of legal age at the time and Rutherford's attorney, Richard Jensen, did not deny the sexual contact. Both of those young men testified as to their relationships with Rutherford. Jensen termed the longest involvement with one of the students a love affair that might have been wrong but was not illegal.

The enticement charge involved students who were 14 and 15 at the time, under the age of Alabama's consent law of 16. Rutherford reportedly asked that they be sent to her room and prosecutors Ronnie Keahey and Joe Thompson alleged it was for immoral purposes.

One of the students testified that Rutherford brushed her hand across another student's groin area and made sexually suggestive remarks to both of them. The other student, as well as his mother, testified that there was no sexual contact.

Prosecutors told jurors that actual sexual contact was not necessary; that the enticement charge involved the act of luring or seeking out the young men for immoral purposes.

Enticement is a Class C felony with a potential sentence of up to 10 years on each count. A sentencing hearing is set for Dec. 10 before the trial judge, Judge Thomas Baxter.

Lawyers involved in the case were unable to comment on the verdict because of a gag law imposed by Judge Baxter.

Not guilty of murder In the other trial, a jury deliberated for more than four hours before finding a Grove Hill man not guilty last Friday of the 2005 murder of a Zimco man, apparently believing defense attorneys' claims that the shooting death was in self-defense.

Nathan Chapman, then 44, shot and killed Kelvin Louis Foster, 37 in Fulton on Dec. 1, 2005. Foster was shot in the back with a .45 caliber pistol.

Chapman turned himself in at the Clarke County Jail in Grove Hill almost immediately after the shooting, claiming self-defense. Law enforcement officers charged him with murder.

The trial lasted a week in Judge Stuart DuBose's court with District Attorney Spence Walker leading the case for the prosecution and James Brandyburg and Phil Perkins defending Chapman.

Prosecutors contended that the two men had differences and that Foster busted out the windows of Chapman's vehicle sometime prior to their fatal confrontation. They contended that Chapman got a gun and ambushed Foster outside of his workplace.

The defense said that Foster pulled a gun on Chapman first and that Chapman fired back, killing him.

A loaded and cocked derringer handgun was found in Foster's vehicle.

Chapman testified in his own defense. There were no other witnesses to the shooting.