Jury selection begins Monday in Chambers case
BY BILL BRAUN World Staff Writer
Apr 9, 2000
8/30/08 at 5:15 AM
Jury selection is set to begin Monday for the trial of Jamie Nicole Chambers,
charged with being an accessory to the 1996 murder of Michelle Hendrix outside a Tulsa
health clinic.
This could be the final chapter in a case that has taken many twists and turns during
proceedings involving three defendants that moved slowly through the Tulsa County
court system.
Hendrix, 30, of Sapulpa was fatally shot outside the John Tomblin Memorial Health
Center, 2828 W. 51st St., while she was with her two young daughters on Feb. 29, 1996.
Chambers, of Tulsa, said that she drove convicted triggerman Steven Antonio White and
his imprisoned accomplice, Marcus Terrell Currie, to and from the shooting scene.
Chambers has indicated that
she had no idea that any crime would occur until right before Currie grabbed Hendrix's
purse.
A jury in 1998 handed White, now 21, a no-parole life sentence for murder and two more
life terms on shooting counts.
Currie, 19, pleaded guilty in 1999 to robbery -- reduced from murder -- and was
sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Prosecutors John Heil and Matt Cyran list Currie as a prospective witness at the trial
of Chambers, now 22.
While testifying for the prosecution at White's trial, Currie said that White shot
Hendrix and also indicated that Chambers was not truthful when she maintained that she
did not know there was going to be a purse-snatching.
Attorney Clark Brewster, representing Chambers, said Friday that his client "was as
shocked as anyone at that clinic" that Hendrix was shot.
Lawyers for Chambers have
arranged for White to be brought from prison to Tulsa to be available as a potential
witness at the Chambers trial.
The case was put back on a trial docket on Jan. 6 when District Judge Jefferson
Sellers allowed Chambers to withdraw the "Alford plea" that she entered on April 5,
1999.
The Alford plea allowed Chambers to continue to maintain that she is innocent while
conceding that there was a factual basis upon which a judge could make a finding of
guilt to resolve the case.
Based on that plea, District Judge Jesse Harris handed Chambers a 15-year prison term
on July 14, but vacated that sentence a week later.
Harris eventually disqualified himself from the case after extensive legal wrangling,
and three more district court judges subsequently excused themselves from the
assignment be
fore the case was transferred to Sellers.
After six months in prison or jail, Chambers was released Jan. 12 with the posting of
a $25,000 cash bond.
Prosecutors did not charge
her until 18 months after Hendrix was killed. A murder charge filed Aug. 22, 1997,
against Chambers was dismissed by prosecutors on Oct. 10, 1997, when the accessory
charge was filed and she was released on
bail after about six weeks in jail.
The potential sentence for being an accessory to murder ranges from five to 45 years.
Bill Braun, World staff writer, can be reached at 581-8455 or via e-mail
at bill.braun@tulsaworld.com.
