CANTON, Ohio – Former Canton police officer Bobby Cutts Jr. could face the ultimate penalty, death, when the jury of six men and six women returns to the Stark County courthouse February 25 to hear more evidence and recommend a sentence for the murder of his pregnant ex-girlfriend, Jessie Davis, in June.

Jurors spent more than 20 hours over four days working through complex legal definitions and instructions before reaching unanimous verdicts Friday morning. Because the jury panel must return for the next phase, jurors couldn’t speak to the media about their decision.

When Judge Charles E. Brown Jr. read the first verdict — not guilty of aggravated murder in the death of Jessie Davis — some were hopeful, others disappointed.

Without a guilty verdict of aggravated murder, there was no possibility of a death sentence. Cutts was instead found guilty of the lesser charge of straight murder.

But the relief of Cutts’ family and the disappointment of Davis’ family were short-lived. Counts 2 and 3 were also aggravated murder charges and Cutts was found guilty of those two counts.

Moreover, the jury found him guilty of each of three “specifications” or circumstances under each of those counts, any one of which qualifies him for the death penalty. At the trial’s penalty phase, the same jurors will hear evidence from both sides as the prosecution argues for a death and the defense argues for a life sentence.

In finding Cutts guilty of straight murder and not the aggravated murder of Jessie Davis, jurors apparently believed that her death was intentional but that it did not occur during a burglary. Yet, in finding Cutts guilty of aggravated murder in intentionally terminating Davis’s pregnancy (Count 2), jurors found it did, indeed, occur during a burglary. So, the death of Davis was not during a burglary but that of the nearly full-term baby inside her was.

In Count 3, another verdict of guilty of aggravated murder, jurors found that Cutts killed a viable fetus — a person under the age of 13 — and, again, that it occurred during a burglary. The verdicts in these three counts seemed inconsistent to defense attorneys who asked for a mistrial based on that very point. Judge Brown denied the motion, saying the verdicts are not inconsistent because they pertain to different victims: Jessie Davis and Baby Chloe. We won’t know why the jurors reached these decisions until the penalty phase is completed, and only if jurors are willing to speak about it.

After court adjourned, family members of Davis and Cutts were escorted from the courthouse. Everyone refused to comment on the verdicts for now.

– Beth Karas, In Session correspondent