Media coverage and outrage over controversial verdicts in the shooting death of popular Powhatan High School student Tahliek Taliaferro may have influenced jurors while they deliberated the sentence of one of the men they convicted in the case. Four jurors independently confirmed to the Richmond Times-Dispatch in recent interviews that as many as three jurors viewed or read media accounts during the sentencing phase of the trial. They said those jurors told the group they were fearful of the repercussions that might ensue from a light sentence for shooter Ethan Parrish because it could further inflame the community and possibly endanger jurors.

The shooting death of a high school football star and the life-altering wounding of his friend will send cousins Ethan Parrish and Joseph L. Parrish Jr. to prison until their mid-30s.

Minutes into the proceedings, Jean Taliaferro emerged from the courtroom, overcome. She stumbled down the brick walkway and collapsed into the arms of family and friends who fanned her with signs bearing the name of her dead grandson. “Tahliek’s still dead,“ she shouted through sobs. After recovering, she explained, “My daughter was talking about Tahliek and how I miss him. She got to crying, so I cried, too. I cry every day.“

A Powhatan County judge will be asked tomorrow to set aside guilty verdicts of involuntary manslaughter and assault against the younger of two men convicted in last summer’s shooting death of Tahliek Taliaferro. Attorney Craig S. Cooley, who represents 18-year-old Joseph L. Parrish Jr., says he will argue that there was insufficient evidence in the case to establish that Parrish aided or in any way abetted his cousin’s reckless, unpremeditated actions in Taliaferro’s death.

Civil-rights leaders yesterday predicted the possibility of arrests and large crowds this week when two men convicted of involuntary manslaughter of a popular high school athlete are sentenced. And the Rev. Curtis W. Harris, a leader on civilrights issues in Virginia for half a century, told a boisterous crowd outside the Powhatan County courthouse that the courts system has made the adjudication of Tahliek Taliaferro’s death “a legal lynching.“

As Tahliek Taliaferro’s family and friends march today in protest of recent court decisions in the shooting death of the popular Powhatan County teen, a larger storm is brewing. On Thursday, Ethan and Joey Parrish will be sentenced for the slaying of Taliaferro nearly a year ago. Ethan pulled the trigger that day last June, setting in motion a chain of events that has left a small-town community confused and angry. The Parrish cousins, along with their vehicle’s driver, Stephanie Reynolds, originally faced murder charges in Taliaferro’s killing. The Parrishes were convicted of the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter this year, prompting uproar in Powhatan.

The family of slain Powhatan County teen Tahliek Taliaferro yesterday called on Gov. Timothy M. Kaine to launch an investigation into the case, alleging racial discrimination by the legal system. They also urged Kaine to send an observer to Thursday’s sentencing of cousins Ethan and Joseph Parrish, who were convicted this year of involuntary manslaughter in Taliaferro’s death. They initially had been charged with murder but were convicted of the lesser charge.

Stephanie C. Reynolds, who a year ago faced a murder charge in the shooting death of Tahliek Taliaferro, walked away from the Powhatan County courthouse yesterday a free woman. Reynolds, 20, never fired a gun or made a threat in connection with the high school athlete’s death. But yesterday, a judge approved a plea agreement in which Reynolds acknowledged guilt to three misdemeanors in connection with Taliaferro’s slaying.

The FBI is working with the Powhatan County Sheriff’s Office to investigate the slaying of high school student Tahliek Taliaferro for possible civil-rights violations, law-enforcement officials said yesterday.

A prominent black minister in Powhatan County has issued a statement bemoaning the distribution of Ku Klux Klan literature in his community. The Rev. Gregory L. Beechaum Sr., pastor of Little Zion Baptist Church, said county residents are “once again disappointed with this latest effort of Ku Klux Klan” in the county. “We can’t believe that we are still dealing with this in 2009,“ he said.

During his trial for the death of Tahliek Taliaferro, Ethan Parrish testified that when he fired his semiautomatic weapon, the rifle “rose up on me. I lost control of it.“ Although we generally share the sentiments of the slogan, “Guns don’t kill people, people do,“ we will remember Parrish’s assertion—and its implications—the next time we hear the pro-gun cliché.

Powhatan County’s commonwealth’s attorney asked yesterday that a first-degree murder charge against a key witness in the shooting death of Tahliek Taliaferro be reduced.

A Powhatan County Circuit Court jury that found Ethan Parrish guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the slaying of Tahliek Taliaferro recommended yesterday that he receive the maximum sentence—10 years in prison.

Justin Jones said his view of Powhatan County changed forever when a jury decided that last summer’s shooting death of his friend Tahliek Taliaferro was an act of involuntary manslaughter, not first-degree murder. “Justice has not been served the way it should have,“ Jones, a senior at Powhatan High School who played football with Taliaferro, said yesterday.

After finding Ethan Parrish guilty of a reduced charge of involuntary manslaughter in the shooting death of a popular Powhatan High School student, jurors will continue deliberations on his sentence this morning.