Jury finds man who represented himself guilty at Fort Worth aggravated robbery trial
A jury on Thursday found a man who represented himself guilty of aggravated robbery in a case in which it found he shot a woman in her west Fort Worth house in 2017.
The jury in the 396th District Court deliberated for about 90 minutes before it reached the verdict in the case in which James Floyd Jr. is separately accused of capital murder in the death of the woman’s husband. The jury will begin on Monday to hear evidence in the trial’s punishment phase.
The trial had been underway for about two weeks.
Floyd shot Diane Porter in the abdomen at her house in the 10200 block of Cool Spring Drive, the jury found. Porter had watched as her husband John was beaten with the legs of a cocktail table and shot in the head.
The defendant pulled a billfold from John Porter’s pocket, Porter’s wife testified.
“After you shot John you wanted to know where the debit card was,” Diane Porter told Floyd in response to a question during her testimony.
Before he left the house in the couple’s Kia Sorento, Floyd said that he would return and kill her if the PIN she gave him to use with the card did not work, Porter testified.
Nine days after he was shot on March 28, 2017, John Porter died.
Southwestern Bell retirees and 69 years old, the Porters were planning to leave their house for a shopping trip at midday when Floyd arrived.
The state offered DNA evidence from a hair police said that they collected from the Porters’ vehicle that connects Floyd to the robbery. Police found, about a half-mile to a mile from the Porters’ house, Floyd’s Ford Focus with a flat tire. Diane Porter selected Floyd’s photo from among others in a spread prepared by police.
Assistant Criminal District Attorneys Lisa Callaghan and Art Clayton are prosecuting the case.
In his opening statement, Floyd told jurors that he would demonstrate a conspiracy to falsely implicate him in the crime. He said that a law enforcement officer had taken hair from Floyd’s vehicle and placed it in the Porters’ vehicle.
The jury will consider a prison term of five to 99 years or life. If it finds that Floyd is a repeat offender, it will decide on a sentence of 15 to 99 years or life. Floyd was convicted in 1983 of aggravated rape and aggravated robbery in Kaufman County.
Floyd had no connection to the Porters. On the morning of the shootings and robbery, Floyd, then 50, had been at the nearby house of a man with whom he had been having a sexual relationship for several months, according to the affidavit supporting a warrant for Floyd’s arrest.
The Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office had sought the death penalty for Floyd in the related capital murder indictment in John Porter’s death. The office in January waived the death penalty.
Senior District Judge Bob Brotherton is presiding over the trial as a visiting judge.
This story was originally published April 14, 2022 at 8:51 PM.
