PORT ANGELES — With testimony finished and only closing arguments remaining, Thomas Martin Roberts spoke his first public words in his murder trial Tuesday — a simple acknowledgment to the judge he understood what was happening.
As prosecutors and Roberts’ defense attorneys prepared to retreat to Judge George L. Wood’s chambers to argue jury instructions, Wood asked Roberts if he would waive his right to be present and if he knew what was taking place.
“Yes, yes,” the 56-year-old Roberts responded, nodding his head from his seat at the defense table. “That’s fine.”
His brief words are the first the court has heard from him since the trial of Roberts — charged with killing Deputy Wallace E. “Wally” Davis with a shotgun blast in August 2000 — began Oct. 21 in Clallam County Superior Court.
Roberts has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity to aggravated first-degree murder.
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