Pensacola, Fla. ? A jury convicted 13- and 14-year-old brothers Friday of murdering their sleeping father and then setting fire to their home in hopes of covering up the crime. Hours later, it was announced that a second jury had acquitted a family friend of the same slaying.

The prosecution had argued this week at Derek and Alex King’s trial that the boys killed their father with an aluminum baseball bat. But last week, Prosecutor David Rimmer had told the jury in a trial that ended with a sealed verdict that 40-year-old Ricky Chavis committed the crime.

Defendants Derek King, 14, right, and his brother Alex King, 13, left, stand as the jury leaves the courtroom to begin deliberation in their murder trial in Pensacola, Fla. The jury convicted the brothers Friday of murdering their father, Terry King.

The brothers’ jury, however, refused to find them guilty of first-degree murder with the bat, convicting them instead of second-degree murder without a weapon.

The judge initially sealed the Chavis verdict, but later disclosed the acquittal to Rimmer and defense lawyers and ordered them not to divulge it pending the outcome of the boys’ trial.

According to a transcript released Friday after both verdicts were read, Judge Frank Bell said he was concerned about possibly having to impose mandatory life terms on all three defendants if convicted of first-degree murder when “in my mind, I know that one of them is not guilty.”

Devastated family

As the verdict was read in court Friday, 14-year-old Derek bowed his head while Alex wiped away tears as his attorney draped an arm around his shoulders. Their mother, Kelly Marino, wept softly behind them. She had moved to Lexington, Ky., about three years before the killing.

The boys’ attorneys said they would appeal but declined further comment. Their relatives said they were distraught.

“Alex was devastated and so was Derek,” said Greg King, the victim’s brother. He said he believed the boys were innocent.

The boys’ sentencing was set for Oct. 17. The second-degree murder charge carries a penalty of 22 years to life in prison with the possibility of parole. The boys also were convicted of arson for setting fire to the home.

Legal controversy

Chavis was acquitted of first-degree murder and arson after a trial in which the boys’ taped confessions to sheriff’s deputies were played for jurors.

Legal experts had questioned the decision to try the boys and Chavis before separate juries for the same crime, and Rimmer had conceded his case against Chavis was weak. But he said he felt he had no choice.

“If I had not brought first-degree murder charges against Chavis … what do you think people would be saying now?” he said Friday.

The boys’ lawyers accused prosecutors of misconduct and said the case violated their constitutional rights.

The judge said divulging the acquittal erased his worries about guilty verdicts in both cases creating “a totally unfair situation,” according to the transcript, which came from a closed-door meeting with the attorneys last month.

Rimmer argued the boys wanted to leave their father, Terry King, and live with Chavis, who allowed them to play video games, stay up late watching television and smoke marijuana when they went to his house after running away 10 days before the killing.

Recanted confessions

The boys confessed the day after the Nov. 26 slaying, but recanted months later and pinned the crime on Chavis, even testifying against him. Soft-spoken Alex said the boys initially took the blame because Chavis told them they would be exonerated because they are juveniles.

Defense lawyers said the boys confessed to protect Chavis and that he coached them on what to say, including gory details such as being able to see their father’s brain through a hole in his head and the raspy sound of his last gasps.

The boys’ attorneys also argued that Chavis had motive because he wanted to keep Terry King from finding out he was having sex with Alex.

Rimmer contended the boys’ confessions included details only the killers would have known.

“The jury did the right thing and I’m proud of them,” he said afterward. “If (jurors) had believed the boys were telling the truth in court, they would have found Chavis guilty.”

At Chavis’ trial, Rimmer put the boys on the witness stand, where they said they hid in the trunk of his car while Chavis killed their father. The boys were 12 and 13 at the time.

Rimmer, however, avoided asking the Chavis jury for a conviction, saying it was up to them to decide when the boys had lied when they told authorities they killed their father or when they told jurors Chavis was the killer.

At the boys’ trial, prosecutors said it was Derek who wielded the bat while Alex urged him on. Defense lawyers asked Bell to acquit the boys because of the competing theories of the crime, but the judge refused.