RSS Feed
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Jurors hear 'Chicken Coop' murder trial Assistant District Attorney Joe Thompson called a deadly shooting at a Gainestown night spot in 2006, "an assassination…a coldblooded murder" as the trial of Trenton McLain, accused of murdering Jamaury Whittaker got underway in Clarke County Circuit Court Tuesday. Thompson described the state's version of what happened at the "Chicken Coop" club on Sept. 1, 2006. He acknowledged that the two men had fought a few weeks previously and that McLain was beat up pretty badly. He said that did not excuse McLain of taking a sawed-off 20-gauge shotgun and fatally shooting Whittaker in the neck at close range with number six shot in the crowded night spot. Thompson said McLain fled the scene and that Clarke County Sheriff's Department Investigator Ron Baggette tracked him, finding a spent 20-gauge six-shot shell casing along the path. This wasn't the first person that McLain shot at the Chicken Coop, Thompson said. In 2002 he shot a man, also in the neck, but he survived. "This isn't the old west, this is Clarke County, 2006, this is your county," Thompson told jurors. "You can hold him accountable." Defense attorney Perry Newton told jurors that the state's version of the facts "is not adding up to murder in this case." "They can't prove he went to the Chicken Coop with the intent to murder" Whittaker. Newton referenced the fight between Whittaker and McLain, saying it all stemmed from the throwing of firecrackers into the face of McLain's younger brother. The harassment continued , ending in the fight that was a "vicious beating of Trenton McLain," Newton related. Still, he didn't go to the Chicken Coop armed and although he left after the shooting he came back and he later tried to assist lawmen in locating the shotgun in question. If he had intent, would he had done all of that, Newton asked jurors. District Attorney Spence Walker countered, "He didn't have intent [when he went to the club] but he formulated it after he got there…if you stick a loaded 20 gauge shotgun to someone's head that in and of itself is enough to establish intent." Judge Thomas Baxter is presiding over the case which continued Wednesday. Rape case being tried In the courtroom next door, a rape trial got started Tuesday with Choctaw County District Judge Pedro Scurlock sitting as a special appointed circuit judge. Alvon Portis was charged with first degree rape. The victim was 13 years old at the time of the alleged rape. It was expected to finish and go to the jury Wednesday.
Washington County District Judge Jerry Turner was also present to handle any other cases on the heavy docket Tuesday but no lawyers were present and nothing came up.
|
for larger version       |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
