No murder conviction for fatal shooting
By John Stevenson : The Herald-Sun, Nov 20, 2006
DURHAM -- There apparently will be no murder convictions for a 2004 drug deal gone sour that ended with a fatal shooting outside The Streets at Southpoint mall.
A newly published court calendar indicated Monday that Julius Gray, one of two suspects in the case, is scheduled to plead guilty next week.
Court sources said a homicide charge against Gray will be dismissed, and he will plead to a drug charge and receive probation.
Gray reportedly was at the scene but did not take part in the gunfire. The other suspect, 24-year-old Barry Ford Evans, got a deal last month for a drastically reduced charge of involuntary manslaughter. He also received probation.
Evans originally was accused of first-degree murder, for which the only possible punishments are death or life in prison without parole.
But the homicide charge was dropped as part of Evans' plea bargain, as was a robbery allegation.
The charges arose from the fatal shooting of Harvey Dennard Wiggins, who was gunned down outside The Streets at Southpoint two years ago next week while the mall was thronged with holiday shoppers. No one else was injured.
Reports indicated that the shooting occurred during a planned sale of three pounds of marijuana. Wiggins was sitting in a car in an isolated spot near Southpoint Cinema when a bullet entered his head, mortally wounding him.
"By all accounts, this was a transaction involving the projected sale of a large quantity of marijuana," Assistant District Attorney Mitchell Garrell said in October. "I don't think anyone questions that."
Still, Garrell said he felt compelled to offer Evans a generous plea bargain last month. Otherwise, Evans might have escaped punishment on grounds of self-defense, according to Garrell.
The prosecutor cited reports that Evans fired at Wiggins only after Wiggins pulled a gun of his own.
Evans' lawyer, Lisa Williams, agreed with that assessment in a recent interview.
"Mr. Wiggins was the one who was there to rob," she said. "He was the aggressor. A gun was pointed directly at my client. My client happened to be armed and blew his [Wiggins'] head off. It was kill or be killed. Those were the only options. Someone was going to die. It turned out to be Mr. Wiggins. This was an extremely strong self-defense case."
http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-791008.html
* Plea bargain. That's the ticket in this town. We don't want any messy trials tying up valuable court time.
mark