James found guilty Copyright © 2008 GALLUP As the jury filed into the courtroom
around 5:15 p.m. Friday, a hush fell over the gallery. A piece of
paper passed from jury foreman to bailiff to Judge Grant Foutz,
who read the verdict: guilty of second-degree murder; its declaration
floating a collective sigh to the ceiling of the otherwise quiet
courtroom. Relatives of Kevin Begay, who was shot in the head at
near point-blank range by Brenden James on May 31, 2007, had hoped
for the most severe penalty possible, that of a first-degree murder
conviction. The penalty difference between first and second-degree
murder is substantial. The former mandates 30 years in prison before
parole eligibility. The latter carries a maximum penalty of 15 years,
of which any or all may be suspended by the judge. James actual
sentence will be determined by Foutz at a sentencing hearing to
be held on a date not yet determined. The verdict arrived after jurors deliberated for 2
1/2 hours Friday, following four days weighing evidence, listening
to testimony and sifting through discrepancies and contradictions,
many of which came from James own testimony. James testified Thursday that he shot Kevin Begay
because Begay was a violent man, and because James had previously
seen Begay go so far as to stab three or four people,
including Aaron Livingston, whom James said Begay stabbed in the
chest. Gallup Police located Livingston, 24, at his Sundance home
Friday morning and Livingston, who is James uncle, testified
under oath that he had never been stabbed by anyone, let alone by
Kevin Begay, and raised his shirt to show the jury an absence of
scars. James also testified that he had never approached
nor made advances toward Vanessa Nelson; Nelson testified that James
had made advances on several occasions, always finding reasons to
talk to her at school. She said he snuck up from behind and grabbed
her buttocks while she was walking the halls of UNM-Gallup in the
spring of 2007. And that on the night James killed Begay, he had
made advances toward her while inside her apartment, advances which
she rebuked because she was attracted to Begay. Another contradiction arose from phone calls recorded
while James was incarcerated at McKinley County Adult Detention
Facility, where all outgoing calls are kept on record. Transcripts
show that Begay called himself a star on July 14, 2007,
and again on Aug. 3, 2007, upon hearing about newspaper coverage
of the shooting. Asked in court about his self-proclaimed stardom,
James said he was weeping when he made those statements. Prosecution
played the recordings aloud for the jury, which contradicted James
claim and left little doubt about his testimony. On the recordings
James was laughing. District Attorney Karl Gillson revisited all of James
seemingly dishonest testimony, ending each statement by making an
L with his hand, and repeating lies. Defense attorney Vince Martinez of the Capital Crimes
Unit in Albuquerque delivered a somewhat shorter closing argument,
reminding the jury that on the night of the shooting, everybody
consumed a large amount of alcohol ... and pot. His tactic was simple: to remove premeditation from the equation, thereby maintaining a reasonable doubt that James conspired, even briefly, to kill Kevin Begay. |
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