Willie Charles “Bubba” Gates, 25, shot the 24-year-old victim in the head with a rifle in the 300 block of Dix Street after two altercations earlier that day among a large group of people. Prosecutors said Gates apparently believed Parker had assaulted Gates’ female cousin during the second altercation and wanted revenge.
The cousin, who had suffered a miscarriage the day before, was taken to the hospital by ambulance at her request, although police said she didn’t have any visible injuries.
Parker, nicknamed “Little Boot,” denied hitting the woman, but was shot anyhow, witnesses said.
“I’d just like to apologize to the Parker family for the incident that happened and everything like that,” Gates told Superior Court Judge Quillian Baldwin before sentencing.
Gates, who received an automatic five additional years in prison for firearms violations, did not testify in his own defense - “a fair and even wise decision,” defense attorney Roger Montgomery said.
It’s not unusual for a lawyer to advise his client against taking the witness stand, Baldwin told the defendant.
“You can become befuddled and say things you don’t mean sometimes,” the judge said.
Montgomery, who didn’t call any witnesses, had hoped the jury would opt for a conviction on the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter - the intentional killing of another in the heat of passion with considerable provocation. The altercations and the shooting occurred within two hours and “you’ve got to take the timing into account,” he said in closing arguments.
“I thought it showed concern for another” that Gates would try to retaliate for a perceived injury to his cousin, Montgomery said.
“Think about the lack of planning, because pre-meditation is typically how you judge a murder charge,” he said. “… We wanted to show that this was a manslaughter case and not a murder case.”
The shooting was no voluntary manslaughter, Assistant District Attorney Melissa Himes said in closing arguments.
“This is a murder case,” she said. “The defendant just walked up and shot Raymond Parker in the head.”
Napoleon D. Truitt, 20, of LaGrange, who also had been indicted for murder, pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and was sentenced Monday to four years in prison and six years’ probation in exchange for testifying against Gates. Himes said Truitt and another man were standing “shoulder to shoulder” with Gates when he shot Parker.
The other man wasn’t prosecuted because he passed a polygraph examination with the stipulation that the results could be used at trial. Himes said the questions were not formulated very well and the man could have passed the polygraph and still been involved in the shooting. But the results likely would have raised a reasonable doubt in the minds of jurors, she said.
Himes said some witnesses recalled Parker being at the two altercations, but he wasn’t fighting anybody.
She said Parker had just helped a woman move into an apartment and was “just hangin’, having a beer” when he was shot.
“Malice can be formed in an instant,” Himes told the jury. “That’s why pre-meditation is not required for a murder conviction. … It doesn’t get any more deliberate than holding up a gun, aiming it at a person’s head and pulling the trigger. When you shoot somebody in the head, that’s a kill shot. There was no provocation, let alone considerable provocation.”
She said the only evidence that Parker may have hit Gates’ cousin was Gates asking the victim, “Are you the one who hit my cousin?”
“We become a lawless society if we decide because somebody hits me, I can go out and shoot them,” Himes said. “You don’t take guns to a fistfight. You take fists to a fistfight.”
She said Gates had plenty of time after the second altercation to realize “maybe I shouldn’t shoot him in the head.” She said Gates’ consumption of alcohol before the shooting probably clouded his judgment, but “you can’t say, ‘Oh, I was drunk at the time.’”
“He had total disregard for the value of a human life, for Raymond Parker’s life,” she said.
After the sentencing, Baldwin told friends and family members of the victim and defendant, “This is something that should never have happened.”
“This deal about using weapons to resolve a fight has gotten out of hand in this community,” he said. “It’s got to stop.”
He said LaGrange area residents have a “great police department and sheriff’s office” and criminal complaints should be brought to them.
“Sometimes nothing will never be done, but you can’t go around shooting people for something like that,” he said.
Montgomery said the judge’s remarks were right on target.
“You’ve got one dead and one going to prison,” the defense attorney said. “There’s nothing good about this case.”
Joel Martin can be reached at jmartin@ lagrangenews.com or (706) 884-7311, Ext. 235.
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