DAN NEPHIN | Staff Writer | LNP
The defense attorney for a Columbia teenager charged with fatally shooting his friend during gunplay in July conceded his client acted recklessly and tried to argue that the shooting did not amount to third-degree murder.
“Reckless? Absolutely. Involuntary manslaughter? Yes. Murder? No,” Lancaster County Public Defender Rian Thompson argued Tuesday at a brief preliminary hearing for Jose Manuel Lopez III, 16. “Nobody is saying this was intentional.”
Thompson argued that Lopez did not act with malice, a legal element that must be present to support a third-degree murder charge — the most serious charge Lopez faces in the July 18 death of Wilfredo Garcia, 17. He was seeking dismissal of the charge.
The shooting happened in Garcia’s mother’s Plane Street apartment while Garcia, Lopez and other teenagers were drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana, according to police.
But Lancaster County Assistant District Attorney Callista Chartier said Lopez admitted to police that he knew the gun was loaded when he pointed it at Garcia’s head and pulled the trigger.
And disregarding the clear risk of death or serious injury by doing so met the element of malice, she said.
Columbia District Judge Miles Bixler ordered Lopez to trial on third-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and related offenses
https://lancasteronline.com/news/local/16-year-old-columbia-boy-held-for-trial-in-fatal-shooting-of-friend-victims-mother/article_81661fdd-8501-4e3e-900c-05dadb3e84a3.html
The defense attorney for a Columbia teenager charged with fatally shooting his friend during gunplay in July conceded his client acted recklessly and tried to argue that the shooting did not amount to third-degree murder.
“Reckless? Absolutely. Involuntary manslaughter? Yes. Murder? No,” Lancaster County Public Defender Rian Thompson argued Tuesday at a brief preliminary hearing for Jose Manuel Lopez III, 16. “Nobody is saying this was intentional.”
Thompson argued that Lopez did not act with malice, a legal element that must be present to support a third-degree murder charge — the most serious charge Lopez faces in the July 18 death of Wilfredo Garcia, 17. He was seeking dismissal of the charge.
The shooting happened in Garcia’s mother’s Plane Street apartment while Garcia, Lopez and other teenagers were drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana, according to police.
But Lancaster County Assistant District Attorney Callista Chartier said Lopez admitted to police that he knew the gun was loaded when he pointed it at Garcia’s head and pulled the trigger.
And disregarding the clear risk of death or serious injury by doing so met the element of malice, she said.
Columbia District Judge Miles Bixler ordered Lopez to trial on third-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and related offenses
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