A DeKalb County jury on Monday convicted an alleged gang member of murder in the 2011 shooting death of a Southwest DeKalb High School senior.
The jury deliberated from late Thursday evening until Monday afternoon finding Charles Timothy Slaton guilty for felony murder and aggravated assault for the slaying of Marcus Holloway, and another count of aggravated assault for injuring LaQuinton Forte in the crossfire.
Slaton will be sentenced at a later date and could face life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The 19-year-old originally was indicted on the charges of felony murder -- causing someone's death while committing a felony -- malice murder, two counts of felony aggravated assault and gun possession in connection with Holloway’s death in a shoot-out more than a year ago at a south DeKalb County apartment complex.
He was acquitted of the malice murder and gun charges.
Prosecutors said that at his behest, Slaton’s fellow gang members came to the Columbia Forest apartments on the night of Jan. 29, 2011, firing 23 shots into a crowd of teens to settle a dispute over an alleged stolen gun.
“What we have here is what we often have,” DeKalb Assistant District Attorney Tamara Ross told the jury in her closing arguments late Thursday afternoon. “Someone dead over something stupid – a gun that didn't belong to either of them.”
Lingering tensions from the dispute – which at one point led to someone’s tires being slashed shortly before the shooting – and the pending trial for Slaton sparked a brawl in January in the hallway outside a DeKalb County courtroom.
Forte was among the seven people arrested in that fight.
Five other alleged gang members -- Antoine “Nuk” Willis, 20, Brandon Matthew Reed, 27, Jaqwanta J. Grimes, 20, Kyree Oshay Brantley, 19, and a 16-year-old juvenile -- are named with Slaton in the murder indictment.
All are awaiting trial. The juvenile is being held in the DeKalb County Juvenile Detention Center, while the others remain in DeKalb County jail, court officials said.
Prosecutors originally sought to have Slaton testify against his would-be co-defendants, court officials said, but he chose to stand trial before DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Gail C. Flake.
Testimony showed that Slaton claimed to have called friends to come retrieve him from the Columbia Forest apartments, where he feared an armed rival might kill him.
Though Slaton was not armed the night of the shootings, Ross told the jury that he was the catalyst for the shootings, seeking to convict him under Georgia’s party-to-a-crime laws.
“There’s nothing about his actions that show that he was not in cahoots with these guys,” Ross told the jury. “It is reasonable to assume that he called for a ride from friends whom he knew had guns.”
Defense attorney Gina Bernard disputed the accusation that Slaton was a party to the shooting, saying investigators couldn’t prove her client lied about calling for "back-up."
“There is not one shred of evidence that Charles Slaton told anyone to come with guns blazing, or even bring a boatload of people to shoot up the place,” she said. “There is no evidence that he aided, abetted, encouraged, hired, counseled, or procured anybody to commit a crime. Nor did he directly commit any crime.”
Still, Ross was able to convince the jury that Slaton rallied his friends to his aid.The defendant had described to police the types of weapons his friends had, and his descriptions matched ballistic evidence from the crime scene, she said.
“He said, ‘If I’d had my gun, I wouldn’t have needed a ride,’” Ross said to the jury, restating Slaton’s words from one of the taped interviews with police investigators.
Slaton remains in the DeKalb jail until sentencing.
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