Jury reaches verdict in trial involving friends’ playing with loaded guns

A trial detailing the shocking recklessness of two young men playing with loaded guns ended Thursday with the jury convicting Jarrett Marshall of felony involuntary manslaughter in the June 26, 2015, death of 21-year-old Trenton Lamar Hill.

The jury deliberated about two hours before delivering the verdict around 3 p.m. Marshall, 22, faces up to 10 years in prison. Judge Ron Mullins set his sentencing for 3 p.m. Feb. 2.

Hill died the day after his 21st birthday. He fatally was wounded outside his Andrea Drive home, where he, Marshall and mutual friend Jordan Day had been working on Hill’s 1999 TransAm, before Hill and Marshall began toying with loaded shotguns.

Witnesses said Hill was a gun collector who that day had set out eight or nine shotguns and rifles, all of them loaded. Day, 23, testified that Hill and Marshall picked up shotguns and pointed them at each other as they taunted one another.

Day said Hill told Marshall, “I’m not worried about what you have. You have birdshot. I have buckshot.”

Marshall was holding a Mossberg 12-gauge pump shotgun with a pistol grip. He pumped it once, ejecting a shell as the motion loaded another into the firing chamber.

He testified Wednesday that he did not know the gun had reloaded and did not mean to pull the trigger when it went off, peppering Hill’s neck with pellets an eighth of inch in diameter. That ammunition, commonly called No. 8 shot, typically is used for bird hunting.

A medical examiner said the blast punctured Hill’s carotid arteries, jugular veins and trachea, and fractured his jaw, so he bled to death while struggling to breathe.

After the shooting, Day and Marshall put Hill in Day’s car, and Day drove up Andrea Drive to Buena Vista Road, headed to St. Francis Hospital, before he called 911 on his cell phone. The 911 dispatcher told him to pull over at a Walgreen’s drug store and wait for an ambulance. Hill died later at the hospital.

Neither Day nor Marshall initially told police the truth, instead claiming Hill had shot himself. Day later decided to correct his account after learning Hill had not survived, and he then informed Marshall that he was going to contact investigators.

Though Marshall claimed the shooting was an accident, Day said he believed Marshall meant to pull the trigger: “Guns don’t accidentally go off,” he testified.

To convict Marshall on the felony charge, jurors had to decide he had acted with criminal negligence, which defense attorney Tim Flournoy described as a “willful, wanton, reckless disregard for others.”

After Thursday’s verdict, prosecutor George Lipscomb elaborated on that:

“If you’re acting with criminal negligence, then you can’t assert the defense of accident. Criminal negligence is conduct that’s just so outrageous, that shows such a disregard for the safety and well-being of others, that we’ve criminalized it.”

The consequences in Marshall’s case should be a lesson for others tempted to toy with firearms, Lipscomb said. “This is a tragic thing that’s happened, and it’s completely avoidable, with just a little common-sense safety,” he said.

“At the risk of sounding like our parents, guns really are not toys. They’re dangerous instruments. People have a right to own guns, but need to be responsible with them. You cannot, as you’ve been taught as a kid, point a weapon at anything you don’t intend to destroy.”

Marshall’s manslaughter charge was predicated partly on his causing Hill’s death while committing the unlawful act of pointing a gun at another person, a misdemeanor under Georgia law.

People need to remember that, Lipscomb said: “I don’t know whether people realize this or not, but you can’t point a gun at anyone whether it’s loaded or not.”

Outside the courtroom, Hill’s older sister Tiffany Dozier, 38, said the family was relieved to know Marshall will be held accountable.

“I’m happy, extremely happy with it,” she said of the verdict. Hill was the youngest of three siblings, and she helped care for him when he was a child.

“That was her baby brother,” said her husband Denton Dozier. “I mean, she was 15 when he was born, so she treated him like her son. I’ve been with her for 22 years; I knew him since he was in diapers, so it’s like losing a brother for me.”

The family had just lost a grandmother the year before, he said: “It’s been really tragic. He died the day after his birthday, when he turned 21. It’s been very tragic.”

Marshall made a life-or-death error for which he must be responsible, Denton Dozier said: “We’re glad he’ll be doing some time. He may have made a mistake, but you’ve got to pay for your mistakes. It’s sad that someone else has to mess their life up, but he messed our lives up a lot.”

This story was originally published January 25, 2018 at 5:51 PM with the headline "Jury reaches verdict in trial involving friends’ playing with loaded guns."