Columbus jury reaches verdict in manslaughter trial stemming from Carver grad’s fatal shooting
A Columbus jury has found Alex Antonio Wilson not guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the 2017 fatal shooting of his friend Richard Vaughn “R.J.” Cummings.
The jury began its deliberations around 9 a.m. Tuesday and announced its verdict shortly before noon.
Tears were shed by families on each side of the courtroom — tears of relief on Wilson’s side, and tears of disappointment on Cummings’, said Stacey Jackson, the attorney who represented Wilson.
“It’s a good result for Mr. Wilson,” Jackson said afterward. “Obviously unfortunately he will have to live with the fact that as a result of his actions, his best friend from an early age died as a result the incident.”
The incident happened around 11 p.m. July 14, 2017, as Cummings and Wilson sat in Lorenza Davonta Madden’s Mercury Grand Marquis in the parking lot of Hannah Heights Apartments, planning to go to a party with a fourth passenger, Tyler Jones.
At the time, Wilson and Cummings were 18; Madden was 19; and Jones was 20. Madden was in the driver’s seat; Cummings in the front passenger’s seat; Wilson in the back seat behind Cummings; and Jones in the back seat behind Madden.
Between the two front seats was a Taurus 9-millimeter semi-automatic pistol. Madden said Cummings asked to see the gun, so Madden ejected the clip or magazine that holds bullets in the gun handle, and thinking the weapon unloaded, handed it to Cummings, who later passed it back to Wilson.
Madden neglected to check the pistol’s firing chamber, and did not realize he earlier had chambered a round, so the gun was not unloaded, nor rendered incapable of firing when the clip was removed.
Wilson also did not check the chamber. He pulled the trigger, and the gun fired the single bullet through the rear of Wilson’s seat at an angle that sent it through his back and into his chest. He died minutes later at the hospital.
Now 21, Wilson went to trial on a felony involuntary manslaughter charge based on the misdemeanor of reckless conduct, meaning he did not shoot Cummings on purpose, but endangered his friend by “consciously disregarding a substantial and unjustifiable risk” in a manner that the law says “constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care which a reasonable person would exercise.”
In closing arguments Friday, prosecutor Mark Anthony compared it to reckless driving in which a motorist causes a death with no intention to. Regardless of any intent, the motorist still would be held accountable for the fatality, Anthony said.
“None of us wants to live in a society where that is not the case,” he said.
Jackson countered that once Madden ejected the pistol’s clip, Wilson had no reasonable belief that the gun still was loaded, or that it would fire. Some semi-automatics won’t fire when the clip’s removed, he noted.
Jackson also told jurors Cummings and Wilson were close friends who played sports together at Columbus’ Carver High School, and Wilson broke down in tears when police told him his friend had died.
Because Wilson asserted the defense that the shooting was only an accident, the burden of proving he committed a crime shifted to the prosecution, Jackson said.
The jury did not start deliberating right away, on Friday or on Monday morning, because closing arguments took most of the afternoon Friday, and the presiding judge, William Rumer, was holding court in another county on Monday.
Jackson said Wilson has been in school while out on bond awaiting trial.
“He’s been in college. He’s made good grades. He’s worked. He’s volunteered with youth,” the attorney said. “So everything that you would ask a young person to do positive in their life, he has been doing, and I know he’ll continue to do that as well.”
This story was originally published October 29, 2019 at 2:08 PM.