Jury reaches mixed verdict in Columbus man’s trial over woman accidentally shot by son
After about nine hours of deliberation and one juror substitution, the jury reached a verdict in the trial of a Columbus man accused of assaulting his then-girlfriend before her son picked up the man’s gun and accidentally shot his mother while aiming for the man.
The jury at noon Tuesday told Judge Bobby Peters they could not agree on three of the eight charges Anthony Maurice Gates faced, so Peters accepted verdicts on the five counts jurors agreed on unanimously, declaring a mistrial on the others.
One of those counts was a felony assault conviction, which carries with it a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.
“We’ve done all we can,” the woman acting as jury foreperson told Peters of the three charges left unresolved. She said any further discussion of those would be “hopeless.”
Here’s the jury’s verdict on Gate’s four felony and four misdemeanor charges:
- Mistrial. Aggravated assault with family violence for pointing a gun at the woman while threatening to kill her.
- Guilty. Aggravated assault with family violence for choking her.
- Mistrial. Terroristic threats for threatening to kill her.
- Mistrial. Using a gun to commit a felony.
- Guilty. Three misdemeanor counts of third-degree cruelty to children, for each child who witnessed the assault.
- Guilty. Hindering a 911 call, also a misdemeanor.
After Peters read the verdict, Gate’s lawyer Roberta Robinson still asked the judge to find her client not guilty, arguing the prosecution’s case relied heavily on the conflicting testimony of three children who witnessed the shooting. She claimed that testimony was unreliable.
Prosecutor Meghan Bowden countered that under the law, it’s the jury’s job to weigh the credibility of witnesses. Peters agreed, rejecting the defense motion.
“The verdict stands,” he said.
Robinson also asked the judge to spare her client prison time when he’s sentenced, noting hd has no prior criminal history. If not for the accidental shooting, he would have faced no charges.
“If you take out that tragic element, this would have just been another night,” she said.
Bowden said the children’s interrupting Gates’ assault on their mother likely saved the woman’s life.
“Had the children no intervened, this could have been a very different trial,” she said. “It could have been a trial for murder.”
She said Gates faced 20 years in prison on the felony assault conviction and a year on each of the misdemeanors, and she would ask that he be sentenced to 20 years.
Gates, 29, who authorities said has been free on bond awaiting trial since Feb. 11, 2020, after being held 128 days in jail, was taken into custody in the courtroom. Peters said he later would schedule a sentencing hearing.
Juror does not return
A jury of eight women and four men began deliberating at 3:04 p.m. Friday, and at 4:45 told the judge some jurors needed to leave because they had children to care for. They also asked Peters about substituting an alternate juror for one of the 12 deliberating. Peters rejected that.
Superior Court trials typically have two alternate jurors to step in should any of the 12 deliberating on the evidence be unable to continue. The substitutes rarely are needed, and judges are reluctant to use them, preferring to keep juries intact, once deliberations have begun.
Cases have been overturned on appeal because higher courts found fault in how a judge changed a jury during deliberations.
Peters let jurors go home for the weekend, telling them to return at 10:30 a.m. Monday. But when one woman had not returned by 11:15 a.m., Peters substituted a male alternate, making the jury seven women and five men, and deliberations resumed about 11:15 a.m.
The jury was dismissed for the day at 6 p.m. Monday, resuming their discussions at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday.
The evidence
The verdict followed days of testimony from witnesses that included the woman’s three children, who were ages 6, 9 and 11 when they saw the shooting, and from the woman, who was left unable to walk and talk after the 9-millimeter bullet hit her in the mouth and lodged in her spine. She testified Thursday by typing replies to attorneys’ questions on a keyboard.
Prosecutors argued Gates’ actions led to the shooting. They accused him of putting his pistol to the woman’s head while saying he would kill her, before he put the weapon down so he could choke her with both hands. The youngest son, now 9 years old, testified that he picked the gun up off the bed and tried to shoot Gates but hit his mother instead.
The oldest child, a daughter who’s now 15, said the kids were awakened by their mother’s screaming about 2 a.m., Oct. 4, 2019, in their home at Alpine Drive Apartments. She said she ran to the bedroom to find Gates pointing the gun at the woman, telling her, “I should kill you, but you have kids.”
When questioned at the Children’s Tree House Child Advocacy Center, the daughter said she did not see her little brother pick up the gun, but saw him shoot it.
“He didn’t know what it was going to do,” she said. “He knew how to shoot the gun, but he didn’t know how to aim it.”
Gates got the woman and her children into his car and rushed to the hospital, arriving around 2:45 a.m. The woman, then 27, was flown to Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, where she remained in critical condition. Now 30 years old, she testified that she can’t remember being shot.
The shooting that maimed her broke up the family: A sister now cares for the mother, and the children are with other relatives.
On Tuesday, Bowden told Peters the shooting robbed the woman of her motherhood.
“He robbed these kids of their mom,” she added, gesturing toward the woman sitting in a wheelchair in the courtroom, her two sons nearby. “This is the first time she’s been able to see these kids in well over a year, and that’s because of him.”
Closing arguments
In her closing argument Friday, Robinson focused on inconsistencies in the children’s accounts of what happened, and said they likely misinterpreted what they witnessed.
She maintained throughout the trial that the woman was the primary aggressor, as evidenced by a braided black and blond strand of Gates’ hair, about 16 inches long, that police found on the bed in her bedroom where the struggle ensued.
“We have real physical evidence of Mr. Gates’ hair being ripped out of his head,” she said. “Is that not relevant at any point in this case?”
The children said Gates had accused their mother of cheating on him, after checking her cell phone contacts, which started the fight. Robinson argued that Gates was trying to leave the apartment he shared with the woman and her kids, but the woman blocked his exit and attacked him, and he was trying only to restrain her, when the children woke up.
Assistant District Attorney Meghan Bowden said any discrepancies in the children’s accounts were minor, and likely the result of their entering the bedroom in sequence, not all at the same time: the daughter first, the middle child second, and the youngest son last.
That the children’s recollections differ now does not negate their narrative, Bowden said: “These kids aren’t detectives. They’re children.” They weren’t plotting to incriminate Gates, she said: “Who has motive here? Why would these children make this up?”
The woman’s ripping away a strand of Gates’ hair was easily explained, she said: “We know she pulled it out when she was trying to defend herself.”
Bowden emphasized the children’s reports that while rushing the woman to the hospital, Gates made remarks proving his “consciousness of guilt,” as he told them “don’t snitch,” and don’t tell anyone he choked their mother.
The prosecutor picked up the evidence box containing the 9-millimeter Springfield Arms pistol the child shot his mother with, showed it to the jury, and said of Gates: “A verdict of not guilty means you’re fine with us giving him this gun back.”
This story was originally published January 10, 2023 at 2:43 PM.