A Delco man charged in an ‘execution’ in Norristown will face a judge on murder and gun charges
A defense attorney for Marquan Banks said he didn't intentionally kill Jermaine Pierce on Jan. 11, but was responding to a perceived threat. Prosecutors disputed that theory of the case.
Marquan Banks killed a man in a targeted execution, prosecutors said Thursday, gunning him down as he crossed a Norristown street.
Banks, 26, saw Jermaine Pierce in a bar earlier on the night of the slaying and waited for “a more appropriate time to get rid of him,” Assistant District Attorney Samantha Cauffman said.
“We don’t have many methods of murder in cases that I try that are more demonstrative of an execution,” she said. “He pulled his weapon, stepped back, and fired.”
She gave no motive for the slaying of Pierce, 37, on Jan. 11 but described it as deliberate and intentional.
Banks’ attorney, Joseph Schultz, challenged that theory and said the shooting was provoked. Surveillance video from the scene, he said, showed that Pierce, wearing a mask and with his hands in his pockets, had approached Banks in a suspicious and confrontational manner on the night Banks shot him.
Banks, he said, “didn’t act like a murderer.” He raised his gun and fired only once at someone he perceived to be a threat — and who was carrying a gun.
“This doesn’t seem like a first-degree murder with a fully formed intent to kill,” Schultz said.
District Judge Denise Ashe held Banks for trial on murder, gun charges, and related crimes after the preliminary hearing. At one point during the proceeding, Schultz got into a heated exchange with Pierce’s family after he accused them of interrupting his argument in court.
Surveillance video played in court Thursday showed Banks and two other men arriving at Airy Tavern just before 7 p.m. on the night of the slaying. The men who were with Banks went inside and briefly spoke with Pierce, then left the premises along with Banks, who had remained outside.
Banks and his associates returned to the area around 7:30 p.m. and parked their vehicle near the intersection of Noble and Marshall Streets. The group then walked south on Noble and saw a friend of Pierce’s, Isaiah Bell, standing on the opposite corner.
As the men approached Bell, Pierce crossed the street toward them, and Banks raised a handgun and fired, striking Pierce in the left side of his head, prosecutors said.
Banks and his friends fled, the video showed, but Bell ran toward Pierce, pulled a gun from Pierce’s waistband and fired at Banks and the others. For that shooting, Bell was charged with gun offenses, theft, and reckless endangerment.
Banks — who was not able to legally possess a gun because of a simple-assault conviction in a domestic-violence case — will be arraigned in county court in April.