Guilty verdict in 2014 shooting that left 1 dead, 4 wounded
Update: A jury on Wednesday convicted Siddiq Shelton of first-degree murder in the death of Elisha Bull as well as attempted murder, aggravated assault and weapons offenses in the 2014 shooting that left four other people wounded.
Earlier story:
A defense attorney told a Philadelphia jury Tuesday morning that prosecutors have the wrong man on trial in a first-degree capital murder case.
"Identification is critical," attorney Gary Server told the jury of seven women and five men in his closing argument at the trial of Siddiq Shelton, 22.
Server said that during the six seconds that two men in hoodies fired their guns at a group of people on a Feltonville front porch on a rainy night two years ago, those on the porch didn't actually see the shooters who killed Elisha Bull, 20, and wounded four other people.
"I submit to you it was utter chaos," Server said. "Everyone was scrambling to get into the house."
But Assistant District Attorney Deborah Watson-Stokes told jurors that evidence points to Shelton as one of the shooters - specifically the one who fired 13 of the 15 shots that night from a 9mm semiautomatic gun.
Three of the people who were on the porch that night identified Shelton as the shooter in photo arrays shown to them by homicide detectives, she said. She acknowledged that in court, witnesses recanted their statements. She suggested that's because of fear and the "anti-snitch culture" we live in.
After Common Pleas Judge Glenn Bronson instructed the jury on the charges, the panel began deliberating about 1 p.m. Tuesday on charges of first-degree murder, attempted murder, reckless endangerment and weapons offenses. If the panel finds Shelton guilty of first-degree murder, it will then have to decide whether to sentence him to life in prison or to death.
A Philadelphia jury last sentenced someone to death in 2013.
In February 2015, Gov. Wolf announced he would delay all executions until a legislative task force completes its report on the future of the Pennsylvania death penalty.
Even before Wolf's action, executions were rare: just three since capital punishment was reinstated in 1978, the last in 1999.
In this shooting, it was about 12:19 a.m. July 28, 2014, when two men, with hoodies over their heads, walked up to a brick rowhouse on North Front Street, near Roosevelt Boulevard. Video shown to the jury showed one man firing at the porch, and then the other man firing. The two then quickly ran back toward the Boulevard.
The second alleged gunman has not been identified.
Bull, of Stirling Street near Frontenac in Oxford Circle, died after being hit twice in the head, twice in the chest area and once each in the left wrist and right ankle.
Three females, ages 16, 17 and 28 were shot and injured. The youngest lived at the house. Her older sister, who also lived in the house, dived to the floor with her 8-month-old baby and escaped injury.
The fourth person who was wounded was a young man named Michel Benjamin. Prosecutors have contended that Benjamin was the shooters' actual target and that Bull was an innocent victim.
Benjamin and Shelton knew each other when they both lived in Olney, just north of Feltonville, on the other side of Roosevelt Boulevard. They were childhood friends who later had some kind of falling out. Prosecutors contend Shelton came out that night to kill Benjamin because of a prior beef.
After the shooting, Benjamin and one of the females on the porch picked Shelton out of an eight-person photo array as one of the shooters. Another young female on the porch picked Shelton and another man from an eight-person array as being one of the shooters.
"We've brought you three" identifications," Watson-Stokes told the jury.
Server contended in his closing argument that Bull was the actual target of the shooters, not Benjamin, given that Bull was shot twice in the head and twice in the chest area.
He called the Commonwealth's theory behind the shooting - that Shelton tried to kill Benjamin because of a prior beef - a "flimsy motive."
Either way, no matter who the intended target was, said Watson-Stokes, it's first-degree murder.
With her arm out as if holding a gun, the prosecutor skipped back-and-forth across the courtroom, as if she were one of the gunmen in front of the porch that night.
Shelton "continues to shoot and to shoot and to shoot until someone was going to be dead," Watson-Stokes said.
215-854-2592
@julieshawphilly