I agree that the sentence is asinine. And if you look at the Oklahoma definitions of the various classes of murder, it's even more asinine. Malice and Forethought Murder —the state must prove the defendant caused the death of a human with the deliberate intent to take away the life of a human being. That's cutting it close to be able to state that the pharmacist had the time to even develop malice (evil intent) and forethought (premeditation).
At best, it would seem that if you really, really wanted to convict him of murder, then it's First Degree Manslaughter, which is defined in part by Oklahoma law as being Heat of Passion Manslaughter —the state must prove the non-excusable or non-justified death of a human that was inflicted in a cruel and unusual manner while the defendant was in the heat of passion.
Except in this case, the passion was the passion of self defense, still in the heat of the moment. The shooting of the unconscious teen was non-excusable and non-justified, so it really fits better with First Degree Manslaughter than it does premeditated First Degree Murder.
It just seems to me that the people who entered the store with the intent of robbing it were the perpetrators, not the victims. But after a little more than 3 hours, the jury saw it differently.
I guess it didn't help matters for the defendant that the dead Antwun Parker wasn't armed, and that when the defendant returned to the store after chasing the armed robber (a 14 year old) he calmly but deliberately walked right past Parker in order to grab a second gun out of a drawer, which he then used to shoot Parker 5 times from 18-24 inches away. That's obviously a venting of frustration (passion) in a "Take THAT, you SOB" type of action. When you get stung by a wasp, you don't merely flick the wasp off your arm, you smash it to a pulp out of anger. Same thing.
I guess it also didn't help matters that the statement the defendant gave to the police was totally contradicted by the video, especially the part where the pharmacist stated that Ingram (the 14 year old) fired first. Turns out, Ingram never pulled the trigger.
The armed 14 year old who ran confessed to and was convicted of First Degree Murder (The death of a human occurred as a result of the defendant’s commission of one of several crimes. The state does not have to prove the defendant intended to cause the death.) And the two 40-somethings that talked the teens into robbing the store were also convicted of First Degree Murder, so there is a little justice there, anyway.
