Man gets 23 years in fatal shooting

Date: 4/24/2010

By David MacDougall

The Post and Courier

A Lincolnville man was sentenced to 23 years in prison this week after a Charleston County jury found him guilty of voluntary manslaughter in the 2008 fatal shooting of 26-year-old Brandon Parker.

Jonta Embray Green, 26, also was found guilty of possession of a pistol during a violent crime, according to a news release issued Friday by the 9th Circuit Solicitor's Office.

Jonta Green

Circuit Court Judge Deadra L. Jefferson imposed the sentence Tuesday.

Charleston police were summoned to a St. Clair Drive residence about 9 p.m. Sept. 19, 2008. They found Parker lying outside with a gunshot wound to his head. He was rushed to a hospital, where he later died.

Green and Parker had been in a fight and Parker threw the first punch, according to the release. Green left the scene after the fight broke up, then returned with a handgun, the release said.

"Brandon Parker's death may as well have been written in stone when the defendant decided to return to the scene with a gun," Assistant Solicitor Rutledge DuRant said in his closing statement. "Death was inevitable. It was foreseeable. It was certain."

The defense maintained that Green had returned to the scene to retrieve some personal items, including a pair of eyeglasses and a cane, the release said. The defense said the shooting was either an accident or a case of self-defense.

Solicitor Scarlett Wilson said she was glad the jury saw things for what they were. "It was a sad case. The victim should have never started the first fight, but that doesn't excuse the fact that the first fight had ended and the defendant returned with a gun. This was clearly not self-defense or an accident," Wilson said.