As lawyer Kevin Jung crouched by his white Lexus, clutching a napkin against the gunshot wound in his head, a police officer rushed to help and asked, "Do you know anyone who would want to hurt you?"
"Nobody," Jung replied.
It was his last word. He has been living for the past year with brain damage so severe he cannot speak, King County Deputy Prosecutor Erin Ehlert told jurors in Seattle Wednesday, as the man who shot him, a rival attorney named William R. Joice, went on trial for one count of attempted first-degree murder.
The evidence against Joice is so overwhelming that even his lawyer told jurors he was the shooter. A witness took down the license plate number of Joice's rental car at the scene, police found a "murder kit" including a 9 mm pistol and a fake beard in his trunk, and surveillance video from a hardware store shows Joice purchasing materials for a homemade silencer.
Joice's attorney, Micheline Murphy, hopes to convince the jury that the shooting was not premeditated attempted murder because Joice didn't intend to kill Jung -- a difficult task, considering the lengths Joice went to to plan the attack. Joice is facing a standard sentencing range of 20 to 25 years if convicted.
I've suffered opposing counsel who were unpleasant and needlessly combative, but none of them has ever shot me. Details here from the AP via Law.com.