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One Illinois A jury has begun deliberating on the first-degree murder trial of a sheriff’s deputy who shot Sonya Massey, a Black woman in her home who called 911 for help and was later killed because of the way she handled a pot of hot water.
The eight-woman, four-man jury received the case just after 11:30 a.m. Tuesday. Jurors must decide whether Shawn grayson31-year-old convicted of first-degree murder for fatally shooting Macy springfield Home. If found guilty, he could be sentenced to 45 years to life imprisonment. He is also given the option to consider second-degree murder, which carries a term of four to 20 years.
Grayson and another deputy responded to an emergency call from Macy’s on the morning of July 6, 2024, reporting a stalker outside the 36-year-old woman’s home.
In closing arguments, prosecutors portrayed Grayson as an “angry man with a gun” whose impatience with Macy, who was suffering a mental health episode, fueled his anger.
Defense attorneys argued that when Massey took a pot of steaming water off the stove, Grayson gave him explicit orders to drop it. He said he only fired the shot when she said, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus,” and, in the ensuing confusion, he picked up the pan again and behaved as if he would throw it and scald her.
Massey’s killing raised new questions about the shootings of black people in their homes by American law enforcement. Publicity, protests and legal action over the incident prompted Judge Ryan Cadagin to move the trial 200 miles (320 kilometers) southwest of Springfield. chicagoDue to pre-trial publicity, to Peoria, an hour’s drive north of the capital city.
In an unusual move for a defendant in a murder case, Grayson testified in his own defense. Grayson said he was considering using Taser to subdue him, but feared it wouldn’t work given his distance from Maisie and the counter separating them. He said he had decided Massey was a threat and fired his 9mm pistol only after he “reprimanded” her twice – although prosecutors said this was because he had not heard her the first time and asked her to repeat it.
Second-degree murder applies when there is a “serious provocation” that would cause “a reasonable person to become emotional” or if an incident can be described as “imperfect self-defense” in which the defendant believes his actions are justified, even if that belief is unreasonable.