Defense Attorney Says Plea Deal Offers Hope For Redemption In High-Profile Lamar County Shooting Case

TUSCALOOSA, AL — The defense attorney for a Sulligent teenager who admitted to shooting his mother's boyfriend earlier this year tells Tuscaloosa Patch he's satisfied with the plea deal for his client, which could see the young man have a second chance at living a productive life after a felony conviction.

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Patch reported earlier on Friday that Marquese Donshae Gunter, 19, entered the plea in Lamar County Circuit Court, admitting he shot Travis Smith on Jan. 23, while he was sitting on a couch in an apartment at Sulligent's Bogue Court.

Smith survived his injuries and Gunter was initially charged with first-degree assault.

Gunter was sentenced Friday by Circuit Court Judge Samuel Junkin to a three-year suspended sentence and told that he would be considered for a pardon by the Alabama Bureau of Pardons & Paroles if he finishes the General Educational Development (GED) he had been working toward at the time of the shooting.

24th Judicial Circuit Court District Attorney Andy Hamlin prosecuted the case, while Hamilton defense attorney Lonnie Spann represented Gunter after being retained as his counsel in October.

The case has garnered widespread attention and resulted in a deluge of public pressure from social media after Judge Junkin agreed to a $750,000 bond for Gunter after the total was first set by a district court judge.

However, Judge Junkin denied the bond reduction request in a judicial circuit earlier this week — a circuit that carries a longstanding reputation for heavy-handed bonds and sentences.

Gunter had no prior criminal record before he was charged and public defender Jim Standridge argued early in the proceedings that Gunter acted in self-defense when he shot his mother's boyfriend twice in the chest and abdomen.

Following a bond hearing earlier this week where Gunter took the stand to testify, Spann told Patch that the most-recent plea offer was a 10-year sentence, split to serve three years in prison, followed by 15 years of supervised probation.

Spann told Patch he entered the case expecting to go to trial and moved to have it continued so he could prepare. Nevertheless, the seasoned defense attorney expected the requested bond reduction on Tuesday to be denied.

He also pointed out that the recommended maximum bond for a Class B felony like first-degree assault is up to $30,000.

"This was an outrageous bond for Marquese," Spann said when asked to comment on the public outcry over Gunter's $750,000 bond — a total that multiple expert legal sources told Patch on background was unnecessarily high for a first-time offender and comparatively hard-nosed when stacked against neighboring judicial circuits.

With respect to the case against his client, though, Spann conceded that there were conflicting stories after the bond reduction hearing, discussions with the district attorney's office and evidence gathered during discovery.

Spann explained that there were only three people in the apartment when the shooting took place and after he sat down with Gunter for a talk where he told his client "I need to know the truth," Gunter told him the details alleged by the state were indeed what took place in the apartment that afternoon.

Despite the plea deal that prosecutors and Gunter's defense attorney both say will provide the young man a second chance to turn his life around, speculation persists that the teenager was railroaded for acting in self-defense to protect his mother from an abusive boyfriend.

"At the time, you had an 18 year old who's a good kid — an 18-year-old young man that had been raised in a home with his mother, who is a drug addict and her boyfriend, who is a drug addict and drug dealer," Spann said. "This kid has never used drugs. He’s never been in trouble, never had a traffic ticket. He’s not on the radar for the courts or anybody else. He’s just a mild-mannered, soft-spoken, good kid who was on the right track. He just made a bad decision at one point."

Indeed, both sides in the courtroom acknowledged that Gunter's mother initially told authorities her son was protecting her from her abusive boyfriend when he shot him.

“Unfortunately [for the defense], Marquese told the truth the first time he was interviewed by the police within hours of the shooting, before him and his Mama had time to talk," Spann said. "The victim that was shot was rushed off to the hospital and, after surgery, when he could talk, he told investigators the very same story that Marquese told. And those two stories matched perfectly with the evidence at the scene of the crime."

These crucial details, once public, became enough for both sides to agree on a deal they each insisted would hold Gunter accountable for his actions while still giving him the hope of turning his life around if he follows the conditions of his probationary release.

"After that, I explained to him the problems that we would have at trial," Spann said. "We still may prevail but we definitely have some hurdles to overcome at trial and I asked him if he wanted me to attempt to negotiate a plea offer, which he did."

Spann said he even went so far as to tell Gunter about the people raising bond money for him if he wanted to try his chances at trial to clear his name and how they could possibly have his bond raised by early next week — the result of the far-reaching social media attention placed on the case regarding his $750,000 bond.

"I told him his case is not set for trial until June of next year, so he had until June to decide whether or not he wanted to follow through with a trial or I could be negotiating [a plea deal] the whole time," Spann said. "He wanted me to negotiate immediately. So I did. I reached out to [District Attorney Andy Hamlin] yesterday and ran a few things by him. Then I met with him [on Friday] and we discussed and finally got an offer for my client, which I think is an outstanding offer."

Indeed, Spann emphasized that Gunter was facing three years in prison, day for day, under his initial plea agreement, along with being on supervised probation for 15 years.

Hamlin also confirmed to Patch that along with the suspended sentence, Gunter will only face three years of probation.

"While it's supervised, I had the DA agree that once my client gets his GED, which he had testified that’s what he was in the process of doing when he went to jail, then they will transfer the status of his probation to unsupervised," Spann said. "They will also not oppose him applying for a pardon and getting a pardon on this Class C felony.

"So it’s really not the end of the line for Marquese," Spann said. "He can overcome all of this."

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