Jury deliberations in the murder case against Joshua Andrews, on trial for first-degree murder while armed, assault with intention to kill and three related weapon charges in the shooting death of Darond Lucas began Tuesday.
Lucas was fatally shot on June 5, 2010. Prosecutors believe that Andrews and another man waited for Lucas outside 1644 W Street Southeast. When Lucas left the building, the men shot at him several times. Lucas fell to the ground. Prosecutors say Andrews then leaned over Lucas’s body and continued to shoot.
Closing statements from the prosecution began Monday afternoon. Prosecutor Melinda Williams argued in trial that the shooting was an ambush and that Andrews was out for “street justice.” Andrews believed that Lucas had shot at him before, Williams said, but Andrews did not report his suspicion to police.
The government’s case was presented over the course of one week and concluded Tuesday morning. During the trial one of Andrews’s closest friends testified.
He said that the day before the shooting Lucas walked past him and Andrews.
“I am going to crush him,” he said Andrews said that day.
He testified that Andrews then told him where the mother of Lucas’s child lived and said he would wait for him outside.
The government also relied on phone calls made by Andrews while he was in jail. In the phone calls a male voice prosecutors identified as Andrews spoke with Andrews’ friends, asking them to say Andrews was attending a barbecue and had passed out drunk the night of the murder.
An investigator who testified for the defense, Keylia Rignad, testified that portions of the phone calls played were not Andrew’s voice.
Andrews’s attorney, Craig Moore, argued that without eyewitnesses to the murder the government’s evidence was circumstantial.
Jurors are expected back at the courthouse Wednesday to continue deliberations in the case.
A testifying witness’s name, which appeared in an earlier version of this story, has been removed.
