Shondell Javon Middleton
La Plata, MD – Opening arguments were heard Monday, Sept. 12 in the first-degree murder trial of Shondell Javon Middleton, 19 of Clinton, NC, in Charles Charles County Circuit before visiting Judge Larnzell Martin Jr. in La Plata.
It’s a sad story as most of them are, where youth settle differences using violent means.
Charles County Assistant State’s Attorney John Stackhouse said Shondell chased Jordan Anthony Lucas, 18 of Waldorf, through the Adams Crossing community and stabbed him to death in the street.
“The first officer on the scene found a pulse, but then there was no pulse,” Stackhouse told the judge. “He died in his friends’ arms,” he added.
Three days earlier, Stackhouse said, Middleton and his friend, Kevin Mitchell, had stolen Lucas’ marijuana and left him behind when he went into a Waldorf tobacco store to buy a scale in order to measure and sell to the two men.
The confrontation erupted into violence three days later when Middleton contacted the victim and invited him to come by and settle their dispute.
“They went up to the apartment and knocked on the door, but the defendant wouldn’t come out,” Stackhouse explained.
He said Pamela Caldwell, who is also charged in the case, came driving up waving a pistol in the air, causing Lucas and his friends to scatter.
“That’s when this man came bursting out of the apartment with a knife and chased down an unarmed Jordan Lucas for a distance more than a football field and began stabbing him,” the prosecutor said.
“At the close of the evidence, there is no legitimate self-defense case in there at all,” Stackhouse asserted.
“I disagree with the state’s characterization of the evidence,” Defense Attorney James Papirmeister stated.
He asserted that Lucas arrived at Middleton’s apartment with two carloads of people, that they smashed the windows and spray-painted racial epithets on his mother’s car.
But Papirmeister couldn’t deny the charges against his client.
“Yes, he stabbed Jordan Lucas,” the attorney admitted. “He was hyped up.
“This is sad,” he said, “but this is completely self-defense.”
The bench trial—before a judge and not a jury—is expected to last two weeks.
Contact Joseph Norris at joe.norris@thebaynet.com