Dec 8, 2008 3:31 pm US/Pacific
Oakland Man Guilty In Murder Over Remote Control
OAKLAND (BCN) ―
An Oakland man was convicted of first-degree murder Monday for shooting to death an 18-year-old Laney College football player after the football player argued with the man's sister over a TV remote control.
Jurors deliberated for just over one day before announcing their verdict against 23-year-old Patrick Allen for shooting Robert Atkins Jr. multiple times at point-blank range at Atkins' home in the 2100 block of 26th Avenue about 11 a.m. on Feb. 27, 2005.
Allen admitted during his trial that he shot Atkins but claimed that he was overcome with emotion because he thought that Atkins had sexually assaulted his sister, who had been living with Atkins' family for several years, because she phoned him in tears that day and said Atkins had put his hands on her.
Allen said his sister had suffered emotional problems since being raped in 2000 and that he had promised her that he would never allow her to be hurt again.
Based on Allen's testimony, his attorney, William DuBois, asked jurors to convict him only of voluntary manslaughter, not murder, saying Allen had acted rashly and without premeditation.
But Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Paul Delucchi told jurors that first-degree murder would be the appropriate verdict in the case, arguing that Allen planned to shoot Atkins because he thought Atkins had "disrespected" his sister.
Delucchi also said the sister's phone call to Allen was only 29 seconds long and Allen never made an effort to find out what really had happened to her.
Delucchi said a murder can be reduced to manslaughter if a defendant was provoked and the provocation would have caused a person of average disposition to act rashly and without deliberation.
But Delucchi showed jurors a photograph of Atkins' bloodied body sprawled on the ground after he was shot and said, "A person of average disposition doesn't do this. A murderer does this."
Delucchi said in his opening statement in Allen's trial that Allen's sister called Allen after she and Atkins got into an argument over a remote control and Atkins grabbed her arm and snatched the device from her grip.
The prosecutor alleged that Allen planned the killing and "was interested in an ambush and a quick escape."
Allen admitted on the witness stand that he drove away from the scene without helping Atkins and fled Oakland for three months before he was finally captured while trying to cross the border from Mexico back into the U.S. using a fake identification card.
Delucchi said Allen laughed after he was arrested because he thought that a friend of his had discarded the gun that was used in the shooting.
But he said Allen was chagrined when he later discovered that authorities had found the gun.
After the verdict was announced, DuBois said, "I'm extremely disappointed" and that he plans to file a motion asking Judge Thomas Reardon, who presided over the case, to reduce the verdict to either second-degree murder or manslaughter.
Allen is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 20.
(© CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Bay City News contributed to this report.)
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