Man gets maximum term

Tension was high in the courtroom of District Judge Valerie Adair on Thursday during a sentencing hearing for Jarrel Young. The North Las Vegas man's relatives filled one side of the courtroom and family members of the man he shot to death June 12, 2009, filled the other.

Marshals stood in the aisle with watchful eyes on both sides.

In the end, tears were shed but blood was not as Young, originally charged with murder, was sentenced to a maximum term of four to 10 years after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the death of Brandon Manor, 19.

"This is not the first time Mr. Young was caught walking with a gun in North Las Vegas," said Chief Deputy District Attorney Tim Fattig. "This defendant uses violence to rectify disputes."

Fattig said Young claimed self-defense, "but he was the only one shooting."

Defense attorney Lisa Rasmussen said witnesses to the shooting gave conflicting testimony at Young's preliminary hearing and she indicated the killing was an act of self-defense.

"There's a reason the case resolved the way it did, and it's not because I'm a fabulous lawyer," she said. Rasmussen said one of the state's witnesses, Ronald Kincaid, testified that Manor confronted Young and three other men at the Cheyenne Villa apartment complex near Simmons Street and Cheyenne Avenue.

According to the preliminary hearing transcript, the victim had threatened one of Young's friends. The victim approached them with a gun in his hand, cocked it and pointed at one of the men. The men told the victim to put down the gun, and after he refused Young shot him multiple times.

"My client wasn't looking to kill anyone," said Rasmussen. "Brandon Manor was young and got amped up."

Rasmussen said Young lived nearly three decades without a felony conviction. However, Judge Kathy Hardcastle will sentence him on Sept. 30 in an unrelated incident involving an assault with a deadly weapon. Fattig confirmed Young had only one misdemeanor conviction prior to last year. That conviction also involved a gun.

He had applied for a permit to carry a concealed weapon and undergone the required training.

There was testimony regarding gang involvement at both the preliminary hearing and at Thursday's sentencing. In Young's pre-sentence report, it was indicated he was a member of both the Rolling Crips and Playboy Bloods, two of the valley's most violent gangs and bitter enemies.
"This doesn't make sense," Rasmussen said in arguing her client had no gang affiliation. "That's like saying a Hell's Angel is also a Mongol. It can't happen."

At the preliminary hearing, Rasmussen was not permitted to enter into evidence testimony that Manor and others present at the shooting were reportedly members of yet a third major gang.

The pre-sentence report said Young, 29, had a "good childhood," but Rasmussen pointed out his mother was murdered by her boyfriend in front of him when he was 11 years old. He had little contact with his father and was raised by an older brother in Chicago, and by his grandparents in North Las Vegas.

"I would like to say I'm sorry for his family's loss," Young said in a brief statement.

That loss continues to haunt the family.

"You ripped my heart out," said Veronica Cameron, Manor's aunt. "Brandon was 19. We won't get to see the man he would have become… All we have are memories and ashes of a young man."

"You have kids and you will never walk through like what I walked through," said the victim's mother, Erika Cameron. "He comes to me in dreams because he is with God now." Erika Cameron asked Adair to impose the maximum sentence.

Adair gave Young credit for 360 days in custody, meaning he could be paroled in three years. That depends on what Hardcastle does. She could sentence him to consecutive or concurrent time, but Rattig said he will not ask the judge to stack the sentences per terms of the plea agreement.

Following the hearing, Rasmussen said Young had a "perfect self-defense" claim but pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter because he did not trust a Las Vegas jury.

Contact Doug McMurdo at dmcmurdo@reviewjournal.com or 702-224-5512 or read more courts coverage at lvlegalnews.com.