Deptford ex-cop guilty of killing friend

Cherry Hill Courier-Post

WOODBURY – The retrial for a former Deptford police officer accused of fatally shooting his friend in 2013 has once again ended in a guilty verdict.

James A. Stuart, 34, was found guilty Tuesday of reckless manslaughter.

That verdict means Stuart acted with “conscious disregard of a substantial, unjustifiable risk” in the death of 27-year-old David Compton, according to the Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office.

Stuart faces a punishment of five to 10 years in state prison when he’s sentenced, prosecutors said.

Authorities said the former policeman was off-duty when he killed Compton, a friend since they were in high school, after a night of drinking and gunplay in January 2013.

A jury in October 2015 convicted Stuart of knowing murder and aggravated manslaughter, and he was sentenced to 30 years behind bars.

But an appellate court overturned the conviction about two years into his sentence, citing jury instructions that led to a verdict with “inconsistent” conclusions regarding Stuart’s mental state at the time of the shooting.

A five-year veteran of the Deptford Police Department, Stuart was intoxicated when he fired a Glock .27 that struck Compton in the face, the prosecutor’s office said. Compton, who was sitting on a sofa in Stuart’s living room in Deptford when he was shot, died six days later.

Stuart’s lawyer had argued the shooting was a tragic accident and noted he did what he could to try to save Compton’s life, prosecutors noted.

But Assistant Prosecutor Dana Anton told the jury Stuart “disregarded the risks he knew from his police training were inherent in handling a gun while drunk,” the prosecutor’s office said.

Stuart admitted he picked up a handgun that Compton had been “dry-firing,” or pulling the trigger while presuming the weapon isn’t loaded, the prosecutor’s office said.

They had been watching an action movie before Compton asked to see the officer’s guns, prosecutors said.

But after the shooting, Stuart tried to save himself by leaving his “mortally wounded friend” so he could remove his handguns from the living room and put them in an upstairs bedroom before investigators arrived, the prosecutor’s office said.

Stuart’s sentencing is set for Oct. 19 in state Superior Court in Woodbury.

Stuart was released from prison after his conviction was overturned. But Judge M. Christine Allen-Jackson revoked his bail Tuesday and sent him back to jail, pending sentencing.