photo by: Contributed photo, Journal-World file photo

Story last updated: 3:11 p.m. June 22

A jury on Friday convicted a man who accidentally shot his friend at a party of involuntary manslaughter for recklessly killing the woman, and also of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

After deliberating for less than two hours, the jury shared its guilty verdict on both felony counts shortly after noon on Friday.

After the reading, deputies handcuffed Willie K. Franklin, 28, of Lawrence and led him out of the courtroom.

A supporter of Franklin’s sobbed after she heard the verdict. On the other side of the courtroom, the mother of shooting victim Lei-Ala A. Turner, 30, of Lawrence, quietly left the courtroom alongside other family members.

The shooting happened shortly after 11 p.m. Dec. 27, 2017, at Turner’s sister’s home at August Place Apartments, 2310 W. 26th St.

Franklin was a relative by relationship to Turner; he has a child with a woman who is her cousin. When the shooting happened, Franklin, Turner and several other relatives and friends were all hanging out, with plans to go to Kansas City later that night.

photo by: Douglas County Sheriff’s Office

Franklin was in the kitchen handling the gun when it went off, and a bullet struck Turner.

To prove the shooting was reckless, evidence must show Franklin’s behavior “consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk,” Douglas County District Court Judge Peggy Kittel said in her instructions to jurors. She said the actions must be a “gross deviation” from the care a reasonable person would use in such a situation.

Before Turner died, Franklin’s gun, a semi-automatic pistol, had been put away in a closet for most of the evening, until the group was getting ready to leave.

Franklin didn’t mean to shoot Turner, but even before his gun fired he’d been reckless in handling it, prosecutor Amy McGowan said in her closing arguments Friday morning. She summarized those actions this way:

First, Franklin had been drinking and smoking marijuana that night.

Then, when he picked up the loaded gun from the table in the tiny apartment kitchen, he pointed it in the direction of another friend, who warned him to be careful and quit pointing it at her.

Franklin then unloaded the gun — first dropping the clip onto the table, then sliding back the chamber and ejecting the bullet onto the table, too. To show the gun was empty, he dry-fired it — again pointing it at the friend who’d just told him to quit pointing it at her.

Franklin told that woman, “I know how to use a gun, I know what I’m doing,” McGowan said. “Obviously, he just proved seconds later, he did not.”

The friend saw Franklin begin to reload his gun, turned away and moments later heard a “pop.” When she turned back, she saw Turner bleeding and facing Franklin, grasping onto him before she fell to the ground.

Franklin was moving across the kitchen as he reassembled his gun, and at a moment when none of the other witnesses was looking, it fired and hit Turner, McGowan said.

Experts testified to gun safety rules and emphasized that guns don’t fire on their own, McGowan said.

“You don’t put your finger in the trigger guard; you keep it on the frame to avoid the possibility of squeezing the trigger without meaning to do it,” McGowan said.

Also, she said, you never point a loaded gun at someone.

McGowan said Franklin’s actions were reckless beyond a reasonable doubt.

Franklin’s appointed attorney, Michael Clarke, argued that evidence did not prove that.

“There’s no doubt that Ms. Turner’s death was the result of a tragic accident,” Clarke said. “Not all accidents rise to the level of recklessness.”

Clarke said testimony did not prove Franklin “consciously” disregarded a risk, nor did it prove he was impaired by alcohol or drugs.

Clarke said the state spent a lot of time focusing on a gun that was found a week later in a nearby park — which forensic testing never linked to Franklin or the shooting — to detract from its lack of evidence that Franklin was reckless.

Clarke also urged jurors to avoid a “bandwagon” mentality in their deliberations, to respect others’ experiences and voices but stay true to their own, and to focus on the evidence.

“(A) trial is not a popularity contest,” Clarke said. “You may or may not like the way Mr. Franklin looks, but that’s frankly irrelevant.”

Clarke did not elaborate on Franklin’s looks or mention race.

However, none of the jurors was black, and Franklin is black. During the trial, he wore his hair long, in tiny braids twisted into thick braids, with suspenders, a dark collared shirt and sneakers.

Turner and others at the party that night also were black.

Franklin left the scene after the shooting.

He had been in custody on $100,000 bond since his arrest late on Dec. 31, 2017. McGowan said at the beginning of the trial that a Lawrence police officer pulled him over on suspicion of DUI, and then after learning his name, arrested him on the warrant for involuntary manslaughter.

Franklin has multiple prior felony cases in Douglas County. Those include a 2008 case that resulted in a robbery conviction and a 2013 case that resulted in convictions for being a felon in possession of a firearm and possession of cocaine, according to court records.

Franklin was released from his most recent prison stay in August, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections.

Franklin’s trial in the new case began Wednesday. Instead of setting Franklin’s sentencing date after the trial’s conclusion on Friday, Kittel said it would be scheduled later. She also revoked his bond.

Franklin faces 31 to 136 months in prison for the involuntary manslaughter conviction and 7 to 23 months in prison for being a felon in possession of a gun, the district attorney’s office said, in a news release Friday. His actual sentence will depend on his prior criminal history.