DUBLIN — A San Leandro man was acquitted of murder but convicted of voluntary manslaughter after a trial where his lawyer argued he killed a man in self-defense during a marijuana deal gone awry.
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David Harrison Jr., 28, was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter and illegal firearm activity, but found not guilty of more serious first and second degree murder charges. He remains jailed and is set to be sentenced on July 29, records show.
Harrison has been behind bars for nearly eight years, since he was arrested in the 2018 killing of Joseph Gormley. Prosecutors described it as a plot by Harrison to lure Gormley to an area where Harrison would rob him. Harrison’s lawyer argued that Gormley pulled a Taser on Harrison that resembled a gun, and that Harrison fired his gun in response to the perceived deadly threat.
The verdict appears to be a middle ground between those two interpretations. Voluntary manslaughter covers acts of deadly violence that are deemed “imperfect” acts of self-defense or act committed in the “heat of passion,” as defined by state law.
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The prosecution’s witnesses included Marcus Smith, who was present with Harrison at the homicide and told police that Harrison went alone into Gormley’s car, where it appeared to be a normal marijuana deal until the deadly confrontation. On the witness stand, Smith contradicted statements he’d made to detectives in one major way: he denied that he’d seen Harrison with “gold” stolen from Gormley, according to court records.
Harrison was a suspect in several robberies that occurred after Gormley was killed, and prosecutors argued in court that the homicide was part of this violent crime spree, which ended only when police tracked Harrison down and arrested him. The defense painted Gormley as the violent one, pointing to social media posts where he was seen shooting a dog’s carcass or making generalized threats to the camera while holding a gun.
The jury reached its verdict on June 30.
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