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GREENSBURG, Pa. (AP) — The lawyer for a 17-year-old Pennsylvania boy accused of taking a selfie next to a 16-year-old teen he had just fatally shot wants a judge to dismiss a first-degree murder charge.
Defense attorney Patrick Thomassey contends Maxwell Morton, of Jeannette, didn’t mean to kill his friend, Ryan Mangan, and had no animus or malice toward him.
Both boys were 16-year-old Jeannette High School juniors when Morton fatally shot Mangan on Feb. 4 after they began handling the gun they found in Mangan’s home while playing video games in a bedroom.
“Indeed, the evidence produced by the prosecution at the preliminary hearing is more consistent with the shooting as being accidental,” Thomassey said in the motion filed Tuesday in Westmoreland County.
Prosecutors have argued that first-degree murder should be one of the possible verdicts on the table when Morton stands trial in April. He’s been charged as an adult and Thomassey hasn’t tried to move the case to juvenile court, even though Morton won’t turn 18 until May.
Thomassey contends Mangan pulled the gun from beneath a pillow and began dancing around, pointing it at Morton. After Mangan put down the gun, Morton told police he picked up the 9mm pistol and posed while pointing it at Mangan, Thomassey said.
A police officer testified at Morton’s preliminary hearing last April that Morton was trying to take a picture of Mangan with the cellphone aimed down the barrel of the gun before pulling the trigger.
Police said Morton told them, “I shot him and it didn’t matter and I don’t care.”
Westmoreland County prosecutors have argued that proves Morton purposely shot Mangan and should be convicted of first-degree murder, which carries an automatic prison term of life without parole.
Morton also sent a text to a Wisconsin boy through an online video game forum saying he “got his first body,” County Detective Robert Weaver testified at the hearing.
But Thomassey contends the shooting didn’t involve malice or premeditation, which would take it out of the realm of first- or third-degree murder and make Morton guilty of manslaughter, a far less serious crime.
Morton didn’t callously send those messages, but, rather, panicked and took the selfie to send to the Wisconsin boy as “proof” after Morton texted about the shooting while they were playing the video game.
The selfie, which had the name “MAXWELL” texted across the top, showed Mangan shot in the face behind Morton. The Xbox player who received it in Wisconsin contacted police the day after the shooting.