Judge to determine whether new trial warranted in Iowa City murder conviction

A Johnson County judge said today that he will decide before Friday -- when Justin Marshall is supposed to be sentenced in the first-degree murder of John Versypt -- whether he instead should get a new trial.

Attorneys convened this afternoon in a Johnson County courtroom to discuss the first-degree murder conviction levied against Marshall on Feb. 6 and whether that conviction should stand.

“We believe you should grant him a new trial because the weight of the evidence shows Marshall wasn't guilty as an aider or abettor or of joint criminal conduct,” his attorney Thomas Gaul told Judge Sean McPartland.

During Marshall's trial, defense attorneys objected to the judge reading the theories of aiding and abetting and joint criminal conduct to jurors during jury instructions. Gaul, at the time, argued that prosecutors had not presented evidence that Marshall had worked in concert with anyone else

McPartland, however, disagreed and read the instructions to jurors. After the verdict, jurors were polled on which theory they chose in coming to a first-degree murder verdict, and all but one juror convicted on the theory of aiding and abetting.

They could have convicted on several different theories, but they did not have to agree on the theory to come to a unanimous guilty verdict.

Gaul on Monday argued that, if anything, more evidence was presented at trial showing Marshall was the principal shooter – not someone who aided and abetted someone else.

“Who is the principal and who are the aiders and abettors?” Gaul asked. “The guilty might be equal, but the role they played is what the court should focus on.”

McPartland asked the attorneys whether they believed the theories of aiding and abetting and being the principal actor in a crime are mutually exclusive.

“If you are involved in joint criminal conduct, does that mean you have to have not been the shooter?” he asked. “Or can you be the shooter and be involved in joint criminal conduct?”

Johnson County Attorney Janet Lyness argued that a person can be both.

“A jury can decide if he was the principal involved or if he was aiding and abetting,” she said, “as long as he was there.”

Marshall faces a sentence of life in prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Friday.

Marshall was one of three people arrested in connection with the Oct. 8, 2009, shooting death of Versypt in south Iowa City. Versypt, according to police, was a landlord for units in the Broadway Condominium complex when he was gunned down.

He was hanging no smoking and no loitering signs when he was held up during an attempted robbery and then shot through the hand and the head, according to police.

Charles Thompson was the first person tried on first-degree murder charges, but his case ended in a mistrial and he pleaded guilty to a lesser charge. Courtney White also was arrested in the shooting, but attorneys have indicated his case might end in a plea agreement.

During Marshall's trial, prosecutors said the suspect admitted to three inmates in the Muscatine County Jail that he was the gunman and that he killed Versypt in a robbery gone wrong. Other witnesses corroborated facts that Marshall confessed to while in jail, according to prosecutors.

But his defense team argued that authorities collected almost no physical evidence against Marshall and that the jailhouse witnesses could have been lying to get time off their sentences.