An Oklahoma County jury convicted a reported gang member of second degree murder last week, finding him guilty of fatally shooting a 17-year-old girl after a New Year's Eve party last year.
Prosecutors accused Kaylin Nicholas Mixon, 21, of Edmond, of firing a gun toward a crowd of teenagers exiting a party in the early hours of January 1, 2016. The gunshots struck a teen girl in the crowd, and she died at the scene.
Reports say that the party erupted in violence shortly before the shooting, when a "gang-related song" played, and party-goers started flashing gang signs and fighting. Mixon, a Sunnyside Blood gang member, felt "disrespected," and as people began to leave the party, he fired up to three times into the crowd of about 100 people, striking and fatally injuring the girl.
During his trial, Mixon testified that he was not the shooter, saying he did not even have a gun with him that night. He said that he was in the parking lot of the party venue when he heard the gunfire and ran.
However, one of Mixon's friends told police that he was the shooter.
After deliberating last Wednesday, jurors returned a guilty verdict on the charge of second degree murder, recommending a sentence of 30 years in prison. Formal sentencing is scheduled for July 12, 2017.
Unlike first degree murder, second degree murder does not require premeditation or intent to kill. Oklahoma law defines second degree murder as a homicide occurring under one of the following conditions:
1. When perpetrated by an act imminently dangerous to another person and evincing a depraved mind, regardless of human life, although without any premeditated design to effect the death of any particular individual; or
2. When perpetrated by a person engaged in the commission of any felony other than the unlawful acts set out
in Section 1, subsection B, of this act. (Any death resulting in the commission of one of those specified felonies would be charged as first degree murder, punishable by life in prison or life without parole.)
Second degree murder is a violent felony punishable by 10 years to life in prison. It is an "85 Percent Crime" that requires anyone convicted to serve at least 85 percent of the sentence before becoming eligible for parole. In this case, a sentence of 30 years would mean the convicted man must serve more than 25 years in prison before obtaining the possibility of parole.
