Without a verdict and up against a deadline for a possible mistrial, the jury in the murder trial of a Trenton man accused of killing a high-ranking Bloods gang members asked Thursday to be released early, apparently deadlocked in their deliberations.

Quaadir Gurley

The panel has been deliberating for about 17 hours over four days on whether it believes Isiah Greene is responsible for the shooting death of Bloods gang member and drug crew leader Quaadir “Ace” Gurley in the early-morning hours of July 21, 2013.

The foreman for the 12-member panel passed a note to Judge Robert Billlmeier around 3:15 p.m. asking that they be allowed to go home an hour early and return to court to continue their deliberations Friday morning.

After consulting with opposing attorneys to see if they objected to the request, the judge dismissed the jurors around 3:30 p.m.

Earlier in the day, jurors passed a note to the judge asking to see gunshot wounds on Greene’s left leg and foot. The prosecutor, James Scott, objected to the request, saying Greene’s “leg was not in evidence.”

Billmeier allowed jurors to examine Greene’s foot, which was being scrutinized because prosecutors contend Greene shot himself in the foot when he shot Gurley in the courtyard of the Donnelly Homes housing complex.

Isiah Greene

Investigators later found Greene’s blood at the scene and tied him to the murder after he had reported being shot on Sanhican Drive minutes after Gurley was shot.

As part of a third-party guilt defense, Greene took the stand and offered a different explanation for the wound on his foot, saying he had been struck by a wayward bullet, possibly one that had ricocheted off buildings when another gunman opened fire on Gurley. He said he saw the gunman run past him but he didn’t get a good glimpse of his face.

Another witness, a 28-year-old woman who lived next to Gurley, testified she saw a dark-skinned black man dressed in all-white with a gun in his hands fleeing the housing complex shortly after gunfire erupted. Greene had also been dressed in white clothing the day of Gurley’s murder, but he said he was wearing a white T-shirt whereas the shooter was reportedly clad in a white tank top.

Greene has contended he had been the housing complex to convince a friend to take him and some friends to a nightclub in Philadelphia after they had been drinking at an all-white affair on Highland Avenue. He said they didn’t want to drive to Philly for fear of getting caught by the cops, but they still drove over to the housing complex.

If jurors do not arrive at a verdict in the case Friday, Billmeier has said he will declare a mistrial.

The judge made the decision after he learned from jurors that it would be a “hardship” on them to continue deliberating past this week and many would be unavailable to serve next week.

Prosecutors would have to decide whether to retry the murder case against Greene, who is also facing attempted murder and drug charges in two separate cases.

If past history has been an edict, the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office would likely retry Greene much the same way it chose to retry Latin Kings gang leader Jose “Boom Bat” Negrete, who was finally convicted after a fourth trial.

Jurors did not say much to each other as they exited the courthouse. One was overheard discussing taking off time from work as they filed out and climbed into an elevator.

Isiah Greene

TRENTON >> The jury foreman said everything without saying much at all.

“Further discussion will be futile,” he told Judge Robert Billmeier around noon Friday.

Twenty hours of deliberations could not un-hang the jury, which was up against a self-imposed deadline in suspected killer Isiah Greene’s murder trial. Many jurors were unable to return next week to continue deliberating the case. So Judge Robert Billmeier had little choice but to declare a mistrial.

That meant there would be no verdict – and thusly – no resolution for the family of slain high-ranking Bloods gang member Quaadir “Ace” Gurley, who was shot eight times in the early-morning hours of July 21, 2013 in the courtyard of the Donnelly Homes housing complex.

Assistant Prosecutor James Scott was succinct when he emerged from the courtroom.

“We’re trying him again,” he said. “I think we have a strong case.”

One female juror, hurrying to leave the courthouse, declined to comment as she rushed to the elevator. Others spoke with attorneys about how their trial tactics might have impacted their ability to reach a verdict. Jurors hadn’t emerged from the room by 1:50 p.m. and had apparently been led out of the courthouse through a Houdini door numerous sheriff’s officers said did not exist.

Quaadir Gurley

The Trentonian was unable to query 11 jurors about their feelings on the case because they were corralled and led away from a reporter who had posted outside the same door jurors entered and exited through for the duration of the trial. 

For Greene, it is back to the county jail where he has been since his arrest in November 2013. He appeared dejected as the jurors left the courtroom, slumping back in his chair and pursing his lips.

“Nobody wants to do it again,” defense attorney Mark Fury said of his client’s reaction. “He hoped it would be over and that he could go on with his life.”

While Gurley’s family was present throughout the trial, no one was in court when jurors walked into the courtroom for the final time to inform the judge they were deadlocked. They had emerged about an hour before, passing a note to the judge, saying as much.

Billmeier ordered jurors back into the deliberation room to see if anyone changed their minds. They didn’t.

The jury foreman said the panel “profoundly regretted” it was unable to arrive at a verdict, setting up a second clash in the retrial between Scott and defense attorney Mark Fury.

Fury has treated gang murder trials in Mercer County like a personal game of hangman, spotting jurors several letters while daring them to decipher the words “guilty” or “not guilty.”

He did as much in the infamous first trial of Latin Kings gang leader Jose “Boom Bat” Negrete and he did as much for Greene despite what some legal observers have opined appeared to be overwhelming DNA evidence of Greene’s guilt.

“I’m very satisfied that the jury took into account all the relevant facts and simply could not agree on what happened on that night,” Fury said. “This is exactly the kind of case that should be presented to a jury. That the state’s evidence was not sufficient to produce a verdict rings loudly.”

Greene’s blood was found at the Donnelly Homes housing complex and a scientist testified the match to his profile was astronomical.

Still, the jurors were unable to come to a conclusion, at least one seemingly swayed by Greene’s third-party guilt defense in which he took the stand and accused cops of planting evidence while also accounting for why his blood was present at the housing complex.

Prosecutors’ explanation was that Greene bled after he shot himself in the foot while shooting Gurley.

Greene took the stand and offered a different explanation, saying he had been struck by a wayward bullet, possibly one that had ricocheted off buildings when another gunman opened fire on Gurley. He said he saw the gunman run past him but he didn’t get a good glimpse of his face.

The seeds for a hung jury were sowed even before that, when a 28-year-old woman who lived next to Gurley testified she saw a dark-skinned black man dressed in all-white with a gun in his hands fleeing the housing complex shortly after gunfire erupted. She admitted on the stand that she did not believe Greene to be dark-skinned, offsetting the fact Greene had also been dressed in white clothing the day of Gurley’s murder.

However, he said he was wearing a white T-shirt whereas the shooter was reportedly clad in a white tank top.

Greene explanation for why he was at the housing complex was that he had been there to convince a friend to take him and some friends to a nightclub in Philadelphia after they had been drinking at an all-white affair on Highland Avenue. He said they didn’t want to drive to Philly for fear of getting caught by the cops, but they still drove over to the housing complex.

Onlookers were stunned by the hung jury. That included Greene’s arch-nemesis, defense attorney Caroline Turner, who was present in the courtroom when the judge declared a mistrial. Turner sat behind the prosecutor, in the first bench of the courtroom gallery. Greene locked eyes with Turner, a moment of seething disgust that paralleled Greene’s reaction to the non-verdict.

His relatives, too, looked on stunned at the decision. 

A woman who refused to give her name but identified herself as Greene’s sister had said minutes before her brother was going to “be another Keith Wells-Holmes.” She was referring to the Trenton man who was acquitted this year for the January 2013 murder of city graffiti artist Andre Corbett.

Greene’s name came up repeatedly during Well-Holmes’ trial as Turner scapegoated Greene, saying as part of a third-party guilty defense he was the more likely murderer – not Wells-Holmes in Corbett’s death, which occurred six months to the day before Gurley was murdered. Greene’s DNA had been found on a can inside the getaway car, but he was never charged and got on the stand and invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Wells-Holmes, who has been described as a “hanger-on” with Greene’s Sanhican Drive crew, was present in Mercer County criminal court earlier this week for portions of jury deliberations.

Turner said she believed her former client was “concerned” about the outcome. She didn’t elaborate. But she didn’t have to.

As a sheriff’s officer shackled Greene’s hands, the prosecutor, Scott, asked the judge to maintain bail at $500,000 cash.

Greene has pending attempted murder and drug charges in two separate cases but  has posted the combined $150,000 on those files.

Billmeier told Greene he would consider at a later date whether to alter his bail following the mistrial.

Greene simply replied, “All right,” before being led out of the courtroom.

Phillip Hedgepath is “street smart” so he was suspicious when he saw three men with black gloves lurking outside of the crime-ridden bar where Enrico Smalley Jr. was fatally shot last year. He had wised up after getting shot himself.

Prosecutors say this surveillance photo shows Shaheed Brown (left) and Enrico Smalley Jr. minutes before Smalley was gunned down outside of La Guira Bar on July 12, 2014.

“I’m gonna remember that to a T,” said Hedgepath, who stood on the side of La Guira Bar, near Poplar Street, in the early-morning hours of July 12, 2014. “You see someone with black gloves, you immediately know something ain’t right, something about to go down.”

Hedgepath testified Monday suspected killer Shaheed Brown, known as “Sha,” was one of the men with a black glove in his pocket shortly before Smalley was gunned down. He could not identify the two other men with black gloves, which he believed people used to avoid leaving fingerprints.

While he was unsettled by the black gloves, Hedgepath did not call 911 to alert police.

Edward Heyburn, Brown’s attorney, downplayed his client’s black glove during his cross examination of Hedgepath, asking if the witness was “familiar with driver’s gloves.”

“I’ve never seen driver’s gloves,” Hedgepath said.

The glove wasn’t exactly Isotoner. But unless Brown is a car enthusiast or it was Christmas in July, the black glove could be a huge problem.

Footage obtained by The Trentonian appears to show Brown wearing the black glove on his right hand moments before he and Smalley stepped out of frame of surveillance cameras outside the bar.

Shaheed Brown

Jurors were shown numerous angles of surveillance footage, guided through it minute by minute by Joseph Itri, the State Police detective who investigated Smalley’s murder.

The footage gave a more complete look of the events leading up to Smalley’s death than a snippet The Trentonian had obtained months ago from Heyburn, who held it out as proof of his client’s innocence and claimed it depicted a man identified as Alvie “King” Vereen reaching into his waistband seconds before Smalley was shot.

Brown, sporting a beard and a do-rag on his head, appeared clad in a white T-shirt, shorts and white sneakers on surveillance. He walked up to the bar, accompanied by two men, Michael Beckett and Vereen, around 1:17 a.m.

He was captured in the vestibule of La Guira Bar, an area separate from the bar where patrons could purchase packaged liquors. Itri pointed out to jurors Brown’s hands were visible and he did not appear to have the black glove on at that point.

Brown walked out of the bar not long after and was seen speaking to a group of men that included Beckett near Poplar Street. He walked down the street with the group with his hand in his pocket, appearing for the first time, Itri said, with the glove on his right hand.

Surveillance showed Brown speaking to a man identified as Rodney Sutphin. Then Brown walked back toward the bar. Inside the bar, Smalley was greeted by a man named Antwan Green, who handed him a cigarette.

Smalley stepped out of the bar and walked down the sidewalk with Brown around 1:21 am. They were bracketed by two men in the front, Rasean Sutphin, who is wearing a bucket hat, and a man police never identified.

Seconds later, Vereen and now-deceased Rodney Sutphin, follow behind. Rodney Sutphin appeared to walk in the opposite direction as Vereen stepped off screen for four seconds. Itri said Rodney Sutphin’s reaction was the “pinpoint indicator” of the shooting.

As people scattered, Brown ran from the area where Smalley’s body dropped to the pavement, Hedgepath said.

Hedgepath did not see Brown with a handgun, nor did he didn’t notice if Brown was accompanied by anyone. He did not know Vereen or Rodney Sutphin.

Women wailed when they caught a glimpse of Smalley’s body, sprawled on the pavement, a bullet between his eyes. “Oh my god,” they cried upon seeing him. “Rico.”

Hedgepath arrived at the bar around 11 p.m., staying until after 1 a.m. Accompanied by a female companion whose name he longer remembered, Hedgepath sipped shots of cognac from a cup outside the bar where a crowd had gathered.

Unlike some of the 49 people who were at the bar when Smalley was murdered, Hedgepath cooperated with authorities. He was motivated partly by self-preservation.

“I was on camera,” he said. “I did give ‘Sha’ dap the night of the murder.”

Hedgepath, who has several felony convictions for drugs, forgery and non-violent crimes, also cut a deal with prosecutors this year, pleading guilty to drug charges for probation. Had he not testified against Brown, he would have faced three years in state prison.

Hedgepath’s testimony is critical for prosecutors who are trying to prove Brown had reason to kill Smalley.

When he was interviewed by Itri, Hedgepath discussed a “little scrap” between Brown and Smalley’s people he witnessed the week before Smalley was killed. Brown was inside the bar counting his money. Smalley was not at the bar when the altercation broke out, Hedgepath said.

Brown appeared “like he was getting jumped,” Hedgepath said, as bar security broke up the fight and people filed out. The trial resumes Tuesday with the continuation of Itri’s testimony.

Everyone in the courtroom kept waiting for the haymaker that never came as defense attorney Edward Heyburn cross examined the lead detective in Enrico Smalley Jr.’s murder in July 2014.

Prosecutors say this surveillance photo shows Shaheed Brown (left) and Enrico Smalley Jr. minutes before Smalley was gunned down outside of La Guira Bar on July 12, 2014.

If anything was true about Heyburn leading up to trial, it was that he pulled no punches plotting out his pretrial strategy for how he planned to defend suspected killer Shaheed Brown against a murder rap.

He was going to blame another man, Alvie “King” Vereen, for killing Smalley on orders of a dead man, Rodney Sutphin. His accusations frayed the nerve of Sutphin’s grandmother, who blasted the defense attorney in an interview with The Trentonian.

But in the courtroom, when the lights have been bright, Heyburn has opted for jabs when his hands haven’t tied behind his back by Judge Andrew Smithson.

Smithson’s rulings have tended to go against Heyburn, crippling his third-party guilt defense, and infuriating Brown’s grandmother, Dorothy Williams.

Shaheed Brown

“Listening to the judge and prosecutor — they are all that we hear,” she said after court. “The judge and the prosecutor, they are not giving our lawyer a fair shake in the courtroom. Every time our lawyer speaks up, they have to pull him in a corner.

There’s 12 more minds in the courtroom, and I hope they acknowledge and see how this court case is coming along. It is not fair to the defendant.”

A “huge” decision by the judge, Heyburn said, prevented him from asking State Police Detective Joseph Itri questions about a statement witness John “Buck” Meyers gave the detective allegedly implicating Smalley in a murder.

When Heyburn tried to go there Tuesday, he was quickly shut down by an objection from Assistant Prosecutor Brian McCauley. The attorneys had a sidebar to discuss it and Heyburn was forced to drop the line of questioning.

“My point was that the state withheld that there was a second statement by John Meyers,” Heyburn said. “It was important because there were other people who had motives to kill Enrico and the state covered it up.”

McCauley acknowledges Itri did take a statement from Meyers in which he accused Smalley of committing a murder. But he was hard and loose with the facts if he had any at all. For the record, Meyers denied in an interview with The Trentonian ever telling Itri that Smalley committed a murder.

McCauley called some of his counterpart’s insinuations regarding the murder Smalley did or did not commit a “fishing expedition.” Heyburn is hoping to catch and hook one juror with enough reasonable doubt that his client, a former Newark gang member with a number of violent convictions, did not kill Smalley outside of La Guira Bar in the early-morning hours of July 12, 2014.

Getting Irti to admit anything favoring Brown was nearly impossible. Heyburn’s cross examination of the detective resembled more of a dance around the ring than a slugfest.

Itri swept aside Heyburn’s questions about Vereen and whether he appeared on surveillance reaching for something tucked into his waistband seconds before Smalley was shot.

The detective denied Vereen was reaching for anything. Then when Heyburn stopped the footage and showed Itri a screen grab he contended showed Vereen appearing to tuck something back into his waistband shortly after the shooting, the detective responded the video was inconclusive,

“I can’t tell,” Itri said.

Heyburn turned his focus to Rodney Sutphin, the man he claims ordered Smalley murdered as payback for a murder Smalley allegedly committed.

He asked Itri why, as the lead detective, he didn’t interview Sutphin himself. Itri responded that investigative duties were split among capable homicide task force detectives.

Heyburn and Itri sparred about what Rodney Sutphin told the detectives.

Itri said his colleagues relayed Rodney Sutphin’s statement did not appear to match up with him walking with Vereen and then in the opposite direction of Vereen when he stepped out of view of the surveillance cameras.

“I can say what he said doesn’t appear to match the video,” Itri said of the statement Sutphin gave investigators.

A city man has pleaded not guilty to killing a 39-year-old Trenton man outside of a crime-ridden bar last year.

Anthony Concepcion

Gang member Anthony L. Concepcion was out on bail on a gun charge when he allegedly fatally shot Patrick Walker outside of La Guira Bar on Dec, 13, 2014, one of two murders at the establishment in a five-month span.

Twenty-year-old Enrico Smalley Jr., of Ewing, was killed outside the same bar in July 2014. Suspected killer Shaheed Brown is on trial in the Smalley slaying.

The murders outside the bar drew the attention of the Alcoholic Beverage Control division of the Attorney General’s Office, which inquired into La Guira Bar’s practices but did not shut the bar down despite concerns from the owner his business would be shuttered.

Concepcion allegedly produced a handgun from his waistband and fired at the ground before pumping several rounds into Walker in a random killing that has puzzled investigators.

There was no indication Concepcion was inside the bar or interacted with Walker before shooting him, and prosecutors said they were unaware of a motive in the murder.

Patrick Walker

Walker was found outside the North Clinton Avenue establishment around 2 a.m., suffering multiple gunshot wounds, and died a short time later.

Concepcion, who was arraigned Thursday before Judge Robert Billmeier, entered not guilty pleas to counts of murder and weapons offenses. He was arrested by U.S. Marshals in a Florida hotel where prosecutors say he fled after the murder.

Concepcion’s attorney had said at a bail hearing earlier this year his client was visiting family in the Sunshine State and was unaware police had issued a warrant for his arrest.

Concepcion was previously arrested Sept. 30 on drug and weapons charges after police said they watched him dispose of a marijuana-filled cigarette box. Police found a gun stashed in Concepcion’s groin, which he is challenging on the grounds it was a warrantless search.

Concepcion has a violent streak, serving two state prison sentences for weapons convictions, according to state records. One conviction stemmed from an incident in which Concepcion was accused of shooting at the mother of his child while she held the couple’s baby in her arms in 2010.

He had been charged with multiple counts of aggravated assault, child endangerment and weapons offenses. A grand jury no billed the charges, indicting him on a single count of aggravated assault, officials have said.

He pleaded guilty to second-degree possession of a weapon and received a five-year sentence in 2011. Held in the Mercer County Correction Center on $750,000 bail, Concepcion’s next court appearance is set for January.

Retired Trenton Police officer Luddie Austin says he no longer has confidence in the criminal justice system in Mercer County after he and his family have waited for more than two years for the man he says orchestrated his son’s murder to be held accountable.

Luddie Austin on A&E's "Manhunter: Fugitive Task Force"

“I lost faith in the judicial branch,” Austin told The Trentonian outside a courtroom Thursday. “I still have faith in the police. The courts, I don’t have no faith in because you have a judge who refuses to set a bail in the appropriate guidelines.”

Austin spoke with undisguised passion following the latest court appearance for Raheem Currie, one of two men charged with murder in the shooting death of his son, 18-year-old James Austin.

He criticized Judge Robert Billmeier for adjourning the matter because he was unsure whether Currie’s attorney, Jack Furlong, had been made aware of the scheduled appearance, which was pushed back because the judge had presided over Isiah Greene’s murder trial.

“There’s something going on with this judge,” said Austin, a well-respected cop who spent nearly two decades with Trenton Police and has appeared on the A&E television show, “Manhunters: Fugitive Task Force.”

“He’s allowing the defense attorney to dictate the scheduling process of this case and that’s not fair to the family. It’s not only disrespectful to the family; it’s disrespectful to the judicial system. Each day that goes by, we have to keep worrying. We’re trying to seek some closure and some justice.”

James Austin with his twin daughters.

While he is charged with murder, Currie is free on $50,000 bail. He rejected a plea offer of 10 years for conspiracy to commit murder – a deal the victim’s family opposed.

“Ten years for a persons’ life is a slap in the face,” Austin said of the deal extended by Assistant Prosecutor Lewis Korngut, who is retiring in late November. Assistant Prosecutor James Scott will handle the case after that.

Judge Billmeier said Scott has upcoming murder trials before him that may hinder his ability to try Currie’s case sooner. Korngut responded that issue was “above his pay grade” and it was up to the “powers that be” at his office to decide on how the matter will be handled.

Korngut said he sympathizes with family members who are “extremely frustrated.”

Currie has insisted on a jury trial and faces a minimum of 30 years in prison for murder if he is convicted by a jury. His co-conspirator and admitted killer, Robert Bartley, has already accepted a 25-year plea offer for aggravated manslaughter and plans to testify against Currie at trial, which has not been scheduled. A voir dire conference is set for Nov. 18.

Bartley has not been sentenced after he admitted shooting James Austin on Feb. 26, 2013, in the doorway of his home.

“By the time this goes to trial, he’s going to have time served,” Luddie Austin said, adding he understands that Currie, who knew his son, made a phone call to Bartley, who acted as his enforcer. This followed an ongoing dispute between James Austin and Currie that escalated when James Austin broke Currie’s windshield.

“The longer this goes, the shorter the witnesses’ memory get,” Luddie Austin said. “The longer it gets delayed, the better the chances for Raheem Currie to get off.”

Bartley has apologized for shooting James Austin in the chest after the defendants planned to spray his East State Street home with bullets.

Currie did not appear in court for Thursday’s pretrial hearing, upsetting members of Austin family in attendance. Luddie Austin said it is wrong Currie has been allowed to roam the streets while being charged with murder.

“I spent my whole life fighting crime, trying to do the right thing, and you have someone who can circumvent the system and enjoy the same freedom as noble citizens can,” he said. “It’s like the TV show, ‘How to Get Away with Murder.’ Commit it in Mercer County.”

The only woman standing between Newark gang member Shaheed Brown and life sentence has not been allowed to testify, pretty much dismantling Brown’s third-party guilt defense and possibly sealing his fate.

Prosecutors say this surveillance photo shows Shaheed Brown (left) and Enrico Smalley Jr. minutes before Smalley was gunned down outside of La Guira Bar on July 12, 2014.

Defense attorney Edward Heyburn said he was given a deadline of Thursday to track down the witness, Kayemma Strong. He says he tried “day and night” to get in touch with her despite only being provided her contact information late Wednesday.

He needed to serve her with a subpoena and have her in by 11 a.m. the next morning.

As a result, testimony in Brown’s murder trial was cancelled. Jurors were sent home and the trial is set to resume Monday. Judge Andrew Smithson has ruled that even if Heyburn can locate Strong between now and then, he is not allowed to call her to the witness stand.

Heyburn had asked the court to give him until Monday to track down Strong.

“The judge has been very courteous with the court’s time when it came to the prosecutor’s witnesses, but he gave me a very limited opportunity to locate this witness,” said Heyburn, referring to La Guira security guard Kevin Cole showing up an hour late to court for testimony Wednesday. “My client is devastated because he believes that Kayemma Strong is the one witness who can exonerate him. He is upset that the court would not give us additional time to locate her.”

Shaheed Brown

Strong’s testimony could have been the deciding factor between Brown getting a life sentence or being acquitted of killing Enrico Smalley Jr. outside of La Guira Bar in July 2014.

Strong was captured on surveillance footage walking outside the bar right as the shooting occurred. She appeared to be staring straight at the area where Smalley was shot, giving her a vantage point no other witness had.

But so far, Strong, who is an easy find on social media, has remained a wild card.

State Police Detective Joseph Itri, the lead detective in Smalley’s murder, testified this week he was unable to secure an interview with Strong because she kept blowing him off. He said he had scheduled numerous appointments to meet with her and once even drove back to his office around midnight when she said she was willing to meet.

In the end, Strong never showed up and stopped returning Itri’s phone calls.

Assistant Prosecutor Brian McCauley promised at the outset of a former Newark gang member’s murder trial he would put the puzzle pieces together for jurors. He literally did, in his slideshow.

Shaheed Brown

The red puzzle pieces, containing bits of evidence or crucial statements from witnesses who testified in the trial, pointed to Shaheed Brown’s guilt in the slaying of Enrico Smalley Jr. outside of crime-ridden La Guira Bar in the early-morning hours of July 12, 2014, McCauley said.

Defense attorney Edward Heyburn countered there was “no proof” Brown killed Smalley.

When the puzzle pieces were pulled away, they revealed the police booking photo of Brown, his head shaven, staring back at the camera.

The prosecutor said there was one reason Brown was at the bar when Smalley was murdered, and it wasn’t to drink.

“He was there for revenge,” said McCauley, sweeping aside the defense’s theory another man, Alvie “King” Vereen, was the real killer.

Prosecutors say this surveillance photo shows Shaheed Brown (left) and Enrico Smalley Jr. minutes before Smalley was gunned down outside of La Guira Bar on July 12, 2014.

McCauley was alluding to a dustup between Brown and Smalley’s people that occurred a week before the murder. No witness could say definitively Smalley was present for this altercation, when Brown was chased from the bar, according to testimony from bar bouncer Kevin Cole.

Nevertheless, if the motive is in doubt, McCauley said, Brown’s actions following the murder – he skipped Trenton for Newark and changed his appearance – suggest a “consciousness of guilt.”

“There’s no reason to shave your head and leave town if you didn’t do anything,” McCauley said.

The defense would have jurors believe the prosecutor did not prove Brown skipped town.

While casting aspersions on lead detective Joseph Itri for not conducting a thorough investigation, Heyburn said evidence seized from Brown’s South Broad Street apartment suggested his client was still living in Trenton and planned on returning.

Investigators testified they seized bank and casino player cards from Brown’s apartment within days of the murder, suggesting the residence appeared abandoned.

But in Heyburn’s cross examination, he elicited testimony that two people were inside the apartment when investigators arrived.

“If you’re running from the police, if you don’t plan on coming back, you’re gonna need that,” Heyburn said of the bank card.

McCauley said criminals know authorities use bank cards to track movement, which would have made Brown, who was eventually arrested in Newark, easier to find.

The prosecutor then zeroed in on Brown’s actions outside of La Guira Bar a week after he was chased away by an angry mob of men. He asked jurors to consider why Brown had traveled about three miles from his apartment on the 1000 block of South Broad Street to La Guira, which sits on the corner of North Clinton Avenue and Poplar Street, when two bars were closer to his residence.

Brown had arrived at the bar with his posse, which included Vereen and Rasean Sutphin, who followed him around like “puppy dogs.”

Brown did not go inside the bar, hanging out in the vestibule where packaged liquor was sold. The prosecutor said Brown had been at the bar before and knew he would be patted down by Cole if he tried to go inside.

Brown was captured by surveillance cameras moments before the shooting appearing with a black glove on his right hand, which a witness suggested was done so as not to leave fingerprints.

“He went up with his squad to settle a score,” McCauley said. “This time he had his friends with him and this time he had a gun on him.”

Attorneys focused on evidence at the crime scene, each arguing it implicated and exonerated Brown. It depends how jurors interpret the scene, which Heyburn attempted to reconstruct for jurors.

He said the six shots that hit Smalley came from an angle his client, who was presumably next to Smalley when he was gunned down, was not standing.

Heyburn said the location of shell casings suggested Vereen, who walked off camera for four seconds then darted back on camera and turned sharply to the right, was the shooter.

“It’s enough time for someone to go, ‘bam, bam, bam, bam, bam,’” Heyburn said. “Physical evidence cannot lie.”

Heyburn suggested Vereen was seen on tape tucking something into his waistband as he fled.

McCauley called his counterpart’s argument “specious and wrong,” saying an anonymous 911 tape of former Trenton state prison corrections officer Kenneth Crawford was telling.

He described seeing a black man with dreadlocks and a white shirt pumping rounds in Smalley while he stood over him. The man ran from the scene with another man, presumably Vereen, McCauley said.

At trial, Crawford contradicted what he said in the 911 tape, admitting he did not see the shooter because his view was obstructed by a SUV parked in front of the bar. He admitted that after reading newspaper coverage he had mistaken Smalley for the shooter.

McCauley said the 911 tape, which was allowed into evidence as an “excited utterance,” was more reliable than what Crawford said in “two days of testimony” because the former prison guard had the “cloak of anonymity, the cloak of invisibility.”

The prosecutor said no one wanted to cooperate with investigators to help solve Smalley’s murder, not even members of his own family. Still, he said, Itri handled the investigation with aplomb and fingered the right suspect.

“Who is the shooter in this scenario?” McCauley asked. “It’s the defendant.”

A Trenton man charged with two murders has been offered a plea deal that would put him behind bars for nearly three decades for one of the murders.

Markquice Thomas

Markquice “Tank” Thomas is charged with the murders of 44-year-old Joseph “Power God” Gaines, a former drug dealer turned city activist, as well as the murder of 22-year-old Jared Littlejohn.

Littlejohn, of Ewing, was kidnapped and killed in September 2012 during a botched robbery, prosecutors have said. Two years later, in March 2014, Thomas killed Gaines over an outstanding drug debt, prosecutors have said.

Littlejohn’s case, which has not been indicted, remained cold until witnesses stepped forward, prosecutors said. Thomas was served with the murder charge in Littlejohn’s death while he was jailed in Gaines’ slaying.

Thomas’ attorney, Robin Lord, said her client has entered not guilty pleas to the murders as well as to counts in a drug case.

“We wouldn’t take it if it was one year,” Lord said of prosecutors’ offer.

Thomas and Gaines allegedly exchanged text message some time before the murder in which Gaines said he planned to pay off his debt, prosecutors have said.

Prosecutors believe the former city drug dealer who had reportedly turned his life around to become a mentor for troubled city youth was killed because of an outstanding drug debt.

Gaines had sent Thomas text messages sometime before he was slain telling Thomas he intended to pay off the debt, prosecutors said.

Thomas’ next appearance in court is set for Jan. 11.

Two of four Liberian men who were expected to be tried together next year in the execution-style slaying of a U.S. Army veteran could be tried separately depending on how a judge rules.

On Tuesday, Judge Robert Billmeier ordered one of the four men, Abdutawab Kiazolu, 26, tried separately. That left codefendants, Phobus Sullivan, 30, Mack Edwards, 29, Danuweli Keller, 27 set for trial in January 2016. But Edwards on Tuesday also requested to be tried seperately.

A fifth man, William Brown, 30, who is serving 50 years in state prison for the unrelated murder of convicted drug dealer Tracy Lamont Crews, will also be tried separately.

Brown’s alleged role in the murder is unclear, but he made incriminating statements that could not presented at a joint trial because of evidence rules, officials said.

All rejected 30-year plea offers for the murder of Dardar Paye, a Liberian immigrant who was fatally shot in the basement of a Monmouth Street home Jan. 16, 2011. His body was placed in garbage bags and stuffed in the trunk of his Buick, which Sullivan later drove while allegedly attempting to dispose of the body.

Keller, the suspected gunman in Paye’s murder, Sullivan and Edwards would also have had to plead guilty to counts related to the October 2010 carjacking and kidnapping of Alfonso Slaughter.

According to published reports, Slaughter was taken to the same Monmouth Street basement where he was robbed but escaped.

Slaughter is expected to testify in the Paye’s murder case.

Prosecutors indicted the matters together because the crimes are related and possibly explain motive, said Skylar Weissman, assistant prosecutor and chief of the homicide unit.

But the 22-count indictment a grand jury returned has also complicated the murder case because some of the counts do not pertain to some of the defendants. That is the reason Kiazolu, who was not charged for being involved in the Slaughter kidnapping, is being tried separately.

Piggybacking off Kiazolu, Mark Davis, an attorney for Edwards, asked the judge to try his client separately. Judge Billmeier will decide at a later date whether Edwards should be tried separately. Some of the counts involving the kidnapping of Slaughter may involve Edwards, the judge said.

The judge told Edwards it would be some time before he could try him separately as he has already penned in several murder trials, including this one, which is slated to start Jan. 19.

Prosecutors tried to get a short adjournment of this case as assistant prosecutors Skylar Weissman and Michael Grillo substituted in for assistant prosecutors Michelle Gasparian and Rachel Cook.

Weissman had asked the judge to postpone the case to accommodate a preplanned vacation to Florida to celebrate his parents 65th wedding anniversary in February.

But the judge said postponing the case any longer would be unfair to the defendants who will have been incarcerated more than four years once trial commences. The matter was delayed by the retirement of two judges previously assigned the case.

“I’m hoping to try this case before I retire,” Billmeier said. “I know how hard you [Weissman] work. Certainly, any vacation is well-deserved. If I could [postpone the trial], I would.”

Weissman said he respected the judge’s decision.

“We’ll work it out,” he said.

Defendent Shaheed Brown listens to trial testimony. (Gregg Slaboda - Trentonian)

Conspiracy.

It was the word juror Mark Nalbone heard come out of the mouth of defense attorney Edward Heyburn on Tuesday as he walked through the the halls outside of Judge Andrew Smithson’s courtroom, where former Newark gang member Shaheed Brown is on trial for the July 2014 murder of Enrico Smalley Jr. outside crime-ridden La Guira Bar.

“I heard one word – it was very loud and distinct – and the word was ‘conspiracy,’” Nalbone said, according to a recording obtained by The Trentonian. “All the other words went back to normal mumbling where I could not really make it out. Not that I wanted to. I try to stay as far away as I can.”

There has been no evidence presented of a conspiracy in Brown’s murder trial. However, it is clear from a recording obtained by The Trentonian that the juror believed Heyburn plotted his own conspiracy to expose him to the word.

“Your perception was that it was intentional?” Heyburn asked the juror.

“To be honest, that’s what I thought,” Nalbone said. “I thought you took a glimpse and saw me coming and then, like I said, I heard this mumbling, and I didn’t hear anything so I made sure I walked away. But as I was getting closer, the one word that was just a lot louder than the normal conversation was the word ‘conspiracy’ and then you proceeded to talk at a lower volume.”

Judge Smithson expelled members of the public from his courtroom over the objections of a Trentonian reporter in order to have a private exchange with Nalbone and opposing attorneys in the murder trial. He also told attorneys not to speak with news reporters about the issue.

Sheriff’s officers were stationed outside of Judge Smithson’s courtroom to enforce his order barring anyone from entering while court officials discussed the issue for about 20 minutes.

“This is to be treated as a conference in chambers,” the judge said, “so I don’t have anyone in the courtroom. I don’t want anybody at the door because it has an intimidating effect. The juror will be here, and I want him to feel as comfortable as possible as we discuss whatever he perceived.”

The judge needed to know whether Nalbone hearing part of the conversation Heyburn had with his client’s family undermined his ability to serve as a juror and whether he shared what he heard with panelists.

Nalbone admitted he had told the other 11 jurors about the incident to gauge their opinion about whether he should inform the court about the conversation he overheard while walking out of the courthouse Tuesday, following the conclusion of deliberations.

After extensively questioning Nalbone about the incident and a lengthy powwow with the attorneys, the judge decided the juror could continue deliberating and a mistrial was unnecessary.

Although Nalbone had reported the incident to jurors, they told the judge it would not infect their deliberations.

“That’s one of the loudest responses I’ve heard from this group,” the judge said of the “no” that reverberated through his courtroom. “Lots of talk goes on in hallways. There’s no question in my mind that it does not affect and should not affect this case in any way.”

The unintentional eavesdropping occurred Tuesday as jurors trickled out of the courthouse to catch the bus following the end of their deliberations. (They had still not arrived at a verdict at the end of deliberations Wednesday.)

Heyburn was huddled with his client’s family members to discuss his client’s case. He said he had been given the all-clear by a Mercer County sheriff’s officer that all the jurors had left.

But Nalbone was still around.

As he walked toward where Heyburn was standing with the group, he heard Heyburn mumbling. He said he believed the defense attorney “saw me out of the corner of his eye” and intentionally began speaking louder.

“I heard that one word very loud,” Nalbone said, estimating he was around 10 steps away from the defense attorney. “I thought it was odd that was the one word I heard very loud.”

He reported the incident to court officials Wednesday morning, following the jury’s early-morning break for drinks.

“I have to at least get it off my chest,” he told the judge. “Whether it has any kind of meaning or not.”

Judge Smithson said he was pleased the juror came forward with the information rather than playing “mental ping pong” over it.

For the record, Heyburn denied he intentionally said the word louder. He said his back was turned to the juror while he was having a conversation with his client’s family.

“They were asking me questions about – speculative – what the prosecutor could have charged my client with as opposed to what they did charge him,” Heyburn told the judge. “They were asking me could they have charged him with conspiracy. As we were talking about ‘conspiracy,’ that juror walked by. One of the family members alerted me. I stopped and said, ‘Wait,’ and then we waited till he got on elevator to finish our conversation.”

Heyburn said he didn’t think Nalbone heard anything.

“Apparently he did and was thinking about it last night and then brought it to Officer Hendricks’ attention,” Judge Smithson said. “It doesn’t make any sense to him in any which way.”

Nalbone was brought into the courtroom and questioned but the judge decided there was no danger in keeping him on board.

“They were talking about a lot of things,” the judge told Nalbone. “The word ‘conspiracy’ was mentioned, but not in connection with anything in particular to this case. Really, that’s the answer to it.

“That’s great,” Nalbone said.

“It doesn’t have any effect and it shouldn’t come into your thinking in any way,” the judge said.

Then Smithson, a domineering retired judge who has pretty much been Heyburn’s executioner throughout the trial, stood up for the embattled defense attorney.

“I’m satisfied in talking to Mr. Heyburn and Mr. [Brian] McCauley that it was not done in some way to place something in your head or mind or interrupt or add something to that which has occurred here,” Smithson said. “I don’t find that Mr. Heyburn attempted to do something that was uncalled for, unprofessional or unethical. If I did it would be a very, very different matter.”

An attorney for former Newark gang member Shaheed Brown, who is on trial for murder, has accused the brother of murder victim Enrico Smalley Jr. of disparaging and threatening him during an exchange in the restroom of the courthouse.

Defendent Shaheed Brown listens to trial testimony. (Gregg Slaboda - Trentonian)

The allegations spilled into the courtroom Wednesday when defense attorney Edward Heyburn asked Judge Andrew Smithson for Smalley’s relative to be barred from the courthouse for his safety after he allegedly called him a “piece of sh—.”

Following the brief on-record discussion in the courtroom, Heyburn also alleged to The Trentonian that Smalley’s brother, Billy Blanks, made faces toward his client throughout trial and was warned not to do so by a sheriff’s officer.

On Wednesday, Judge Smithson refused to go along with Heyburn’s request to bar Smalley’s relative, and the man was instructed to stay away from the defense attorney.

Assistant Prosecutor Brian McCauley called the allegations against Smalley’s family member a “fabrication” and said the defense attorney’s request to prevent Blanks from entering the courthouse was “unconstitutional.”

“You have to consider the source,” he said within earshot of Heyburn.

Edward Heyburn

In response, Heyburn said, “I’ll record the next one.”

For his part, Blanks, who has been present throughout Brown’s murder trial, said he did not threaten the defense attorney and only told him not to “forget to put his diva’s makeup on.”

Blanks poked fun at Heyburn, who has acted as attorney, tailor and makeup artist for Brown throughout the trial.

One day in court, Heyburn was seen applying concealer to tear drop tattoos that appear on Brown’s face. The judge had asked the defense attorney whether the tattoos were “gang marks.”

Blanks has been a docile figure throughout what has been a heart-wrenching process watching his brother’s accused killer tried for murder. This week, he was overheard by a reporter in the bathroom repeating the same hopeful refrain.

“Shaheed Brown guilty of all charges,” he said. “Shaheed Brown guilty of all charges. Shaheed Brown guilty of all charges.”

Heyburn said Blanks was the same man who jawed with him menacingly Wednesday when he went to the restroom to wash his hands prior to the jury resuming deliberations around 9:30 a.m.

The accusation is Blanks called the defense attorney a “piece of sh—.“

McCauley was overheard remarking to a county detective the “piece of sh—“ comment was “not a threat; it’s an observation.”

While he was offended by the first alleged insult, Heyburn said he was unsettled by a second comment he took as veiled threat.

Heyburn claimed Blanks muttered under his breath he should have “paid that $3,000.” Blanks denied making the statement.

“Whatever that implication means,” Heyburn said. “In a courthouse, there’s a certain decorum. Imagine if I stood up and called the Smalley family pieces of sh—, I’d be held in contempt of court.”

A Trenton man caught up in the 2013 murder of city graffiti artist Andre Corbett pleaded guilty to an unrelated probation violation Wednesday, hoping it would pave the way for him to be released from jail on bail while he awaits trial for murder.

Zihqwan Clemens

Zihqwan “Woodiey” Clemens is the lone remaining codefendant of two men charged in connection with Corbett’s broad daylight slaying outside of an apartment complex on Hoffman Avenue and Oakland Street in January 2013. The suspected killer, Keith Wells-Holmes, was acquitted by a jury this year.

But prosecutors have said they intend to move forward with their case against Clemens, the alleged getaway driver. Clemens’ attorney, Andrew Duclair, said he does not understand prosecutors’ decision not to move forward with the case against his client because there is no evidence of a conspiracy between the men to kill Corbett.

Duclair has said his client, who implicated Wells-Holmes for the murder when he was interviewed by authorities, had no knowledge the murder was going down. It has been hinted that Assistant Prosecutor James Scott is trying Clemens because he was not pleased with the way he testified in Wells-Holmes’ murder trial.

Clemens got on the stand and exonerated Wells-Holmes. Prosecutors contend Clemens lied on the stand but have not said whether they will pursue perjury charges.

On Wednesday, Clemens pleaded guilty to a probation violation relating to an underlying drug distribution conviction. He had been sentenced by a judge in June 2012 to probation, which included meeting with his probation officer and paying monthly fines.

Clemens admitted he missed some payments and some meetings, leading to the violation. He pleaded guilty to the offense hoping Judge Robert Billmeier will grant him time served when he is sentenced in January.

The judge has already reduced Clemens’ bail to $250,000 from $1 million in the murder case. But while it is unclear if Clemens can afford to post the bail, he cannot get out of jail until the probation violation is dealt with since he is not constitutionally entitled to bail on a VOP.

Scott said he plans to introduce evidence of text messages and a picture of a handgun that authorities discovered on Clemens’ phone he says shows the Trenton man was still involved in drug dealing even while he was on probation.

Clemens has been in jail for more than two years, awaiting trial on the murder charges. He was arrested in 2013, within days of Corbett’s death, and is hoping the judge opts for a time-served sentence rather than the maximum penalty of five years in state prison.

TRENTON >> For the second time in as many weeks, a Mercer County jury was unable to decide a verdict in a high-profile murder trial, leaving a retired judge and the prosecutor who tried the case scratching their heads.

Defendent Shaheed Brown listens to trial testimony. (Gregg Slaboda - Trentonian)

The defense attorney, Edward Heyburn, said he was disappointed his client must remain behind bars until the retrial following what amounted to an "exhibition game."

Judge Andrew Smithson said Thursday it was "regrettable" that the jury was hung in the murder trial of former Newark gang member Shaheed Brown. Jurors were also hung in the recently concluded murder trial of Isiah Greene, who was tried down the hallway from Brown.

The retired judge had told jurors – perhaps improperly – during his charge prior to the start of their deliberations he had already come to a decision about whether Brown fatally shot Enrico Smalley Jr. outside of crime-ridden La Guira Bar in the early-morning hours of July 12, 2014.

“It’s a shame,” Smithson said. “It’s an easy case that did not have a lot of moving parts. I though you would have a verdict in hours. You have gone as far as you can. Don’t go drive yourself insane. I don’t take these things home with me. You made a decision, and we all have to live with it.”

Edward Heyburn

Brown will have to live with it, too, until at least April 2016 – a tentative date prosecutors have asked for in the second trial.

“Extremely disappointed,” said Heyburn, who put on a third-party guilt defense blaming another man, Alvie “King” Vereen, for Smalley’s murder. “I was hoping to have my client home by this week.”

Family members of Smalley, the victim, were heard outside the courtroom wailing. Smalley’s godmother, Michelle Jones, sat stone-faced in the halls.

“It’s not the best out of the day because we have to start all over,” she said. “But at the end, I rather have a hung jury rather than not guilty. We’ll do this again.”

Assistant Prosecutor Brian McCauley, flushed in the face and frustrated with the non-decision, could only shake his head. He didn’t know what jurors thought or didn’t think. especially when they refused to speak to a Trentonian reporter following their announcement.

“They didn’t see the same trial I did because if they did he would be convicted right now,” he said. “I cannot understand how they reached any other conclusion.”

That was the problem. They didn’t. And jurors would not explain the reasons why they were deadlocked, leaving everyone around them reading the tea leaves.

The Trentonian approached each of the 12 jurors for comment as left the courthouse in a group. But they all either ignored a reporter or made a series of terse comments that had nothing to do with the verdict.

One female juror told a reporter to, “Take a hike, dude.”

This happened moments after Judge Smithson chastised The Trentonian in front of jurors for publishing an article about a secret conversation he had with a male juror, Mark Nalbone, on Wednesday about a conversation he had heard Heyburn have with his client’s family.

Nalbone said to a reporter on his way out: “Not laughing now.”

He was referring to a Trentonian reporter chuckling at Judge Smithson’s public disavowal, which dissuaded jurors from discussing their deliberations over the last three and a half days.

Jurors were handed the case Monday following closing arguments from opposing attorneys.

Virtually out of the gates, the jury appeared deadlocked, asking the judge to send it home early Tuesday, their first full day of deliberations, following days of key testimony from witnesses Melissa Brown, former Trenton state prison guard Kenneth Crawford, city resident Phillip Hedgepath and bar bouncer Kevin Cole.

Brown testified she saw the “fire” coming from the gun, but did not get a glimpse of the shooter’s face.

The testimony of Crawford, the state’s star witness, was inconclusive at best. He said he was parked across the street in his SUV at the time of the shooting but that his view of the incident was obstructed by a vehicle.

McCauley introduced Crawford’s 911 tape to jurors in which he gave a detailed account of the shooting and the shooter. The former Trenton prison guard described the shooter as black man with dreadlocks, standing 6 feet tall, and wearing a light-colored shirt. He said the shooter was standing over Smalley, pumping rounds. But he admitted after reading newspaper coverage, he had mistaken Smalley, the victim, for the shooter.

Both Brown and Smalley had dreadlocks.

Brown, who was accompanied by several men to the bar, was captured by surveillance wearing a white shirt. He also appeared to be wearing a black glove on his right hand moments before the shooting.

Hedgepath testified the black glove unsettled him as he saw at least three men wearing black gloves. He said he knew people to wear gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints.

Hedgepath and Cole appeared to give prosecutors their motive, describing an encounter between Brown and Smalley’s people at La Guira Bar the week before the murder. It wasn’t clear whether Smalley was present from the testimony.

But Cole testified he broke up the fight and watched from inside the bar as the men chased Brown from the bar.

McCauley said in his closing argument Brown was out for revenge when he was seen on tape lurking outside the bar. Heyburn countered there was no proof his client killed Smalley and that it was more likely Vereen was the shooter.

As proof, he pointed to Vereen stepping off camera for four seconds prior to the shooting and then appearing to tuck something in his waistband as he fled.

The jury was unable to come to sort through it all.

“I think a couple of the jurors were stuck on the evidence that my client had a glove,” Heyburn said. “They extrapolated he had to be the shooter.

“If the glove wasn’t in this case,” Heyburn said, harkening back to a statement from famed attorney Johnnie Cochran, “they would have acquitted.”

Raheem Currie walked into the second floor of the Mercer County criminal courthouse Wednesday sporting a crisp black suit. He carried in his right hand a matching briefcase.

James Austin with his twin daughters.

It was the attire of a business executive not of a man on bail accused of murder. Looks can be deceiving, said retired Trenton cop Luddie Austin.

Nestling down next to his mother outside Courtroom 2C, Currie sat stone-faced on a bench, staring straight ahead of him. Twenty-five feet to his left sat Luddie Austin, the father of 18-year-old James Austin.

Currie is one of two men charged with murder in James Austin’s death. The shooter, Robert Bartley, has accepted a 25-year plea offer for aggravated manslaughter and will testify against Currie at trial, whenever that is.

Currie is accused of calling Bartley and driving him over to James Austin’s home to settle his “ongoing beef.”

An awkward silence overtook the bowels of the courthouse before Currie’s attorney, Jack Furlong, entered and broke it, remarking on his client’s polished look.

It didn’t sit well with Luddie Austin.

Luddie Austin on A&E's "Manhunter: Fugitive Task Force"

“The defendant’s attorney can walk in and joke about how his client looks good in a suit,” Austin said. “The last time I seen my son in a suit, I had to bury him.”

Judge Robert Billmeier held a pretrial conference Wednesday, but he did not set the matter down for trial because of the impending retirement of Assistant Prosecutor Lewis Korngut.

Assistant Prosecutor James Scott is taking over the case. But he was not present for the pretrial conference.

Billmeier reluctantly went ahead with the pretrial conference in Scott’s absence after opposing attorneys agreed Korngut could stand in for Scott.

Earlier, Korngut told the family Scott would handle the pretrial conference and he would only be standing in attendance. He assured the Austin family that Scott would treat the case with as much care as he has.

Moments before the start of the proceeding, Korngut appeared frustrated, tossing his cell phone on the prosecutor’s table. He was overheard telling a sheriff’s officer, “It’s his trial; it’s not my trial.” It was unclear if he was angered Scott had not shown up.

Upon entering the courtroom, Billmeier summoned attorneys to sidebar while one of his staff members passed out what appeared to be a prospective list of jury questions. Currie was sitting in the defendant’s chair while this took place.

Then Billmeier took the bench.

“Why don’t we bring out the defendant,” Billmeier said to his sheriff’s detail.

Austin’s family did not react, sitting blankly in the second row of benches in the courtroom gallery. It was an awkward moment that seemed to confirm Luddie Austin’s criticism that Currie should not be freely walking the streets while he is charged with murder.

“You have a judge who refuses to set a bail in the appropriate guidelines,” Austin said in an Oct. 22 interview with The Trentonian.

Luddie Austin could only shrug his shoulders afterward.

“It’s not our family’s fault the jail is overcrowded and people are not afraid to commit crime,” he said. “They know they’re gonna walk the streets for three, four, five years before anything happens to them.”

All James Austin’s relatives want is justice, which they say has been delayed. Sometimes the homicidal thought of street justice passes through Luddie Austin’s mind. It’s proof of his humanity. And proof that under the right circumstances, those who for decades enforced the law can just as easily be pushed to break it.

“I can’t tell you the things I want to do to him,” Luddie Austin said before departing the courthouse. “But I can’t. I gotta live for my family.”

Trust me, Assistant Prosecutor James Scott said, those hundreds of pages of discovery in this murder case do not contain new information.

“Or if there is new information, it’s minor new information,” Scott said at a pretrial hearing Wednesday.

Maurice Skillman

Hykeem Tucker

That was easy for Scott to say. He has been assigned the murder case of Maurice Skillman and Hykeem Tucker since its inception. Skillman’s attorneys were reassigned the case early this year, following the retirement of Vernon Clash, formerly the deputy public defender for Mercer County.

On the other hand, Scott was called Nov. 11, 2011 to the Baldassari Regency banquet hall in Chambersburg, the site of a grisly murder scene where off-duty Mercer County corrections officer Carl Batie was shot in the head while attending a reelection party for President Barack Obama.

Skillman and Tucker, charged with Batie’s murder, were scheduled for trial Nov. 30 before Judge Robert Billmeier.

But for the second time this week, Billmeier was forced to postpone a murder trial after prosecutors were late turning over reports, notes and documents they said were “duplicative” of evidence turned over years ago.

Famed New Jersey criminal defense attorney Richie Roberts’ three-month suspension, effective later this month, also required the judge to postpone the murder trial of three men who were expected to be tried together in January for the murder of Dardar Paye, a Liberian immigrant and U.S. Army veteran.

Carl Batie

Skillman and Tucker could be tried in January instead.

Defense attorneys Nicole Carlo and Jason Matey, who represent Skillman, asked for an adjournment so they could pour through CDs containing hundreds of pages of documents related to the case.

Tucker’s attorney, Christopher Campbell, said that while he was not opposed to an adjournment, he was not joining his counterparts in asking for one. He said he reviewed the documents turned over earlier this month and felt they were not relevant to the case he plans to put on in defense of his client.

Billmeier asked Carlo if she would have enough time to review the materials considering she would does not have to appear before judges the week of Thanksgiving because of an upcoming conference for judges. She said that she could but she could not expect her investigators to work through the holiday.

“While I have been eating breakfast, lunch and dinner with my case, it’s the other moving parts,” she said.

Keith Day

Two Trenton Police officers involved in a 2013 non-fatal shooting have been cleared of any wrongdoing by the county prosecutor’s office, and the case will not be presented to a grand jury.

The shooting happened around 11:45 p.m. on July 14, 2013. According to a report released by the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office, police were dispatched to Hudson Street to investigate shots reportedly fired in the area. When the two officers arrived, the report states, they say a man, later identified as Keith Day, standing outside of a red Toyota Corolla, which was parked at a 45-degree angle at the intersection of Hudson and Tyler streets.

The report says the officers heard a gunshot and saw the muzzle flash of a weapon that was fired near a group of people who were standing in front of a nearby house. The officers then jumped out of their patrol car, and one of them noticed Day had a gun in his hand. The report says one officer ordered Day to drop the gun, but was ignored. That officer told investigators he heard two more gunshots and saw a muzzle flash from Day’s gun, which was pointed at the other officer.

The second officer, who had ducked behind a tree, reported seeing Day hop into the Corolla and then raise both hands as if he was firing a gun. That officer also said Day was pointing a dark-colored handgun in the direction of the first officer.

When asked via email whether Day had two guns during the shooting, a spokesperson from the county prosecutor’s office replied, “I don’t have that answer.”

Both officers reported that Day drove the Corolla in their direction, and one further stated that Day continued to point the gun in his direction as he drove toward him. The second officer said he fired two shots into the driver’s side of the Corolla. The first officer reportedly fired three shots.

Day continued driving after being shot by police, and he later walked into Lourdes Hospital in Willingboro seeking treatment for gunshots wounds.

The report says formal statements were taken from Day, his girlfriend and both TPD officers. The prosecutor’s office concluded that both officers acted to protect themselves and each other, and used an acceptable level of force. The New Jersey Office of the Attorney General agreed with the findings. The names of the officers involved in the shooting have not been released.

Day, of Franklinville, was murdered in May 2014. He was found lying on an East Hanover Street sidewalk suffering from multiple gunshots wounds; he later died at the hospital. To date, no suspects have been arrested in connection with Day’s death.

Police investigate a murder on Division Street. November 24, 2015 (Penny Ray - Trentonian)

A man was shot and killed Tuesday morning, ending a two-month break from homicides in the city.

“There was some type of gun battle out here last night,” a man who was at the murder scene Tuesday said. “But by the time cops got here, the suspects had fled. Police searched the area and couldn't find anything, so they went on their way. People came out at six o’clock this morning to go to work and they found the kid lying in front of that car over there.”

Elvin Kimble, 19, was found dead behind a home in the 700 block of Division Street around 6:15 a.m. Tuesday. Authorities have not confirmed the exact time that he was shot, but police say officers were dispatched to the intersection of Rusling Street and Chestnut Avenue to investigate a reported shooting around 12:30 a.m. Police say they found evidence of a shooting in that area, but did not find a victim.

Then, about six hours later, police received a call reporting a bullet hole in a vehicle that was parked on Rusling Street. While investigating that matter, police received a call reporting a dead body behind a house on Division Street.

Elvin Kimble

The location of the 12:30 a.m. shooting is about a block away from where Kimble was found dead. A spokesperson with the Mercer County Prosecutor's Office said it appears that Kimble was shot near the intersection of Rusling and Chestnut, and then managed to run to Division Street where he collapsed and was hidden by a van. Officials also say the incident appears to have been a shootout between at least two people who were on opposite sides of Rusling Street. Police found multiple shell casings in the area, and several vehicles were struck by gunfire. No additional victims had been found by press time.

One of Kimble's friends confirmed that he was involved in a gun battle early Tuesday morning, and said she saw him with a gun in his hand. Another witness described the shooting as sounding "like fireworks," and said she heard about 15 to 20 gunshots.

Kimble was arrested in September for drug possession. Police noticed him on the front porch of an abandoned property on Hewitt Street, and when officers approached him, Kimble allegedly tried to hide crack cocaine in his pocket.

Anyone with information about Kimble’s murder is asked to call the Mercer County Homicide Task Force at (609) 989-6406 or contact the Trenton Police confidential tip line at (609) 989-3663. Individuals may also call the Trenton Crime Stoppers tip line at (609) 278-8477. Those wishing to text a tip can send a message labeledTCSTIPS to Trenton Crime Stoppers at 274637.

-Trentonian reporter Isaac Avilucea contributed to this report.

Retired Trenton cop Mickey Forker watches as police investigate the murder of Elvin Kimble in Chambersburg. (Isaac Avilucea - Trentonian)

For more than 30 years, old-timey Trenton cop Mickey Forker raced toward violence in the capital city in his “wagon.”

In the early-morning hours Tuesday, the violence came to him.

“Chambersburg used to be spotless,” said Forker, a retired Trenton Police officer who has lived in a sparsely furnished apartment on Division Street for 20 years. “Now you have a lot of shootings going on in Chambersburg.”

Firefighters were called Tuesday afternoon to a gruesome scene. They hosed down the blood-stained concrete outside of a home on 700 Division Street, hours after a gun battle claimed the life of 19-year-old Elvin Kimble. His killer or killers remain on the prowl.

The gunshots had faded, but Kimble’s family was still shell-shocked.

“I’ve been changing his diapers since he was 1 year old,” Tanya Smith, Kimble’s aunt, said at the scene.

Shards of glass were scattered on Rusling Street, feet from where a bullet grazed a resident’s black car. The man stood outside in the street with his friend, changing a flat tire that was also struck in the crossfire.

Witnesses said they heard as many as 20 shots, including a round that shook residences streets over. A woman said it sounded like a shotgun blast.

The cops had been called to this Chambersburg neighborhood hours earlier on a report of gunfire. Officers found nothing. Kimble wasn’t discovered until hours later, around 6 a.m.

Forker said he knows why – the boys in blue are overworked.

“You’re 150 cops short in the city right now,” he said. “I feel bad for them. They’re out here working 12 hours shift. They’re very shorthanded. They go from one job to the next.

“They’ll arrest a guy, they’ll process him, and they’re out on the street before the ink dries. It takes two years for them to go to trial. They’re out doing the same thing. That’s like, ‘I’m the garbage man, and I pick up the garbage and throw it in that garbage can.’ An hour later, they throw it back out again. That’s the best metaphor I have for the criminal justice system.”

People poured out of their homes and into the streets, shouting there were two bodies. It was hard to separate fact from fiction until a medical examiner’s van arrived and hauled off only Kimble’s body.

Staked out at the scene, Forker greeted his former compatriots as they arrived.

The city’s latest murder shattered two months of peace. For Forker, it was proof the city he once knew and proudly patrolled has seen better days.

“Mercer County – and I got to say this – is the dumping ground for all these people that the townships don’t want,” Forker said. “I’m gonna use the word dysfunction and undesirable to describe a certain group of people. You see guys with four, five felonies who are back on the street again.”

Police look for clues at a fatal shooting scene in Martin Luther King Jr. Park in Trenton. (Gregg Slaboda - Trentonian)

A man was murdered Wednesday afternoon in Martin Luther King Jr. Park, bringing this year's homicide toll to 19.

Breion Greenfield, 30, was shot around 4:30 p.m. Wednesday in the 600 block of Southard Street.

Martin Luther King Jr. Park is located near the intersection of Southard Street and Brunswick Avenue. Detectives were on-scene Wednesday using flashlights to search the park for evidence, occasionally placing cones next to potential clues. Investigators also used metal detectors to search the grass for shell casings.

A man was tinting windows on Proctor Avenue, about 50 yards away from where gunfire erupted in the park. He said he heard about five gunshots but didn't react. "I guess I'm just used to it," he said.

Detectives use flashlights to investigate a murder in Martin Luther King Jr. Park. November 25, 2015 (Isaac Avilucea - Trentonian)

Police did not disclose how many times Greenfield was struck, but sources say he was shot at least once in the chest.

Breion Greenfield is the cousin of Jamer Greenfield who was shot and killed in July last year.

"First my son, and now my nephew; this is too much," Talaya Greenfield told The Trentonian.

A repeat felony offender with an extensive rap sheet, Breion Greenfield was expected to testify as a state witness in the upcoming murder trial of Mikal Bush, who is accused of gunning down Hassan "Fozz" Peters in 2008.

Greenfield’s aunt lived a door down from where Peters was shot on Bellevue Avenue, a place Greenfield often visited. Prosecutors believe Peters was an innocent bystander, caught in the crossfire of Bush’s alleged retaliation plot.

At a pretrial hearing earlier this year, Greenfield testified that he used a 9mm handgun to rob Bush of heroin, a watch and $450 in cash the same day Peters was killed.

“I want Fozz’s mom to know the truth,” Greenfield said in July. “It’s my fault. If it wasn’t for me, he’d still be alive. I did something I had no business doing. Fozz got shot over it.”

Bush, who is free on $600,000 bail, has maintained his innocence in Peters' slaying. His trial is scheduled for May 2016.

Police have not named any suspects in Breion Greenfield's murder. He was never charged for the robbery involving Bush because the statue of limitations expired, officials said. But Greenfield was arrested and charged in a separate armed robbery in July. Police say he pointed an imitation Uzi handgun at a 37-year-old man in the 500 block of Union Street and demanded money. He was found a short time later on Federal Street where officers discovered the fake gun inside his sports utility vehicle.

Days later, Greenfield escaped from custody. Wearing only a hospital gown, socks and handcuffs, Greenfield escaped the clutches of corrections officers while at Capital Health Regional Medical Center in Trenton, where he was taken for unspecified medical attention. After wriggling one of his hands free from the shackles, Greenfield led authorities on a chase through the city, breaking the window of a home on Nassau Street. He forced his way into the second story of a home on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard before he was apprehended.

Wednesday's murder marks the second homicide in two days. On Tuesday morning, 19-year-old Elvin Kimble was killed during a shootout in Chambersburg.

So far this year, 19 people have been killed within the capital city, which includes two people who died by vehicular homicide.

Anyone with information about Wednesday’s murder is asked to call the Mercer County Homicide Task Force at (609) 989-6406 or contact the Trenton Police confidential tip line at (609) 989-3663. Individuals may also call the Trenton Crime Stoppers tip line at (609) 278-8477. Those wishing to text a tip can send a message labeledTCSTIPS to Trenton Crime Stoppers at 274637.

-Trentonian reporter Isaac Avilucea contributed to this report.