Hawkins Jury Hears Closing Arguments : Must Weigh Conflicting Testimony in Gang-Linked Murder Trial

Contending that James Hawkins Jr. had no right to kill gang member Anttwon Thomas, even if Thomas was “a scummy guy,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Harvey Giss urged a Los Angeles County jury on Monday to convict Hawkins of second-degree murder.

“The defendant had no right to take his life,” Giss said as he began his closing arguments in the long-running murder trial. “No one, not the defendant nor the prosecutor, had the right.”

Hawkins, whose family drew national attention when the September, 1983, shooting precipitated two nights of gang violence against their home and business, is charged with having killed Thomas in cold blood during a struggle outside the Hawkins family’s Watts grocery store.

Shortly after the gang retaliations, but long before Hawkins’ arrest, Mayor Tom Bradley and police officials voiced support for the embattled family at a press conference at the grocery across from the Nickerson Gardens housing project.

The incident occurred, all sides agree, after Hawkins and his father, James Hawkins Sr., 75, broke up a fight outside the store in which Thomas and other youths were harassing a family riding bicycles along Imperial Highway.

Conflicting Testimony

As the jurors begin their deliberations, perhaps today if closing arguments are completed, they must weigh conflicting testimony concerning both Hawkins’ intent and whether he actually fired the shot that killed Thomas.

Giss, citing testimony from two witnesses and the position of the wound in Thomas’ chest, argued that Hawkins pulled the trigger on a sawed-off shotgun, which police have not recovered. Giss said Hawkins had fetched the gun from his camper, parked next to the grocery at Slater Avenue and Imperial Highway, and did not shoot Thomas until about 10 minutes after the altercation over the cyclists.

In her closing arguments, defense attorney Janis Rader stuck to her claim that Thomas shot himself accidentally with his own sawed-off shotgun that he pulled from his pants during the struggle moments after the bicycling incident.

Thomas, she argued, had motive to try to shoot Hawkins because “he (Hawkins) had just intervened in one of (his gang’s) attempted robberies.”

“There is only one reasonable conclusion,” she said, “and that is that Mr. Hawkins is innocent.”

The jury’s verdict may hinge on the credibility of two prosecution eyewitnesses. Ed Lewis, 27, said he was in the neighborhood to deliver a cat to a family in Nickerson Gardens, and Frank Singleton Jr., 14, testified that he was playing video games in the Hawkins’ arcade next to the grocery when the shot rang out.

‘I’ll Teach You’

Giss said Lewis “clearly saw the defendant go back to his camper . . . (and) the defendant had that gun in his possession at all times.” Singleton, meanwhile, swore that Hawkins told Thomas, “I’ll teach you to talk like that,” just before the shooting, Giss reminded the jury.

Rader later questioned the reliability of both witnesses. Lewis, she said, was too far away--about 80 yards from the store--to see the incident clearly. And Singleton, she said, gave “rehearsed” testimony that probably was swayed by his friendships with other neighborhood youths.

Giss, for his part, attacked contradictions in trial testimony from Hawkins family members, including its patriarch, James Hawkins Sr.

“You get the feeling there is a conspiracy here to manufacture evidence (by family members),” he charged.