Arizonan Guilty of Shooting Politician Over Ballpark Tax

A homeless man was convicted Monday of shooting and wounding a county supervisor because she supported a tax that helped fund a new baseball stadium.

The defendant, Larry Naman, acted as his own attorney in a bizarre trial that had him urging jurors to deadlock so his case could be heard by another judge.

After three days of deliberation, the Superior Court jury convicted Naman of attempted murder, rejecting a lesser offense. He faces seven to 21 years in prison.

Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox, who testified during the trial, suffered no permanent injury when she was shot in the pelvis as she left a Board of Supervisors meeting Aug. 13. Naman was arrested at the scene.

Naman, 50, said Wilcox was just one of the people he wanted to shoot over the tax that helped build Bank One Ballpark. The tax was passed without the approval of voters.

But Judge Michael O. Wilkinson prevented Naman from using the tax as his defense.

Naman alluded to the tax repeatedly in his opening and closing statements and when he called himself to the stand. “Violence was justified in this case,” he said. “I became very convinced of that.”

Jurors said they understood Naman’s explanation that the shooting was political but didn’t accept that as a justification. “He should’ve done it some other way,” said juror April Stoltz of Phoenix. “You don’t take somebody else’s life into your own hands.”