Bowers sentenced to 15 years in Midnight Soul Patrol shooting
A St. Helena Island man was sentenced to 15 years in prison Wednesday following his conviction in a deadly 2012 shootout at an island nightclub that left two men dead and two others wounded.
Joseph David Bowers was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter in connection with the June 21, 2012, gun battle outside the Midnight Soul Patrol nightclub on Toomer Road.
Bowers, 29, had been charged with two counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder.
The 12-person jury found him not guilty of murder in connection with the death of Michael Douglas Morgan, but guilty of the lesser offense of voluntary manslaughter.
Bowers also was found not guilty of the attempted murder of Richard Earl Green Jr., but guilty of the lesser offense of assault and battery high and aggravated.
He was also found not guilty of the attempted murder of Robert Goodwine Jr. and guilty of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime.
Bowers had been charged with the murder of Dante Kendall Bailey, but the prosecution also dropped that charged on Wednesday.
Bowers shook his head and his shackles echoed in the courtroom as he was detained by a Beaufort County Detention Center officer. His fiancee, Megan Stone, among the dozen family and friends in court to support him, began sobbing.
"I didn't do anything. I don't understand why I'm in cuffs," Bowers said to Circuit Judge R. Markley Dennis Jr., before the sentence was announced.
"You had your day and now the jury has spoken," Dennis responded. "I find it to be a well-reasoned decision."
Bowers was sentenced to 15 years each on the voluntary manslaughter and assault and battery high and aggravated charges and five years for possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime.
Bowers will serve the sentences concurrently and be given credit for the five months he was held at the detention center following the shooting. He will serve 85 percent of his sentence before being eligible for parole.
"Clearly there is a lot of senseless violence all around," Fourteenth Circuit Assistant Solicitor Hunter Swanson said outside the courtroom. "We have to find a way to handle these club shootings where we're unsure whose bullet hit who. This is the first step."
In her closing arguments, defense attorney Trasi Campbell contended Bowers, who goes by the nickname Opie, acted in self defense when he stood over his friend Bailey, who had been shot dead, picked up the dead man's gun and began firing across the parking lot.
Swanson, however, argued it was not self defense, but a conscious decision to engage in mutual combat.
Swanson replayed a clip of a phone call from the detention center between Bowers and his fiancee.
"I ain't kill the boy," Bowers said in the call. "I only shoot the boy."
"God's got a plan for him; Opie found faith in the detention center," Swanson told jurors. "I'm pretty sure it was not in God's plan for him to leave three victims at the Midnight Soul Patrol. We have free will, and Opie made choices that night."
Lucas Miles Morgan was found not guilty two weeks ago of the same charges in connection with the shooting. The jury deadlocked on the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter in connection with the death of Bailey. Morgan will be retried at a later date.
"One chapter is closed," Swanson said of Bowers' convictions. "But we still have Lucas Morgan outstanding for voluntary manslaughter."
Follow reporter Laura Oberle at twitter.com/IPBG_Laura.
Related content:
- Prosecutors say jailhouse call proves Bowers shot someone at the Midnight Soul Patrol, Sept. 30, 2014
- Jury picked in second murder trial in Midnight Soul Patrol shooting, Sept. 29, 2014
- 2nd murder trial in Midnight Soul Patrol shooting begins Monday, Sept. 27, 2014
This story was originally published October 1, 2014 at 9:19 PM with the headline "Bowers sentenced to 15 years in Midnight Soul Patrol shooting."