By David Codrea
USA – -(Ammoland.com)- “A trial begins Monday for a man who claims he was acting in self-defense when he fatally shot the owner of a Shawnee gun store,” The Kansas City Star reported Monday. “De’Anthony Wiley is charged with felony first-degree murder in the January 2015 killing of Jon Bieker.”
While it’s understood that a lawyer’s job is to present the best defense, this is possibly the lowest legal tactic I’ve ever seen, and you can’t convince me that Lindsey Erickson, one of the attorneys representing Wiley, believes her own argument.
The circumstances directly leading to Bieker’s slaying aren’t even disputable, as a guilty verdict for one accomplice and a guilty plea from another leave no reasonable doubt. Just watch the video at the above link.
Per prior testimony, four predators invaded the She’s a Pistol gun store in Shawnee, pointed guns at Bieker’s wife Becky and punched her unconscious. Her husband rushed out from a back room, saw his wife on the floor and opened fire, hitting three, including Wiley.
Who wouldn’t react that way? Totally justifiable.
Wiley claims “he was on the ground, unable to move, and was attempting to give up.” But the gun store owner kept approaching and firing, so he was forced to kill him in self-defense.
So much for the “unable to move” part.
Besides which, per a prior report, one that said the judge would not allow a self-defense claim, “Prosecutors argued there was no evidence Wiley ever attempted to surrender, noting he continually fired his gun, even after he was on the ground. The judge also interjected that Wiley only stopped firing after his gun was empty.”
And there’s more information contradicting Wiley and Erickson:
“In her testimony, she said that when she came to, she saw Wiley reaching toward a gun on the ground. Becky Bieker testified that she told him to stop or she would shoot him. When he continued reaching, Becky Bieker said she fired at him as she was calling 911.”
If he was unable to move, he would not have been able to reach. And if she’d wanted him dead, he would have been.
And Wiley’s response? Trying to save himself by victimizing Becky and her husband again, and putting the blame on Jon Bieker for his own death…
Now we get to see if any on the jury will buy into the “self-defense” claim. Whether they will actually believe it is another story altogether.
The confusing thing here is, per the report from 2016, the judge “threw out Wiley’s self-defense claim.” I reached out to reporter Tony Rizzo for clarification:
“In 2016 you reported the judge denied the self-defense claim. Do you have a link to a subsequent report showing why it’s back on the table for a jury to consider?”
No response has been received at this writing. This report will be updated if/when one is received.
UPDATE— Response received:
”His attorneys were claiming that he was immune from being prosecuted at all because of self-defense. The judge denied that and kept the charges intact, but that ruling did not prevent the defense from arguing it to a jury.”
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating / defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament.
In addition to being a field editor/columnist at GUNS Magazine and associate editor for Oath Keepers, he blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
Funny! I thought so-called liberals didn’t like people being able to defend themselves. To hell with the robber’s self-defence plea. He went into that store to commit a crime, and probably kill the husband and wife if he could.
Where are all the feminazis? A woman was knocked out!!!!
Wow. That lawyer is going to give lawyers a bad name. Wait…
A picture is worth a thousand words.