DUBLIN — The murder trial for an Oakland man will come down to whether jurors accept his claim that he was justified when he shot and killed a man outside of a San Leandro bar two years ago.
Louis Ray Woods III, 35, is not contesting that he possessed an unregistered, unserialized AR-15-style rifle in a backpack at Cunha’s Cocktail Lounge in San Leandro, nor that he pulled out the gun and fatally shot Brian Antonio Marquis Moore on the night of March 25, 2022. But Woods testified during his murder trial that he was simply hoping to scare Moore away after hearing someone in the crowd outside of the cocktail lounge scream, “Oh s—, he’s got a gun.”
On Wednesday, jurors heard conflicting versions of events in the leadup to Moore’s death, with prosecutors painting Woods as angry and out for revenge, simply because Woods’ father had assaulted Moore minutes earlier inside the bar. Woods’ lawyer told the jury that there was ample evidence that Moore had a firearm, based in part from testimony by Woods’ dad, who claimed he saw a man run up and take a gun off of Moore’s body before police arrived.
Deputy District Attorney Edward McGarvey told jurors that Woods was intent on looking like a “tough guy” in front of his father and their friends that evening, and needlessly escalated the situation. He said that Moore was running away from the bar when Woods fired the rifle at him for no reason.
“The truth is he wanted to kill him,” McGarvey told jurors on Wednesday morning. “He let his anger get the best of him.”
If jurors, who began deliberating Thursday, wholly agree with McGarvey’s arguments, they’ll convict Woods of first-degree murder. They have other options besides an outright acquittal, including a second-degree murder or voluntary manslaughter verdict.
Woods’ lawyer, Darryl Stallworth, told the jury that Moore was the one who was out for revenge, after Woods’ father beat him up. He said Moore’s blood-alcohol level was three times the legal limit and that he’d been ejected from the bar and reluctantly let back in earlier in the evening.
“He’s drunk and he’s pissed,” Stallworth said. Later adding, “If you see a gun, you don’t have to wait for it to come up. You don’t have to wait for it to be fired.”
But McGarvey argued that Woods was trying to come up with a “phantom gun” to justify his actions, and that he wasn’t acting like a person whose life had been in danger. Rather than returning home, Woods checked into a Motel 6 with his girlfriend that night, and when the cops finally caught up with him he allegedly denied being at the bar. It was only during his trial, after he’d reviewed the prosecution’s evidence establishing him as the shooter, that he came up with a self-defense story, McGarvey said.
Woods’ girlfriend, Antioch resident Jennifer Glaze, 32, was charged with accessory after the fact. Those charges are still pending, and her case was severed from Woods’ just before trial, court records show.
Stallworth countered that Woods was simply uncooperative, not outright dishonest, during his police interview because he felt “funky” about the way police had arrested him. He said that it was hard for jurors to understand Woods’ upbringing, that he’d witnessed shootings, even killings, and been shot at before.
McGarvey said that the weapon used to kill Moore — an “assault rifle” with two 30-round magazines and a 50-round drum magazine — was not the type of weapon one carries on them for self-defense.
“When you bring an assault rifle to a bar in a backpack and you shoot a man who is running away, that’s not self-defense,” McGarvey said. He later added, “Marquis Moore is not on trial…At the end of the day, Mr. Moore didn’t do anything to deserve getting shot that night.”
During his closing argument, Stallworth argued the size of the magazines in Woods’ possession actually bolstered the defense theory. He said that Woods could have fired dozens of shots at Moore, but only five casings were found at the scene.
“He didn’t empty the clip, he fired just enough to deal with the danger,” Stallworth said.