BRYAN, Texas (AP) - A former Marine was acquitted Wednesday in the stabbing death of a Rice University basketball player during a 2007 fight outside a College Station bar.
A Brazos County jury found Ronald Andrew Johnson not guilty in Jonathan Bailey's death and of the aggravated assault of Bailey's twin brother, Janson, The Bryan-College Station Eagle and The Beaumont Enterprise reported. Janson Bailey suffered a punctured lung and gash in his side in the fight.
Johnson faced up to a 99-year sentence for the murder charge.
Defense attorneys said Johnson stabbed the brothers in self-defense. They said he was trying to save his brother, Michael Fuller, who was being beaten by the twins.
"Every death is a tragedy, but this tragedy is not a crime," said defense attorney Murray Newman.
Prosecutors argued that Johnson and Fuller and the Bailey twins were engaged in a typical bar fight. They said Johnson escalated it by pulling out a knife.
"It was a bar fight; we have them all the time. People call the cops; it's a misdemeanor," said Assistant District Attorney Jarvis Parsons. "The only person that introduced a knife here is Ronald Johnson. You don't do that - especially when you are drinking."
Under Texas law, deadly force is allowed to protect a third party if a person reasonably believes that force is immediately necessary to protect from death or serious bodily injury.
The jury was told to consider whether a reasonable person who knew and understood what Johnson did would have felt that such force was necessary to defend Fuller.
Jonathan Bailey, a transfer from Texas State and a graduate of West Brook High School in Beaumont, was a walk-on sophomore basketball player for Rice, located in Houston.
In his first season of eligibility with the Owls, Bailey played 10 minutes over four games, scoring four points. He had one assist. He didn't play during the 2005-06 season.
Johnson, who served in Iraq, is now a junior at Texas A&M. Since the stabbing, Fuller has served his fourth tour in Iraq as a Marine and has passed an exam to become a firefighter.
During closing arguments, Fuller sat behind Johnson, with about six men in military uniforms behind him. When the verdict was read, Johnson's lawyers patted him on the back and shook his hand. His parents cried silently behind him.
Janson Bailey, now a high school teacher in Beaumont, watched the closing arguments with his mother and brothers. They quietly left the courtroom after the verdict was read.
The Byran College-Station Eagle reported that both families declined to comment after the trial.
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Information from: The Bryan-College Station Eagle
Information from: The Beaumont Enterprise
(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
