A man stood by his self-defense story when he pleaded guilty this week to fatally shooting a driver sitting in a van two years ago in North Charleston.
Isaac Johnathan Deas, 26, is expected to spend only a few more months behind bars for a three-year prison sentence. Deas admitted to voluntary manslaughter when he shot Jean James Jacques, 27.
Deas’ "Alford plea" allowed him to maintain his innocence while acknowledging that prosecutors might be able to convict him of a crime at trial.
A witness also backed the West Ashley resident’s account of what happened on Aug. 29, 2015.
“He felt in danger for his life that day,” his attorney, Glenn Churchill of Daniel Island, said. “We thought justice was accomplished in this case.”
As an employee of his family’s construction business, Deas was working at a residential job site on North Charleston’s Bramble Boulevard, Assistant Solicitor Burns Wetmore said.
North Charleston Police Department detectives said Jacques was sitting in a van when Deas walked up while pointing a gun and shot him.
They said Deas then drove home and told his mother that he had shot someone. He gave her the .357-caliber revolver and later turned himself in to the police.
Deas insisted to authorities that Jacques had driven by the construction site several times before stopping and confronting him with a gun. An eyewitness told a similar story, agreeing that Deas had fired in self-defense.
Though there was hostility between the two, the nature of their dispute was unclear, Wetmore said. The victim had a history of drug, robbery and assault convictions. Deas had no criminal record.
“The defendant has always maintained that he shot the victim in self-defense,” the prosecutor said.
Because Deas' account could not be disproved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt, Wetmore said he agreed to a guilty plea on the manslaughter charge, which carries between two and 30 years in prison. Opposing attorneys negotiated a sentence of no more than 10 years.
Circuit Judge Markley Dennis settled on a three-year term Monday.
Deas already has served two years and one month since his arrest. Because the law requires someone to serve 85 percent of such a prison sentence, Deas could be freed in about five months.
He was transferred this week to a state prison, where officials had not calculated his release date.