Bounty Hunters— a subset of the Bloods gang that enforces the gang’s rules,Ronald Derrick McConnell was found innocent

Ronald Derrick McConnell was found innocent of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder by a Howard County Circuit Court jury late Thursday night.After a trial that began March 24 and included testimony of gang-related ties, the jury returned its verdict about 10:15 p.m. Thursday after two days of deliberations. It also found McConnell innocent of three counts of first-degree assault and three counts of attempted armed robbery.
But McConnell, 21, of no fixed address, was found guilty of conspiracy to commit armed robbery, illegal possession of a firearm and possession of an unregistered firearm, the state's attorney's office said Friday morning.Judge Lenore Gelfman set McConnell’s sentencing for May 29. McConnell remains in the custody of the Howard County Department of Corrections pending sentencing, according to a spokesman for the state's attorney's office.
He faces up to 25 years in prison, a state's attorney's office spokesman said.McConnell had been charged with first-degree murder in the death of Jason Batts, of Long Reach. Batts, 23, was shot to death May 17, 2008, in the parking lot of an Oakland Mills apartment complex.Spencer Gordon, McConnell’s attorney, said after the trial that while prosecutors and police amassed a tremendous amount of evidence to get a murder conviction, his client’s involvement in the killing was peripheral.“I had a guy who really didn’t kill anyone,” Gordon said. “Whatever his involvement it was before the crime.“It somehow bothered me that he could go to prison for the rest of his life for what he did.”Gordon added that despite all the evidence, the prosecution’s case had fundamental flaws.
“There was such a sense of urgency on their part that they exuded a sense of desperation," Gordon said of the prosecutors. “They huffed and they puffed but they couldn’t blow their house down.”Prosecutors declined to comment, through a spokesman.
In closing arguments on Wednesday, prosecution and defense attorneys argued over whether McConnell planned and helped execute a gangland slaying in Columbia in May 2008 or whether he was an innocent bystander in a robbery organized by others. The case went to the jury on Wednesday afternoon.
Assistant State’s Attorney Colleen McGuinn told jurors Wednesday that McConnell, a member of the Bloods gang, brought in Lamont Johnson to deal with Elijah Jackson, 23, of Columbia, who McConnell believed had informed on him in a separate case. Johnson, 24, of Owings Mills, was a member of the Bounty Hunters— a subset of the Bloods gang that enforces the gang’s rules— McGuinn said.
“You can’t start a fire without a spark, and this man started it,” she said, referring to McConnell.But Gordon argued that the plan was initiated by Johnson, who was looking for somebody to rob in order to get bail money. Johnson made the first call to McConnell on the day of the shooting and subsequently organized the robbery, Gordon said.“He didn’t call Lamont Johnson; Lamont Johnson called him,” Gordon said of McConnell.Police have identified Johnson as the trigger man in the shooting. His first-degree murder trial is scheduled to begin Aug. 7.The murder trial of a third man police say was involved in the killing, 18-year-old Daymar Wimbish, is scheduled to begin May 11.Earlier in McConnell’s trial, which began March 24, McConnell testified that he did not order the robbery or shooting.He did admit to sawing off the shotgun used in the shooting and taping up a broken piece of the gun, and to being in repeated contact with Johnson on the day of the shooting.“I participated in taping the shotgun up, yes ma’am,” McConnell told McGuinn during cross-examination Tuesday.
Prosecutors have argued throughout the trial that McConnell organized the group that shot Batts and that Elijah Jackson, 23, of Columbia, was the intended target because he had cooperated with police against McConnell in a separate case. They say Batts was mistakenly shot and that the killing was a gangland slaying gone awry.Under cross-examination Tuesday, McConnell also told McGuinn that informers known as “snitches” were unacceptable to the members of the Bloods gang to which he belonged.Also on Tuesday, Jackson took the stand and denied that he had informed on McConnell in a separate case. He accused prosecutors of slandering him by calling him an informer.Jackson testified that he and McConnell got into a fight at a Columbia bar days before the shooting because McConnell had called him a snitch. “I hit him,” Jackson said.Jackson also described a phone call following the fight in which he said he ended his friendship with McConnell. He confessed to being confused and emotional at the news that Batts— whom he described as his best friend— was killed.
“I knew it wasn’t supposed to be my friend who was supposed to be killed,” he said.Under cross-examination by Assistant State’s Attorney Lisa Broten, Jackson said he believed he was the intended target of the shooting.