BY JILL McCARTNEY
SALISBURY POST

Two families sat in a Rowan County courtroom Friday awaiting the fate of Joseph Alexander III, who admits killing a man while he was waiting to be sentenced for another shooting.

As members of his family watched along with the dead man’s family, Joseph Worley Alexander III, 21, pleaded guilty to murdering Gerald Allen Mason as part of a plea agreement with the District Attorney’s office.

“A guy who shoots two people ought not to get out of prison,” District Attorney Bill Kenerly told Mason’s family after Friday’s hearing.

But earlier, he explained to the family and Superior Court Judge W. Erwin Spainhour that the case his office had 112 years ago is not the case prosecutors have now. During the hearing, Kenerly said that statements witnesses gave police in July 1999 do not match what they are saying now.

Kenerly and Assistant District Attorney Cynthia Barnhill, who were scheduled to prosecute Alexander on a first-degree murder charge next week, agreed to allow Alexander to plead guilty to second-degree murder with a minimum sentence of 14 years and 8 months. The most Alexander will serve is 18 years and 5 months, according to the agreement.

At Friday’s hearing, Salisbury Police Detective Shelia Lingle testified that on July 2, 1999, a fight broke out on Knox Street between what she termed “west side, Salisbury and east-side, East Spencer gangs.”

Witnesses told investigators that after a fight at a local club earlier that night, Alexander had said someone was going to die that night. Mason was not at the night club but was present later in the evening when the two groups met on Knox Street.

According to Lingle, witnesses said Mason and the east-side group went from 29 Knox St. to 39 Knox St. where Alexander and the west-side group were. After exchanging words, the east-side group returned to 29 Knox Street and someone began shooting.

Lingle testified there was no indication that Alexander was aiming to hit any one person but did shoot into the crowd of men.

Alexander’s defense attorneys, Carlyle Sherrill and Gary Rhodes, called Mike Adkins, a local attorney who represented Alexander in 1999 on another case.

Adkins testified that Alexander had been charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to inflict serious injury after a drive-by shooting in January 1998. When first arrested, Alexander was provided with a court-appointed attorney.

After he did not appear at his hearing, Alexander was arrested and jailed under what Adkins termed a high bond. At this point, Alexander’s family hired Adkins.

Alexander pleaded guilty to the charge and was released under a $10,000 bond, while he awaited his sentencing.

Prosecutor Barnhill pointed out under cross examination that Alexander hadn’t been sentenced in the first assault when Mason was shot in the summer of 1999.

Shortly after he was charged with Mason’s murder, he appeared in court on the assault charges.

Rhodes attempted to paint a picture for the judge of Alexander’s past. Rhodes spoke of a young man who grew up in “rough circumstances.” He described Alexander as a man of limited education who was seduced by the lifestyle “so many of our folks are seduced by.” He said that certainly this is a sad result of a confrontation.

Rhodes said the defense held that there was provocation involved in the shooting of Mason.

“He’s very sorry for what happened,” Sherrill said in closing.

After the defense rested, Judge Spainhour allowed members of Mason’s family — more than 10 gathered in the courtroom Friday — to address Alexander and the court.

“I’m not the person who has to judge you,” Mason’s aunt Arlene Imes said to Alexander. “You had the choice not to pick up a weapon and shoot.”

Addressing Spainhour, Imes said, “He shot once. He shot twice. What else will he do?”

“I accept his apology,” Angela Sifford, another aunt told Spainhour. “But no matter how much time he gets, it won’t be enough.”

April Weeks, Mason’s cousin, explained that her children’s father was not around and that Mason had been helping raise them. “All my kids had to look up to was him,” she said through tears.

In his closing statements, Kenerly, the district attorney, said all the witnesses his office interviewed indicated that Mason had not been a part of the gangs. “He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Kenerly said.

Of the plea agreement, Kenerly said, “I certainly don’t conclude that 14 years is an appropriate trade for someone’s life.”

Barnhill closed by pointing out the similarities between both of Alexander’s shootings. In both cases, she said, Alexander showed “when he gets mad he’s going to take it out on someone.”

Alexander then addressed Mason’s relatives and his own, who were present but did not speak.

“I apologize for what happened ... I’m not a cold-blooded killer,” he said. He took the plea agreement, he said, so that he could serve his time and then be with his four children and his family.

Spainhour accepted the plea agreement, indicating that the sentence would begin at the expiration of the sentence that Alexander is now serving.

Alexander’s first sentence — of a minimum two years and five months to a maximum three years and eight months — began July 15, 1999.

After the hearing, Mason’s aunt Sifford said Alexander had the opportunity to turn his life around and he chose not to take it. She pointed out that both families have lost a loved one.

Sifford said that as a community, people need to come together to stop such violence. “This is not the last time someone is going to have to sit in this courtroom,” she said.