Almost four years after Blayson Fife was convicted of second-degree murder by a split jury, a new jury returned a unanimous verdict finding him guilty of the same charge.
Blayson Fife, 23, was convicted in 2019 of second-degree murder in the July 2017 shooting death of Rick McBride, 61, a Walker man who was sleeping in his home when Fife and an acquaintance broke in. Prosecutors said the pair were aiming to commit a burglary but ended up committing murder.
Fife was 18 at the time of the homicide.
In 2019, Fife was tried on first-degree murder, but the jury had the ability to acquit him or convict him of lesser offenses of second-degree murder or manslaughter. Then, the jury returned a split verdict: two jurors wanted to charge him with first-degree murder, while the 10 others opted for the lesser second-degree murder charge.
A series of witnesses and alleged accomplices testified at the trial about a story that spanned two parishes, involved drugs, money, guns and an attempted cross-country escape that ended near the Mexico border when Fife and three others were arrested with several of McBride’s guns in their vehicle.
In 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court banned the split verdicts that had persisted in Louisiana for more than 100 years, sowed into the state’s constitution by white supremacists. The highest court’s ruling allowed people who had not exhausted appeals of their original verdicts to be tried anew.
The decision followed a Louisiana law that two years earlier outlawed nonunanimous verdicts in the state. That law did not reverse previous split-jury convictions, nor did it demand new trials.
Fife had not exhausted appeals of his original verdict, according to court records filed in 2021. The First Circuit Court of Appeal ordered the case remanded for a new trial.
Prosecutors with the 21st Judicial District Court re-tried Fife last week on second-degree murder, with the case closing Monday morning. A jury returned a unanimous verdict, finding him guilty of second-degree murder Monday afternoon after about an hour and a half of deliberation, according to Livingston Parish District Attorney Scott Perrilloux.
An attorney for Fife did not immediately return a request for comment.
Fife’s sentencing is set for April 27.
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