Could legal principle rooted in dueling shape Sacramento K Street shooting trial?
The fate of two men on trial in connection with the deadliest mass shooting in Sacramento history hinges on a centuries-old legal doctrine that dates to an era when people settled disputes by challenging their rivals to a duel.
Mtula Payton, 31, and Dandrae Martin, 30, were scheduled to return Monday to Sacramento Superior Court to face murder charges stemming from the late-night downtown Sacramento shootout that left six people dead and 12 others wounded on April 3, 2022. Hundreds scattered as shots rang out near 10th and K streets as the bars were closing around 2 a.m. on a cool spring morning.
Nearly three weeks into the trial, which began on April 21, Sacramento County prosecutors have sought to show that Payton and Martin — on opposite sides of the shooting — were among two groups of men who had challenged each other earlier that night and were seeking a confrontation in the predawn hours.
That argument is key because, under the legal doctrine known as mutual combat, people who agree to fight generally cannot claim self-defense if they injure someone on the other side unless they show they actively tried to stop the confrontation, said Linda Parisi, the attorney representing Martin.
“Mutual combat is for that specific concept of when people have agreed to fight,” Parisi said. “It’s an old concept. I’m going to argue about how the DA is trying to make this into something that it’s not.”
Three of the people killed that night — Joshua Hoye-Lucchessi, 32; Sergio Harris, 38; and Devazia Turner, 29 — were involved on one side or the other of the confrontation, prosecutors said. Three more — Yamile Martinez, 21; Johntaya Alexander, 21; and Melinda Davis, 57 — were bystanders.
Payton and Martin, who survived the shooting, were each charged with three counts of murder. Martin’s brother Smiley was also initially charged in the case, but he died in what authorities said was a drug overdose while awaiting trial in the Sacramento County Jail in 2024.
In opening statements last month, Deputy District Attorney Brad Ng said several men, including Smiley Martin, had made boasts earlier that evening in videos recorded on Marconi Avenue that helped fuel the confrontation between rival groups.
He spent much of last week questioning witness Ike Harris, whose cousin Sergio Harris was killed and who defense attorneys say likely started the shooting.
Many of Ng’s questions focused on a 2022 police interview in which Harris confirmed a rivalry between the two groups, which prosecutors allege were affiliated with different street gang subsets. Harris also reported disrespectful talk between the groups, which Ng said amounted to challenges.
But defense attorneys Parisi and Reid Kingsbury spent days cross-examining Harris, trying to build a case that Sergio Harris acted on his own when gunfire erupted and that the groups had not challenged each other.
Parisi pressed Harris to describe the circumstances of his interview with police, which she said was more like an interrogation. Under her cross-examination, he said officers pulled him over while he was driving, approached with guns drawn, handcuffed him and placed him in a patrol car before taking him to police headquarters for questioning.
Parisi, who said in an interview that she thinks Harris is trying to downplay his cousin’s role and likely disposed of the gun himself, pressed him on whether there was a pre-arranged meeting or gang rivalry. Wasn’t it true, she asked, that the groups no longer identified themselves based on geography, as old-time gang members did, but instead based on other affiliations?
Kingsbury, who represents Payton, pressed Harris on why he left his cousin shortly after paramedics arrived.
“He took his last breath in my arms,” Harris replied. “So I knew it was pretty much over.”
But Parisi said later that she believed Harris left to dispose of his cousin’s gun.
Doing so, she said, would have protected Ike Harris, who as a felon was prohibited from possessing a firearm and risked arrest for being present at the shooting. It also would have downplayed Harris’ role, while the defense seeks to show he was the instigator, prompting others to fire in self-defense, she said.
“It was self-defense — it wasn’t an agreement to fight,” she said in an interview after court. “They’re all out there mixing and mingling, and before you know it Sergio fires a gun. And when he does gunfire just explodes.”
Ng, who will continue presenting the prosecution’s case this week, declined to comment. But Parisi said she expected him to continue with testimony from additional witnesses as well as ballistics experts.
One such witness is likely to be Oshe White, who was shot during the gunfire, Parisi said.
Parisi said she hopes to show that White was arguing with someone who was drunk when Harris came up and started shooting.
“The argument he was having was just a verbal argument with someone who was drunk — not an agreement to fight,” she said.
Closing arguments are not expected until after Memorial Day, according to the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office.
