Man guilty for 2nd time in 2013 bar shooting
30-year-old gets life in prison for killing man, 21, near Lake Worth.
WEST PALM BEACH — A 30-yearold man was convicted again Friday in a 2013 fatal shooting at a bar west of Lake Worth.
Demetrius Hopkins, whose birthday was Friday, was sentenced to life in prison for the second time after his retrial for first-degree murder in the death of 21-year-old Jean Nesca. Hopkins’s first conviction was overturned by the 4th District Court of Appeal in 2017 when it ruled the original judge, Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Marni Bryson, did not take the necessary steps to make sure Hopkins had an impartial jury.
According to the ruling, Bryson did not give lawyers enough time to question potential jurors and did not provide Hopkins’ lawyers the ability to strike more jurors after they expressed doubts about some who said they would be suspicious if Hopkins did not testify.
The week-long trial in front of Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Joseph Marx ended Friday with closing arguments that focused on the eyewitness statements of four people at Brian Boru’s Irish Pub and Sports Bar, off Lake Worth road just east of Florida’s Turnpike.
Investigators said Hopkins, then 25, beat Nesca, left the bar, then came back in and fatally shot him in the head on Nov. 9, 2013.
Assistant State Attorney Jill Richstone told the jury in her closing arguments that Hopkins was upset. Someone had shot at him just weeks before and he thought Nesca was that gunman, she said. At the bar, Hopkins knocked Nesca to the ground, stomped on his head to the point that the 21-year-old was unconscious, then went outside and came back with a gun.
“That is clear, unequivocal premeditation to kill him,” she said. “Minutes went by when he could have changed his mind and not killed Jean Nesca.”
She said four eyewitnesses at the bar picked out Hopkins as the gunman and that his fingerprint was found on a glass at the bar.
Assistant Public Defender Harris Printz said even with eyewitnesses, there was doubt in each of their statements. Nearly everyone had been drinking that day and a few were smoking marijuana. One of the witnesses was a minor, another a bartender.
“(These are) critical details during a very short, chaotic time frame,” he said.
Printz drew a chart in court for the jury, showing them the inconsistencies of each of the witness statements. One witness said the shooter was in a striped shirt; two others said the shooter was in a gray shirt. One witness said the gunman had facial hair; another said he didn’t. One person said the shooter never left the bar, while others said he did before he came back and shot Nesca in the eye, among several other things.
“This is all the reasonable doubt you need,” he said, pointing to his hand-drawn chart.
Hopkins was previously convicted in 2010 of stabbing a man during a fight in Port St. Lucie and served about three years in prison, according to Florida Department of Corrections records.