Lymon pleads to firearms charge
Accused cop-killer will go to trial in March
The man accused of fatally shooting an Albuquerque police officer in October 2015 pleaded no contest Wednesday to one of the felony counts he is facing.
Davon Lymon still faces first-degree murder and lesser charges, and he is set for trial in March.
Although he pleaded no contest Wednesday morning to two counts — felon in possession of a firearm and forgery — state District Judge Briana Zamora later in the day struck his plea to the forgery charge. The pleas were made “based on the incorrect belief” that both of those counts were being handled separately from the rest of his case, according to Zamora’s order, but in fact, only the firearm charge was.
Lymon had been on track for a trial on the firearms charge next month, but he instead opted to plead.
“Everybody was fixing to devote a
bunch of time to this trial that was not necessary and for which we knew that we weren’t going to contest these allegations,” Lymon’s attorney Gary Mitchell said after the hearing.
Lymon entered his no contest plea without concessions from prosecutors or agreements as to sentencing, said David Carl, a spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office, which is prosecuting the case.
According to court documents, Lymon fatally shot officer Daniel Webster during a traffic stop. The charges at issue Wednesday dealt with the gun used in Webster’s shooting.
Lymon was already convicted federally of possessing that gun, and he is serving a 38-year sentence for that and other crimes.
“He’s already looking at forever and ever amen in federal court,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell said he doesn’t anticipate Lymon’s pleading to any of his remaining charges, which include murder, tampering with evidence and shooting at or from a vehicle, because the state “refuses to make any kind of offer that’s legitimate.”
“We’re going to trial because we never thought this was a firstdegree murder case,” he said, “and we still don’t think it’s a first-degree murder case, and we believe we have the evidence to show it’s not a first-degree murder case.”
Carl said the state intends to “present all evidence of defendant’s guilt at trial.”
Based on the judge’s order Wednesday, the forgery count will also be handled at that trial.