ABC57 News in South Bend, Ind. covers all of Michiana including St. Joseph, Elkhart, Kosciusko, LaPorte and Marshall counties in Indiana and Berrien, Cass, Van Buren and St. Joseph counties in Mich.
ABC57 News in South Bend, Ind. covers all of Michiana including St. Joseph, Elkhart, Kosciusko, LaPorte and Marshall counties in Indiana and Berrien, Cass, Van Buren and St. Joseph counties in Mich.
South Bend Tribune
SOUTH BEND Two men were each sentenced to 10 years in prison Thursday for their roles in a 2019 shooting outside of Frank s Place bar.
Atlantis Branch, 19, and Jeremiah Williams, 21, were both originally charged with felony murder, but pleaded guilty to attempted armed robbery, after they tried to rob Kyle Doroszko during a marijuana deal.
The incident led to the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Traychon Taylor.
According to court documents Taylor along with Branch and Williams had contacted Doroszko, 20, to buy marijuana, but in fact planned to rob him.
At the meeting site, Taylor got in the back seat of Doroszko’s vehicle. Doroszko told police that Taylor, allegedly armed with a handgun, tried to steal marijuana and a backpack. Around the same time, Branch approached and pointed a gun at the vehicle.
In the end, a jury split the difference.
Jurors on Friday afternoon found Doroszko, 20, guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the 2019 shooting death of 19-year-old Traychon Taylor, finding that Doroszko did not commit murder but also rejecting his claim that he was justified in using deadly force to protect himself from a robbery while he was dealing marijuana.
The case is the latest to push the limits of Indianaâs self-defense law, which at face value denies self-defense rights to anyone committing even a low-level or nonviolent crime at the time of a confrontation.
If the jury had convicted Doroszko of murder, he would have faced up to 85 years in prison, based on the maximum 65-year term for murder and a sentencing enhancement of up to 20 years for using a gun to commit a crime.