Lawyer found guilty in rival's shooting

After hearing two weeks of testimony, a King County Superior Court jury took just a half-hour Tuesday to convict William Joice of attempted first-degree murder in the shooting of a rival attorney.

Joice, a former Snohomish County deputy prosecutor, faces at least 20 to 25 years in prison, but a judge could sentence him to more because of aggravated factors in the crime, jurors decided.

Joice shot Kevin Jung in the head outside Jung's Bellevue office in November 2004. Jung suffered severe brain damage, can no longer speak or respond to anyone, and probably never will recover fully, according to doctors.

Joice, 51, told jurors he meant only to shoot Jung in the arm or shoulder to buy time to catch up with Jung in a legal case. The two men had been representing couples on opposite sides of a dispute over a Lynnwood gift-shop franchise.

Jurors said they didn't believe him. Joice was a former Air Force pilot, who had trained with police officers and he meticulously planned the shooting, they reasoned, so how could he have fired three shots at Jung's head and claimed to have aimed badly?

In that kind of shooting, "You're trying to do something more than wound [someone], and that's something we arrived at fairly easily," said juror Ron Kreizenbeck, 61, of Bothell.

When the verdict was announced, Joice had no visible reaction, while Jung's two sisters, sitting three rows behind him, cried.

The decision was welcome for Jung's family, which includes his wife and two young sons, deputy prosecutor Erin Ehlert said. We're "just glad for the family, that we've gotten to this point for them," she said.

Defense attorneys Micheline Murphy and Marcus Naylor declined to comment on the verdict.

During the trial, they never disputed that Joice shot Jung but tried unsuccessfully to convince jurors that he didn't intend to kill and should be found guilty of a less-serious charge, such as assault or attempted second-degree murder.

Over several hours of testimony, Joice described how he entered an alcohol and stress-fueled "fantasy world" in summer 2004, when he came up with the idea of shooting Jung. He had money problems and missed several deadlines in the gift-shop case, which Jung had pointed out repeatedly in court filings.

Many of the jurors could empathize with his misfortune, but only to a point.

"Everyone agreed [that] even though we all have problems in our lives, we don't solve them by trying to kill someone," said jury forewoman Karen Morgan, 42, of Maple Valley.

After they convicted Joice, the jurors had to decide whether his crime included two aggravating factors that could increase his prison sentence. Prosecutors asked the jury to take into account the severity of Jung's injuries and the detailed planning Joice put into the crime, which included use of a homemade silencer, a fake beard and a bulletproof vest.

After just 20 minutes of deliberation, the jury agreed that the shooting included aggravating factors.

Judges used to decide whether crimes included aggravating factors, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that any fact that extends a sentence beyond the standard range must either be proved to a jury or admitted by the defendant.

When Judge Julie Spector sentences Joice, she could use the jury's decision to add more years to his sentence. His sentencing date has not been scheduled.

Ashley Bach: 206-464-2567 or abach@seattletimes.com