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hakeel Q. Hawkins is handcuffed after entering a guilty plea Tuesday to an aggravated assault following opening arguments and testimony from one witness on the first day of a trial against him. Hawkins was charged with conspiracy and capital murder in connection with the 2014 shooting death of Terrance Thornburg. (Nicole Hester / The Natchez Democrat)

Kenyatta Thornburg begins to weep while talking about how close her and her brother Terrance Thornburg were after the trial. (Nicole Hester / The Natchez Democrat)

Brenda Thornburg mother of 20-year-old Terrance Thornburg holds her daughter Kenyatta Thornburg while talking after the trial. (Nicole Hester / The Natchez Democrat)

Public Defender, Tim Blalock sits next to Jhakeel Q. Hawkins, while Prosecutions Special Assistant Attorneys General Marvin Sanders conducts his opening statement. (Nicole Hester / The Natchez Democrat)

Jhakeel Q. Hawkins is sworn under oath before entering a guilty plea Tuesday to an aggravated assault following opening arguments and testimony from one witness on the first day of a trial against him. (Nicole Hester / The Natchez Democrat)

Marquita Thornburg begins to tear up after the trial where Jhakeel Q. Hawkins pleaded guilty to aggravated assault in the 2014 shooting of Thornburg’s brother, 20-year-old Terrance Thornburg. (Nicole Hester / The Natchez Democrat)

(Nicole Hester / The Natchez Democrat)

NATCHEZ — Despite maintaining his innocence, a Natchez man accused of conspiracy and capital murder pleaded guilty Tuesday to a lesser charge of aggravated assault in the 2014 shooting death of 20-year-old Terrance Thornburg.

Jhakeel Q. Hawkins, 23, entered a best-interest guilty plea following opening statements and testimony from one witness on the first day of his trial. The defense and prosecution reached a plea agreement during a short recess of the court.

A best-interest plea is a guilty plea whereby a defendant does not admit to the criminal act and asserts innocence.

Sixth Judicial District Court Judge Forrest “Al” Johnson accepted Hawkins’ plea and sentenced Hawkins to 15 years in the Mississippi Department of Corrections, with 10 years of the sentence suspended with probation and credit for time served.

Hawkins told the judge he had already spent close to three years in jail. Following a preliminary hearing after his April 2014 arrest, Hawkins was in jail for 400 days without legal representation or a bond before he appeared in court again. Prior to his indictment, the case against Hawkins was presented to the grand jury five times but continued each time without an indictment.

Hawkins, along with Maurice Davis and Alan T. Thomas, was accused in the shooting death of Thornburg on the night of Feb. 23, 2014.

Thornburg reportedly won a substantial amount of money from a dice game with Davis that night.

The three men were accused of later going to Thornburg’s East Stiers Lane residence with the intention of robbing him of the money he had won from Davis.

The prosecution said during opening statements that once the men arrived at the residence, there was a fight and Thornburg was shot in the back of the head.

Davis pleaded guilty last week to manslaughter as the shooter in the crime. He was sentenced to 15 years in the Mississippi Department of Corrections.

Natchez Police Department Crime Scene Investigator Joe Belling said during testimony Tuesday police did not initially know Thornburg had been shot after discovering him in the bedroom of his home.

Thornburg had trauma to his mouth and bloodied right knuckles, and Belling said police initially thought a weight bar in Thornburg’s room could have fallen on him.

Two days later, following an autopsy by the state medical examiner, police discovered Thornburg had been shot in the back of the head, with the bullet exiting his mouth, Belling said.

Belling was the only witness to testify during Tuesday’s trial. When the court recessed for a short break following his testimony, a plea agreement was presented to the court.

Despite having conducted jury selection, opening statements and some witness testimony that resulted in a plea, Johnson asked the jurors not to feel as if their time was wasted. He told the jury that sometimes it takes the weight of a trial and the reality of the situation to set in before movement is made in the case.

Prior to Hawkins’ sentencing, Thornburg’s sister Marquita Thornburg addressed the court, saying she did not know why her brother was killed.

“It’s going to come back on y’all,” she said to Hawkins.

Hawkins maintained his innocence while addressing the court before his sentencing, and he and his attorney, Tim Blalock, acknowledged the possibility that he could be convicted in the case.

“I’ve never been through nothing like this,” he said. “I accepted this plea to really give myself a chance at life. I don’t have nothing to do with this, and I never did. I understand they took a loss … but you also got to remember what I went through in jail the time I wasn’t supposed to be in jail. But I just wanted to tell the court and everyone in here that I had nothing to do with it at all … and that’s the truth.”

Before sentencing Hawkins, Johnson reminded Hawkins that the charges against him were not his first run-in with the law.

“I’m not going to disagree in any way with the plea, (and) you can say what you want to, but the fact remains that a month before (the murder) happened, you appeared up here in circuit court and entered a plea of guilty to a gun charge in another matter,” Johnson said. “Don’t come up here and stand up here like this is your first event with the law, because you were going through some legal issues at that time.”

Johnson acknowledged the difficulty of the investigation of the case because “it’s hard to get anybody to come forward to give any statements about what happened.”

“That’s a sad comment on society when you have a young man’s life taken and nobody wants to come tell the police what happened,” Johnson said. “That is what it is. This is not a perfect system. There is no perfect measure of justice.”

Thomas remains the only defendant whose case has not gone to trial. His case has been reset for March 2017.

Special Assistant Attorneys General Marvin Sanders and Kimberly Purdie prosecuted the case. The Adams County District Attorney’s Office recused itself because an assistant district attorney had previously represented one of the men also arrested in the case.

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