Last September, prosecutors agreed to drop the bulk of their case against Jones, and threw out two counts of criminal endangerment and an attempted homicide charge. They recommended a sentence of 15 years on probation if Jones pleaded guilty to a pair of felony witness tampering charges, which he did.
Prosecutors decided to drop the charges after the 26-year-old shooting victim and several accusing witnesses perjured themselves at a court hearing, calling into question their credibility. Those witnesses were also entrenched in legal battles of their own.
But several weeks before Jones' sentencing in state court, federal prosecutors filed a weapons charge, and he has remained in custody at the Missoula County Detention Center ever since.
Lawyers for Jones spent the last several months fighting the new charge, which alleges Jones was a felon in possession of a firearm when he shot James Cleveland Manywhitehorses with a 9 mm handgun.
Jones was convicted of assault with a firearm in 1995, possession of an assault weapon in 1998, and was later convicted of a drug charge. His last offense was eight years ago, and he is prohibited from having any weapons - including the handgun he used to shoot Manywhitehorses, an act Jones maintains was self-defense.
He faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in a federal prison, three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine.
In November, Missoula attorney Cindy Smith filed a motion to dismiss the indictment, arguing that officers failed to preserve critical evidence at the crime scene, including ammunition casings and digital surveillance equipment used to monitor activity at the home - a known drug house - where the shooting took place.
Jones contends he was lured into the house by Manywhitehorses, who pointed a pistol at Jones and planned to kill him. When Jones grabbed the gun from Manywhitehorses, the man reached for an assault rifle leaning against the wall. Jones then shot Manywhitehorses in the buttocks and ran away, firing back at the house as he fled.
In her motion to dismiss the case, Smith argued the evidence would have supported Jones' version of events.
“This evidence would have conclusively established Mr. Jones' affirmative defense of justification,” she wrote in a brief supporting the motion to dismiss the case. “Further, there is no other comparable evidence that Mr. Jones could obtain by other reasonably available means.”
U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeremiah Lynch said what occurred in state court “does not appear to have resolved the incident” on Nov. 30, 2006, when the shooting took place.
“Mr. Jones' past conduct and criminal history weighs extremely heavy against him, and reflects a continued pattern of violent crimes involving weapons,” Lynch said at a detention hearing in November.
Jones is scheduled to appear in Missoula federal court Monday morning.
Reporter Tristan Scott can be reached at 523-5264 or at tscott@missoulian.com
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