A 25-year-old Hampton man was sentenced Monday to 30 years in prison for shooting and killing a man who was sitting in a parked car off Victoria Boulevard three years ago.
Circuit Court Judge Christopher W. Hutton imposed the punishment that a jury had recommended in June after finding Paris M. Small guilty of first-degree murder and other charges in the killing of 21-year-old Marcus A. Major.
Major was sitting with Small’s ex-girlfriend in a car in the 300 block of Brightwood Avenue just before 2 a.m. on March 11, 2015. That’s when prosecutors said Small fired a barrage of gunshots into the white Chevrolet Impala.
Major, sitting in the passenger seat, was struck eight times — with six rounds tearing through his back, a prosecutor said. Small’s ex-girlfriend — the mother of his young son — narrowly missed being hit.
Small then fled to Pennsylvania. He was tracked down by Hampton police and arrested there about a month later. Karen Rucker, the case’s lead prosecutor, said Monday that after being caught, Small “admitted to shooting into the car.”
According to trial testimony, Major and Small grew up together and were once close friends, but had a falling out a few years back, before the 2015 shooting.
Hours before the shooting, Small’s ex-girlfriend, Brittany Shields, then 19, had text messaged him about where she could stay that night after she got into an argument with her mother.
Small then asked Shields “whether he should pick her up.” But she didn’t respond to that text, Rucker said, and Small went over to the home — bringing a gun with him. Then, in the darkness, he encountered Shields and Major sitting in the parked car.
At trial, Small said he shot Major in self-defense.
Small testified he was walking near the car when he suddenly heard Major saying he was “lacking” — street parlance for being caught unarmed. Small said that when he turned to the voice, a gun was pointed out the car window at him.
Small said that’s when he fired his own gun into the sedan, though he didn’t know it was Major until after the shooting. Major didn’t fire his gun, and Rucker said Monday that it appeared he tried to flee from one of the car’s rear doors during the shooting.
A jury convicted Small of first-degree murder, attempted malicious wounding and two gun charges. They recommended 30 years in prison — 20 years on the murder, two on the attempted malicious wounding, and eight on the gun counts.
Rucker asked Hutton to impose that punishment Monday, calling it appropriate. “He was 21 years old, just beginning his life,” she said of Major. “Now he is gone, left his family in mourning and his child without a father.”
Though judges can’t exceed a jury’s sentencing recommendation, they are allowed to cut the time at their discretion.
Small’s lawyer, Nicholas Hobbs, asked Hutton to do just that. The attorney noted Small had a very minimal criminal record and that the jury had given him the very lowest they could on each conviction.
But the state’s discretionary sentencing guidelines — designed to help reduce sentencing disparities statewide — came in remarkably close to the jury’s 30-year recommendation.
Those guidelines — which take into account a defendant’s age, criminal record and other factors — carried a range of just over 22 years to just under 37 years in prison, with a midpoint of 29.5 years.
After the arguments from the lawyers, Hutton imposed the jury’s 30-year recommendation, saying he saw “no reason” to reduce it.
Tim Small, 51, Small’s uncle who drove in from Maryland for Monday’s hearing, said of the sentence that he “just wished it could have been less.” At the same time, he said, Small and Major “grew up together,” and their families know each other well.
“It’s just a sad day all the way around,” he said.
