After deliberating eight hours over two days, a Pima County jury convicted a 17-year-old Tucson boy of second-degree murder in the May 1, 2006, shooting death of his father.
According to court testimony, Frank Dawkins Jr., 43, died of a single gunshot wound to the chest inside his West Side home.
Ian Dawkins, adopted by Frank Dawkins at age 10, was arrested after a three-hour police interview the next morning.
Prosecutors Lewis Brandes and Casey McGinley asked jurors to convict Dawkins of first-degree murder, alleging the teenager hired his friend, Antoine King, then 17, to kill his father.
"He needed Antoine because he couldn't pull the trigger himself," Brandes said.
Had King's .380-caliber handgun not jammed, Brandes said Ian Dawkins' mother, Cynthia Dawkins, might have ended up dead as well.
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Not only had his parents turned off his cell phone the day prior to the shooting, but the teen was upset they called the authorities every one of the 17 times he ran away from home, the prosecutors said.
The teenager's defense attorneys, Michael Rosenbluth and James Charnesky, told jurors Ian Dawkins was a typical teenager — rude, foolish, stupid and impetuous, but he didn't hire King to kill his father.
The plan was for Ian Dawkins to collect his backpack from his home near South La Cholla Boulevard and West 36th Street that night and run away, Charnesky said.
King took it upon himself to shoot Frank Dawkins, a Raytheon Missile Systems employee; Ian Dawkins didn't pay him to do so, Charnesky said.
"You don't just flip a switch one day because someone took your cell phone away and decide you want to blow your dad away," Charnesky said.
Although Dawkins did not testify at trial, jurors viewed the interview he gave police.
During much of the videotape, Dawkins blamed someone named "Jermaine" for the shooting — a gang member he met at a park hours before, whom he speculated had targeted his house for a robbery because of the gold chains and expensive shoes he was wearing.
Toward the end of the interview, Dawkins said King shot his father when Dawkins couldn't pay off the last $10 of a $50 loan.
Dawkins said he chased King after the shooting but couldn't catch up with him.
Minutes later, however, Dawkins changed his story again when detectives caught him in a lie.
Despite saying he never caught up with King, he told detectives that King told him he "got rid of the gun."
In his last version of events, Dawkins admitted he asked King to scare his parents into letting him leave home forever.
"No one was supposed to get shot, I swear," Dawkins said. "No one was was supposed to get shot or hurt. I don't know why he did it. He didn't say anything. He just pulled the trigger."
Dawkins, facing 10to 22 years in prison, is to be sentenced June 18.
King is to go to trial June 5.
Pima County Superior Court Judge Michael Cruikshank is presiding over both cases.
