The 3rd Circuit Court says a man must serve time for stabbing a Eunice man to death.

The court on June 1 rejected Dexter Mayes’ appeal that his conviction was incorrect based on the evidence presented during trial in Judge Ellis Daigle’s court.

Daigle sentenced Mayes, 23, to five years for stabbing Samuel Greene to death during a confrontation at a party on Aymond Street in Febuary 2009.

Daigle ruled that Mayes posed an “undue risk that during a period of suspended sentence or probation the defendant will commit another crime.”

The Third Circuit panel noted, “The second circuit has found that pulling a knife during horseplay and causing another’s death by stabbing the knife into the victim were sufficient to support a second-degree murder conviction.”

Mayes was initially charged with that offense. The charge was amended to manslaughter, and a jury opted for negligent homicide.

“The act of deliberately stabbing the victim showed that the defendant had the requisite specific intent to kill or inflict great bodily harm,” that opinion stated.

According to the 3rd Circuit:

“Defendant argues that the evidence shows that the victim chased him around the yard with a board and then, while they wrestled on the ground, rolled onto the knife Defendant obtained to scare him.

“However, the evidence in the record most favorable to the prosecution, as testified to by witnesses to the event, shows that Defendant engaged in a fist fight with the victim and won the fight, which was broken up at the insistence of the victim’s brother, Linton, and his brother’s girlfriend, Ms. Miller.

“Defendant then ran into the trailer he was visiting, while Linton and Ms. Miller convinced the victim to leave. Defendant armed himself with a knife and forced his way out of the trailer through the resistance created by the occupants.

“ As the victim was entering his girlfriend’s automobile, Defendant ran out of the residence brandishing the knife. Defendant charged the victim who saw the knife and stooped to pick up a piece of lumber lying nearby.

“While the victim was still bent over, Defendant stabbed him in the back, which caused the victim to fall to his knees. The victim stood and pursued Defendant several steps with the lumber before crying, “You got me,” and collapsing to the ground.

“Defendant then backtracked to the victim and attempted to staunch the bleeding until the police arrived. At that time, Defendant fled the scene. The victim died as a result of the injury inflicted by Defendant.”

“When the evidence is viewed in the light most favorable to the prosecution, Defendant’s actions were neither self-defense nor justified because he was the aggressor in the incident,” the court ruled in affirming the conviction.