James Jefferson has been found not guilty of attempted murder, but guilty of discharging a firearm with intent to wound.
A Kitchener, Ont. jury reached the decision in its second day of deliberations in the case. The main point they had to consider was whether Jefferson's intention was to shoot to kill or if he was just trying to injure his victim.
Twenty-three-year-old Jefferson had claimed he was only trying to wound the victim, Nick Watson, when he fired a .45 caliber handgun in February 2009.
The bullet hit Watson's arm while he was a passenger in an SUV that was travelling down Galt Avenue near Mercer Road in Cambridge, Ont. He suffered non-life threatening injuries.
The accused and the victim had reportedly been friends, but bad feelings had developed between the two. Jefferson turned himself in about a week after the shooting.
Defence lawyer Scott Reid says "It was always our position that Mr. Jefferson didn't have any intent to kill Mr. Watson. He testified he had shot him in the arm…to buy him some time to get away, so we're as pleased as we can be right now."
Crown Prosecutor Mark Poland says "They had a falling out, clearly, after an arrest on a drug charge in 2007, and from there the bad blood continued and at one point it boiled over when James Jefferson armed himself with a prohibited gun that he had no right to possess and shot Nick Watson with it."
While being escorted into the court house Jefferson told CTV News cameras, "An innocent man being convicted. There's no such thing as self-defence in Canada."
Jefferson has already spent two years behind bars in the case. A date for sentencing will be set at the end of March.
