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Custer sentenced to life for 2012 murder

California man plans to appeal decision

Jason Custer will spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Custer was sentenced to life in prison without parole Thursday for fatally shooting Adam McCormick in the front yard of a Sidney home nearly a year and a half ago. In the state of Nebraska, life in prison is mandated for first degree murder convictions.

Additionally, Custer received a sentence of 20-50 years in prison for use of a firearm to commit a felony and 10-20 years imprisonment for possession of a firearm by a felon. Custer was ordered to serve time for both of these additional felony charges consecutively to the life sentence.

A jury found Custer, 35 guilty of first degree murder, as well as the two additional weapons charges, on Jan. 31 after a week long trial followed by five hours of deliberations. Custer shot 36-year-old McCormick just after midnight on Nov. 3, 2012.

Custer moved to Sidney from California in early October 2012 to live with his friend Billy Fields and Fields’ girlfriend, Amber Davis. Soon after this a texting feud began over a drug debt that Custer owed McCormick. This altercation pitted Fields and Custer against McCormick. Immature messages and violent threats were lobbed from both sides. The fight ended when Custer shot McCormick twice while the victim was standing in a friend’s front yard.

During the trial, Custer admitted to shooting McCormick but claimed that he performed the act in self defense because he felt threatened. Custer said that he was taken aback when he pulled up at a location where he didn’t expect to see the victim and McCormick was there with two friends at his side.

Custer further testified that on the night of the shooting McCormick came at him with a pocket knife, after weeks of threats by way of text message. Custer purported that he shot the victim because he feared for his life.

“Mr. Custer, on November 3, 2012, executed Adam McCormick,” said assistant attorney general Michael Guinan, representing the prosecution on Thursday.

The feud that led to the shooting was not the culmination of a conflict that lasted years, he told those in the courtroom.

“This was only a period of three weeks, judge,” Guinan stated.

This argument escalated quickly. Custer could have withdrawn from the text message battle or refrained from going to McCormick’s location on the night of the shooting, but he didn’t

“There was no threat of physical violence,” Guinan said.

Although McCormick might have threatened to hurt Custer through messages, he never followed through with these threats when the men saw each other in person. McCormick even failed to meet for a fight that was scheduled to take place between the two men.

Now both McCormick’s and Custer’s families have to live without them, because Custer wanted to show everyone how tough he was, Guinan argued. Guinan reminded the court that Custer took no responsibility for his actions.

“He ran and he’s been running ever since,” he said.

The sentence of life in prison mandated by the court was just, he added.

“Mr. Custer is a violent man and society will be better without him on the streets,” Guinan said.

Defense attorney Sarah Newell, of the Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy attempted to persuade district court judge Derek Weimer against ordering harsh sentences for the two weapons charges.

“Mr. Custer does not have a significant violent history,” Newell said.

He does have a history of drug crimes, she admitted.

“Drugs played a significant role in this case from the beginning,” she said.

Newell found it troubling, she said, that the prosecution and McCormick’s family believe that Custer did not take responsibility for his actions. The evidence presented in the trial didn’t demonstrate the type of person Custer is, she added

It was difficult to hear the state say in its closing arguments that Custer took the 15 months leading up to the trial to make sure his story fit the evidence, she said.

“Mr. Custer has maintained the same sequence of events from the moment he was arrested,” Newell said.

When he arrived at the house the night of the shooting, Custer felt as if he was being set up and he acted in a manner that he though was reasonable at the time, Newell said. She admitted that his judgment might have been clouded by methamphetamine use.

“He did not intend this to happen the way it did,” Newell said.

Newell gleaned two significant facts from the pre-sentencing information. The first was that Custer’s probation officer was surprised that he was involved in a shooting. The second was that when Custer was asked how Fields should be sentenced for his involvement in the case, he didn’t speak ill of Fields. Custer suggest that Fields be given a chance at probation, even though Fields testified against Custer and perjured himself, in Newell’s opinion.

“Mr. Custer maintains his version of events,” Newell said. “I’m disappointed that the jury disagreed so vehemently with that.”

She added that this is how the United States justice system works and she and her client accepted that.

“There aren’t very many comments for me to make,” Weimer said.

There was no reason this had to play out the way it did, Weimer told the defendant. There were many people involved in the course of events leading to McCormick’s death that could have stopped it, he added.

“The question that keeps coming back to me is why you ever got out of the truck,” Weimer said.

Weimer wondered why a man who felt threatened would have exposed himself to potential harm in this way.

“But you did and you shot a man twice and you killed him,” Weimer said.

Custer was ordered to pay his court costs and was remanded into the custody of the Cheyenne County Sheriff to begin serving his sentence. Custer plans to file an appeal to this case, according to his attorney.

Both Amber Davis and Billy Fields were charged for their involvement in this case. Davis and Fields were somewhat involved in the verbal fights that led to the shooting. Both assisted Custer in his attempt to flee Cheyenne County after the shooting, although they claimed they didn’t know about the shooting at the time.

On Feb. 18, Weimer sentenced Fields to 20-60 months imprisonment, the maximum allowed for his conviction of accessory to a felony, a felony itself.

On Feb. 21, Russell Harford, county court judge for district 12 sentenced Davis to 18 months probation for obstruction and lying to a police officer, both misdemeanors.

 

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