Tuesday, May 30, 2000 | 11:33 a.m.
Now that jurors in the Darris Taylor murder trial have convicted him of first-degree murder and robbery, they must decide whether he should spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Prosecutors Melisa De La Garza and Philip Brown and Deputy Special Public Defender Dayvid Figler were to argue their sides this afternoon before District Judge Mark Gibbons.
After two days of deliberations, the jurors convicted Taylor on Friday of robbing and killing Charles Melvin Rayford, 28, on March 2, 1996.
The prosecutors argued that Taylor, 26, shot Rayford three times in the head and face a couple of days after Rayford came to Las Vegas from California to post a surety bond for him.
Fingerprints found at the scene belonged to Taylor, and Taylor was found with Rayford's cell phone, clothes, necklace and Super Bowl XXX jacket, according to court records. Rayford was found stripped to his boxer shorts.
A bullet found in the ceiling of Taylor's room is the same caliber as the bullets found in Rayford's skull.
Moreover, a girlfriend of Taylor's told police he had asked her to help him kill a man from California.
Figler argued that the evidence against Taylor is purely coincidental.
Taylor and Rayford had been together in the hours before Rayford's body was found in his motel room, but they had separated hours before, Figler said. They had separated at Taylor's home and Taylor doesn't have a car.
While Taylor and Rayford were friends, Taylor was not the only person Rayford knew in Las Vegas, Figler said. In fact, at least two witnesses verified that Taylor was not the man that Rayford checked into his room with a couple of days before his death.
No one disputes that Rayford was at Taylor's home earlier the night he was killed, so why couldn't he have left his clothes there, Figler asked the jury.
As far as the clothing goes, Figler pointed out to the jury that prosecutors can't explain what happened to the black warm-up suit Rayford checked into his motel room in. They weren't among the items found in Taylor's possession.
The jury began deliberating Wednesday and came back with their verdict Friday afternoon.
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