Joshua Scott Mooney: The 15-year-old is charged with first-degree murder, robbery with a firearm and second-degree burglary.
A Tulsa County judge has scheduled a Dec. 2 jury trial for a Jenks teenager who is charged with murdering a woman during a robbery in December.
Before that trial date, however, a state appeals court is expected to decide whether Joshua Scott Mooney, now 15, will continue to be treated under "youthful offender" guidelines or instead be treated like an adult for court purposes.
A decision by the state Court of Criminal Appeals could be issued soon after that court hears arguments from lawyers on Sept. 26.
Mooney is charged with first- degree murder, robbery with a firearm and second-degree burglary.
After a combined preliminary hearing and certification hearing, Special Judge Cliff Smith ruled that Mooney would be treated as a youthful offender, not as an adult.
Mooney was 14 when Mary Escue, 47, of Reno, Nev., was fatally shot when she interrupted a burglary at her parents' Jenks home on Dec. 17.
Mooney initially had been charged as an adult, and prosecutors appealed the youthful offender decision.
Chief Public Defender Jack Zanerhaft, representing Mooney, maintains in a court filing that the first-degree murder charge should be dismissed as unconstitutional when applied to a defendant of Mooney's age because the charge subjects him to a potential sentence of life in prison with no possibility of parole without the opportunity to present mitigating evidence.
At an arraignment Friday, District Judge Bill Musseman entered a not-guilty plea on behalf of Mooney.
The teenager's arrest report says he told a Tulsa County sheriff's detective that he had broken into the Jenks home through a bathroom window and intended to look for money. But while he was in the house, Escue arrived, according to the document.
Mooney said he initially "got scared" and hid in the kitchen, holding a rifle he had found in the house, the report states.
After Escue saw him, he forced her into another room at gunpoint, "aimed the .22-caliber rifle at the victim's head and fired a shot," Mooney told the detective, the arrest report says.
Bill Braun 918-581-8455
bill.braun@tulsaworld.com
Original Print Headline: Trial set for Dec. 2 in Jenks homicide
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