Staff Writer
Rex Lee Williams was convicted Monday of aggravated assault and was sentenced to eight years in prison for stabbing a man nearly to death during a fist fight two years ago in Tyler.
Williams, 26, Chandler, was found guilty of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon by a Smith County jury in 241st District Judge Jack Skeen Jr. after 45 minutes of deliberation. The jury assessed his punishment after about one and a half hours of deliberation.
The defendant faced probation or two to 20 years in prison for the second-degree felony and will have to serve four years before he is eligible for parole.
The defendant claimed he stabbed Scott Goodwin to defend himself and his friend, L.C. Kirkpatrick, while the two were losing a fight Aug. 5, 2005 on Spring Street, behind the Smith County Courthouse in Tyler.
Participants in the fight, those on both Williams’ and Goodwin’s sides, testified to different accounts of the brawl, including who started the argument.
Goodwin, 26, who underwent 16 surgeries and who spent 42 days in the Intensive Care Unit, testified that he did not remember the fight.
A trauma surgeon testified that Goodwin was stabbed twice in the chest and once in the back. The knife went through his muscle, bone and arteries and pierced his liver and lung. His leg also was sliced, he said.
Assistant Smith County District Attorney Zach Davis told the jurors that a person was justified in using deadly force if he believes such force is “immediately necessary” to defend himself or another person. He said it was not immediately necessary for Williams to stab Goodwin to defend himself or Kirkpatrick. Davis said there was no evidence that Goodwin used deadly force against anyone.
“What really happened (is) he pulled that knife and sliced away,” Davis said. “And as Scott Goodwin was getting up to leave, he put one in his back.”
He asked the jurors to find him guilty.
Defense attorney F.R. “Buck” Files Jr. said the jurors had to put themselves in Williams’ position at the time of the incident and view it from his standpoint. He said Williams and Goodwin fought over the knife and he saw Kirkpatrick, a close friend, getting hit, kicked and stomped. He said it appeared to Williams that it was immediately necessary for him to intervene to protect Kirkpatrick from danger of death or serious bodily injury.
Files said no one would ever know how Goodwin received the wounds in his back and leg, which could have been caused during the fight over the knife. He said Williams first pulled his knife out during the fight to scare the men off of Kirkpatrick. Files said Goodwin provoked the fight, not Williams. He asked the jurors to find his client not guilty.
Assistant District Attorney Joe Murphy asked the jury to look at Williams’ actions before, during and after the fight. He said Williams had threatened to kill anyone who confronted him or his friends, and after stabbing Goodwin three times, he threatened to kill the victim if he told anyone and threatened to kill another man who tried to prevent Williams from leaving.
Kirkpatrick testified that he was unable to protect himself but he did not feel it was necessary for Williams to stab someone.
“Scott Goodwin never used deadly force against L.C. Kirkpatrick,” Murphy said. “Rex Williams used deadly force. He’s the only one.” He said although Williams claimed to be trying to protect Kirkpatrick, he never went to check on him after he stabbed Goodwin.
“Rex Williams seized an opportunity. He was mad and he stabbed him,” Murphy said.
He said the defendant knew when he left that night that he had to make something up to tell the police “to get out of this” so he “cooked up” the story about self defense.
“You don’t bring a knife to a fist fight,” Murphy said.
PUNISHMENT
During the punishment phase of trial, a probation officer testified that Williams violated his conditions of bond by consuming alcohol at a bar in Tyler on June 8, 2006. He said there were no other problems with Williams during the two years he supervised him.
Susan Goodwin, the victim’s wife, said she and Goodwin had been married for two months when he was stabbed. After he hadn’t returned home from a bachelor party, she called him on his cell phone and a police officer answered and told her he was in the hospital. She didn’t know how bad his injuries were until she walked into the hospital and saw a chaplain.
“I never would have dreamed it was anything so serious…,” she said, crying. “I thought I was going to be a widow at 22 years old.”
The victim testified that he is reminded of the 17 operations he had every day by his scars.
The jurors were shown pictures of the large scars on Goodwin’s chest, back and leg.
Nine family members, friends and co-workers testified on behalf of Williams.
Paul Oster, the director of nuclear medicine at East Texas Medical Center, said he supervised Williams for one year while he underwent a training program for his college degree. He said he had offered Williams, a compassionate, truthful and good person, a job.
Mary McGough, the mother of Williams’ 4-year-old son, described Williams as a good father and person who is honest, caring and smart.
Robert Williams, the defendant’s father, said his son was an honest, law-abiding citizen.
Williams testified that he respected the juror’s guilty verdict but at the time of the stabbing, he felt like he did what he had to do to defend his friend. He said everything happened so fast that he wasn’t aware of how serious Goodwin’s injuries were. He now realizes how fast a fist fight can turn into something else.
He said he wouldn’t wish what happened to Goodwin “on my worst enemy” and he didn’t mean to hurt him. He claimed he only stabbed Goodwin once and assumed Goodwin sustained the other injuries while they were wrestling for the knife.
The defendant admitted to consuming alcohol on several occasions while on bond but he said he believed he could abide by the conditions of probation, if given the chance.
“I’ll do anything that I can in this world to be able to see my son,” he said.
During closing arguments, Murphy asked the jurors to sentence Williams to 20 years in prison to guarantee that he wouldn’t “strike again.”
Defense attorney Brett Harrison said the stabbing was one incident — a bad mistake — that caused horrendous injuries to Goodwin. He said Williams still believed he was acting in self defense but the verdict showed he was wrong. He said what happened that night was out of character and drinking alcohol while out of jail on bond was wrong.
Harrison said Williams had an opportunity to be a success in life and do good.
“We’re asking you to believe he’s capable of being a productive citizen, capable of being rehabilitated,” he said.
Murphy said Williams did not deserve probation and neither did the victim.
“Scott Goodwin is going to have to live with this for the rest of his life,” he said.
