Tense Plea Negotiations Result in 15 Year Sentence for 2022 N. Carey Street Homicide Defendant

By Racquel Bazos - August 25, 2023
Court | Daily Stories | Homicides | Shooting | Suspects | Victims |

A 38-year-old defendant’s jury trial was supposed to begin on Aug. 24; instead, the assistant state’s attorneys assigned to the case gave him three different plea offers to consider, one of which he accepted before Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Cynthia H. Jones.

Joseph Lee Jones’ attorney Augustine Okeke secured a pair of alternate offers for his client: One would have totalled 18 years in prison without the possibility of parole and no probation upon release. The other offer was for 30 years, suspending all but 15 years with five years of supervised probation. Jones rejected both.

After further negotiations with the prosecution, Jones finally accepted an offer of 10 years for voluntary manslaughter with five years for firearm use in a felony violent crime to be served consecutively and five years for firearm possession with a felony conviction to be served concurrently — a total of 15 years. He will be ineligible for parole during his sentences for the firearm offenses, but no probation will be required. He will also register as a gun offender upon release.

Jones was charged in connection to the Aug. 10, 2022, killing of 37-year-old Eric White on the 1300 block of N. Carey Street. According to documents from the District Court of Maryland, White was retrieving personal belongings from his ex-girlfriend’s house when he insisted her boyfriend, Jones, come outside. The two men began arguing. Jones went inside the house and returned with a gun, shooting White in the abdomen.

White was taken to Shock Trauma but sadly succumbed to his injuries later that day. 

According to the Maryland Judiciary website, before accepting the offered plea Jones was charged with first-degree murder, firearm use in a felony violent crime and firearm possession with a felony conviction.