An Antelope Valley man is now facing 20 years to life at his sentencing in February after a jury convicted him in the Oct. 31, 2022, shooting outside Black ’N’ Blue Restaurant.
Jurors began their deliberations Wednesday morning and finished them by the afternoon before finding Isaac Rashad Clark, 25, guilty, a second time on all of his remaining charges.
A first trial ended with a hung jury, which found Clark guilty of being a felon in possession of a handgun and ammunition in the shooting; but the defense successfully raised doubts with the jurors over the nature of the shooting and whether Clark shot Nigel Edwards in self-defense.
The two apparently began to argue inside the now-shuttered restaurant at the Valencia mall before the shooting, which left Edwards in the emergeny room with a punctured lung.
They convicted Clark of attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon, as well as special allegations that he used predeliberation and a semiautomatic weapon and inflicted great bodily harm.
“It’s nice that the jury got it right and I’m just happy that I could finally give the victim good news,” said Shareen Nizami, the deputy district attorney in charge of the case, adding he wasn’t in court for the verdict but his family members were.
The second trial was shorter, she said Friday in a phone interview, adding she had restructured her case from the ground up for the second trial based on feedback from the first trial.
The first time around, defense attorney Jaaye Person-Lynn raised doubts with jurors over whether Clark was the aggressor, which included testimony alleging Edwards was involved in gangs, as well as stating the warning shots fired by Clark proved he was in fear as Edwards approached.
Nizami called the gang accusation a demonstrable lie during her closing argument of the first trial.
She said for the second trial she had a gang expert ready to testify, as well as an officer who previously had arrested Clark, but that ultimately wasn’t necessary in the retrial, which only had one defense witness.
The second trial also introduced evidence from a firefighter who was a first responder that night and treated some of those who were injured at the scene, she said.
There also was additional testimony in the second trial from a witness Nizami located who was on the patio at the time of the shooting. Nizami said the “independent party” was helpful to her case in explaining how the conflict began inside the restaurant.
Testimony for the first trial took nearly three weeks, including two days of deliberation before the deadlock. This time, the trial started Dec. 3 and testimony wrapped up Tuesdy
“I got a lot of feedback from jurors in the last case, and I took that to heart,” Nizami said, “and I feel like I filled the holes that jurors may have had left.”
Black ‘N’ Blue abruptly closed down earlier this year after it became apparent the business was going to lose its liquor license due to a litany of complaints.
The hearing date for Clark’s sentencing in February has not yet been posted, according to LA County Superior Court records.
