DUNCAN, Okla. (AP) — A 17-year-old has been convicted of first-degree murder in the shooting death of an Australian college baseball player in Oklahoma.
A Stephens County jury found Chancey Allen Luna guilty on Friday of killing 22-year-old Christopher Lane by shooting him in the back in August 2013 while Lane was jogging in Duncan. The jury recommended that Luna be sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Defense attorneys acknowledged that Luna fired the fatal shot, but contended he only meant to scare Lane and asked that the jury be allowed to consider convicting him of second-degree murder, which carries a sentence of 10 years to life in prison. The judge earlier Friday rejected the request.
Lane, from Melbourne, Australia, was in Oklahoma on a baseball scholarship.