After days of testimony and deliberations, jurors in the Tahliek Taliaferro death case said they eventually came to see the tragic shootings as a sudden flare-up of reckless conduct that grew from a long-standing feud between Taliaferro and Joey Parrish. The entire incident might never have occurred had it not been for a series of coincidental events, jurors said.

Media coverage and outrage over controversial verdicts in the shooting death of popular Powhatan High School student Tahliek Taliaferro may have influenced jurors while they deliberated the sentence of one of the men they convicted in the case. Four jurors independently confirmed to the Richmond Times-Dispatch in recent interviews that as many as three jurors viewed or read media accounts during the sentencing phase of the trial. They said those jurors told the group they were fearful of the repercussions that might ensue from a light sentence for shooter Ethan Parrish because it could further inflame the community and possibly endanger jurors.

If Tahliek Taliaferro were alive, he would have walked across the stage at Powhatan High School yesterday to receive his diploma. He would have been 19 and among nearly 300 students who make up the Class of 2009. Instead, his teary grandmother accepted an honorary diploma for her grandson to a round of applause at yesterday’s graduation ceremony.

“The brutality and senselessness defy understanding,“ we said of Tahliek Taliaferro’s killing last year. So, to many, did the verdict returned by the jury—involuntary manslaughter, despite the use of a firearm, which is not an involuntary act. The fact that the defendants were white and the victim black fed suspicions. If two black males had killed a white student, would they have received the same seeming leniency? Such concerns have prompted protests and an inquiry by the FBI.

Sign-toting protesters marched in circles, sporadically chanting “No justice, no peace!“ as state troopers and sheriff’s deputies blocked the entrance to the Powhatan County courthouse. On an overcast morning Thursday, two defendants were being sentenced in the shooting death of Tahliek Taliaferro and the nonfatal wounding of Courtney Jones. Family, friends and the prosecution had called Taliaferro’s death a murder. A jury of 11 whites and one black decided otherwise.

The shooting death of a high school football star and the life-altering wounding of his friend will send cousins Ethan Parrish and Joseph L. Parrish Jr. to prison until their mid-30s.

Minutes into the proceedings, Jean Taliaferro emerged from the courtroom, overcome. She stumbled down the brick walkway and collapsed into the arms of family and friends who fanned her with signs bearing the name of her dead grandson. “Tahliek’s still dead,“ she shouted through sobs. After recovering, she explained, “My daughter was talking about Tahliek and how I miss him. She got to crying, so I cried, too. I cry every day.“

Bill McKelway reports as the sentencing hearing for Joseph and Ethan Parrish gets underway in Powhatan.

State and local NAACP leaders want a Powhatan County judge to set aside involuntary-manslaughter verdicts today in Tahliek Taliaferro’s slaying and elevate them to convictions for first-degree murder. “The Powhatan community, people throughout the commonwealth and even nationwide are outraged at what is perceived as a miscarriage of justice in Powhatan,“ said King Salim Khalfani, state NAACP executive director.

A Powhatan County judge will be asked tomorrow to set aside guilty verdicts of involuntary manslaughter and assault against the younger of two men convicted in last summer’s shooting death of Tahliek Taliaferro. Attorney Craig S. Cooley, who represents 18-year-old Joseph L. Parrish Jr., says he will argue that there was insufficient evidence in the case to establish that Parrish aided or in any way abetted his cousin’s reckless, unpremeditated actions in Taliaferro’s death.

Twenty-seven days after the shooting death of Tahliek Taliaferro, the Powhatan County Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a proclamation commending the community for its response. The proclamation said the community had made efforts to hold together, “and our young people have shown us the way forward toward healing during this horrific time.“

Civil-rights leaders yesterday predicted the possibility of arrests and large crowds this week when two men convicted of involuntary manslaughter of a popular high school athlete are sentenced. And the Rev. Curtis W. Harris, a leader on civilrights issues in Virginia for half a century, told a boisterous crowd outside the Powhatan County courthouse that the courts system has made the adjudication of Tahliek Taliaferro’s death “a legal lynching.“

As Tahliek Taliaferro’s family and friends march today in protest of recent court decisions in the shooting death of the popular Powhatan County teen, a larger storm is brewing. On Thursday, Ethan and Joey Parrish will be sentenced for the slaying of Taliaferro nearly a year ago. Ethan pulled the trigger that day last June, setting in motion a chain of events that has left a small-town community confused and angry. The Parrish cousins, along with their vehicle’s driver, Stephanie Reynolds, originally faced murder charges in Taliaferro’s killing. The Parrishes were convicted of the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter this year, prompting uproar in Powhatan.

The family of slain Powhatan County teen Tahliek Taliaferro yesterday called on Gov. Timothy M. Kaine to launch an investigation into the case, alleging racial discrimination by the legal system. They also urged Kaine to send an observer to Thursday’s sentencing of cousins Ethan and Joseph Parrish, who were convicted this year of involuntary manslaughter in Taliaferro’s death. They initially had been charged with murder but were convicted of the lesser charge.

Stephanie C. Reynolds, who a year ago faced a murder charge in the shooting death of Tahliek Taliaferro, walked away from the Powhatan County courthouse yesterday a free woman. Reynolds, 20, never fired a gun or made a threat in connection with the high school athlete’s death. But yesterday, a judge approved a plea agreement in which Reynolds acknowledged guilt to three misdemeanors in connection with Taliaferro’s slaying.