Trial opens in 1966 shooting

Opening arguments in the murder trial of William J. Barnes - accused of causing the death of a Philadelphia police officer decades after he shot him - took place this morning in Common Pleas Court.

Barnes, 74, a frail, white-haired man who walks with the aid of a cane, is accused of killing Officer Walter Barclay.

He shot the 23-year-old officer while burglarizing an East Oak Lane hair salon in November 1966. When Barclay died of a urinary-tract infection at age 64 in August 2007, the District Attorney's Office charged Barnes with murder.

Before the jury of nine women and three mean heard from attorneys for Barnes and the commonwealth, the defendant told Judge Renee Cardwell Hughes that he would not be accepting a third-degree guilty plea that the commonwealth had previously offered.

Such a plea could have resulted in Barnes being sentenced to a maximum 10 to 20 years with credit for having served 16 years for the shooting, Hughes advised Barnes.

"I decided to maintain my innocence and plead not guilty, your honor," Barnes said.

If found guilty by the jury of either first or second degree murder, the judge warned, he would be sentenced to life in state prison without the possibility of parole.

Assistant District Attorney Bridget Kirn said the evidence would prove that Barnes' bullet led to an unbroken chain of events that resulted in Barclay's "slow, miserable march toward death."

Defense attorney Samuel Silver said such a chain does not exist because Barclay had been in three car accidents and had fallen out of his motorized wheel chair twice during the 41 years that he lived after being shot.

"What we intend to show through the evidence . . . is that you simply can not connect a gunshot wound from 1966 to an infection in 2007," Silver said.

"A lot happened in Officer Barclay's life," he added.

Though paralyzed from he waist down by Barnes' bullet, Silver told the jury, Barnes was able to drive a specialized car, walk with braces, earn a college degree, marry and divorce three times and perform sexually.

The trial is expected to last all week.