Jury Deliberates Case Of Man Charged With Asthmatic's Death

BOSTON (AP) — Jurors have started deliberating in an unusual legal case in which a Boston man faces a first-degree murder charge for allegedly causing the death of an asthmatic man fleeing gunfire.

The Suffolk Superior Court jury is expected to enter its first full day of deliberations Thursday.

Prosecutors say Michael Stallings started shooting at a group of men in January 2012. Although no one was struck, 40-year-old Kelvin Rowell suffered an asthma attack and collapsed as he fled the gunfire. He died more than a month later.

The district attorney's office charged Stallings with murder on the theory that he deliberately caused the sequence of events leading to Rowell's death.

Stallings' attorney said the murder charge is a stretch and argued in court that someone else opened fire first.