Supreme Court upholds conviction in 2019 shooting death of UNM baseball player

A unanimous New Mexico Supreme Court last week affirmed the conviction of Darian Bashir in the 2019 shooting death of a University of New Mexico baseball player.

Bashir, 27, was found guilty by a jury last year of first-degree murder in the May 4, 2019, killing of 23-year-old Jackson Weller outside a Nob Hill nightclub.

Prosecutors told jurors that Bashir fatally shot Weller out of revenge for an earlier fight between Weller and one of Bashir’s close friends.

Second Judicial District Judge Cindy Leos sentenced Bashir in April 2022 to life in prison, requiring Bashir to remain in prison for 30 years before he is eligible for parole.

Chief Justice Shannon Bacon, writing for the five-member court, rejected Bashir’s request that the court reverse the conviction and order a new trial based on “claims of evidentiary error and judicial bias.”

The Supreme Court opinion summarized Bashir’s defense but rejected any basis for the claims.

The defense had argued that Bashir, who is Black, did not plan to shoot Weller, who was white, Bacon wrote in the Nov. 13 opinion. Instead, Weller had provoked Bashir by allegedly using a racial slur during their brief encounter on Central Avenue.

Bashir also said he felt threatened because Weller and another teammate were following closely behind him, the opinion said. Bashir’s attorney had asked the jury to return a verdict of voluntary manslaughter, arguing that Bashir had been provoked by Weller.

To support the provocation claim, Bashir had sought to introduce a screenshot of a retweet that contained “a variant of the n-word” allegedly posted on Weller’s Twitter account.

The Supreme Court found that the district judge was correct in excluding the retweet from evidence.

Bashir “fell far short of showing that it was (Weller) who posted the retweet or, for that matter, that (Weller) was the owner of the Twitter account on which the retweet appeared,” Bacon wrote.

Bashir had also wanted to include testimony about statements Weller allegedly made in the moments leading up to the shooting.

Bacon noted that Bashir had testified that, although he heard Weller say something, he couldn’t understand what Weller had said. Bashir’s own testimony rules out the possibility that he was provoked by Weller’s comments, Bacon wrote.