Although all parties involved in the 2006 conviction of Darrell Sky Walker swore the case was closed, Walker, who has sought another trial for more than 1 1/2 years, will once again make his case in the Oregon Court of Appeals in Salem next week.
Early in the morning on June 10, 2005, University senior Phillip Gillins was walking west down East 13th Avenue with his friends after a night at Taylor’s Bar and Grille when a man pushed his way through them and continued walking. According to witnesses, Gillins made a racial remark to the man, even though both were white. Walker, a black man, overheard Gillins’ remark while walking down East 13th Avenue with two of his friends. According to a June 2006 article in The Register-Guard, Walker claimed he took off his shirt in anticipation of a fight.
One racial comment soon turned into a three-on-three brawl in which Gillins, who was supposed to graduate with a degree from the School of Journalism and Communication the next day, took a blow to the head and fell on the ground in an alley between Hodgepodge and the former site of Blue Moon Trading Company on East 13th Avenue. Two days later, Gillins was pronounced dead.
Some witnesses claimed they saw Bryan “J.D.” Beall, another man involved in the fight, punch Gillins and heard him later boast about throwing the fatal punch. Others said they were sure Walker did it.
In April 2006 the jury of a week-long case found Walker, then 23, of Orange County, Calif., guilty of two counts of felony assault and one count of manslaughter. He was sentenced to six years and three months in prison, which he is currently serving.
Ted Vosk, Walker’s attorney, said that witness Ryan Joyce, who “has made it clear that Darrell did not strike Phillip,” could have testified against Beall had he been at Walker’s trial.
“Affidavits, and statements by a friend of Joyce’s indicate that Joyce purposefully disappeared so that he could not be called as a witness,” Vosk said in an e-mail. “According to these witnesses, Joyce disappeared for two reasons. First, to protect the true killer who was his best friend. Second, because the true killer’s attorney advised him that he would be thrown in jail if he testified, labeled a rat and taken care of.”
Many believed Walker’s arrest was a case of racial discrimination. In a Sept. 30 rally intended to promote civil rights and racial unity, speakers used Walker’s case as an example of the racial discrimination the black community still faces in Oregon. Among the rally’s attendees was Alesia Williams, Walker’s mother.
“There is a guilty man walking around Eugene … polluting the streets with drugs, bragging, and is going to get away with murder,” Williams said in an e-mail to Gregory Foote, the judge who presided over Walker’s trial. “Where is the justice?”
Walker’s next court date is scheduled for Thursday, March 13, at the appeals court in Salem.
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