A Lake Charles man convicted in a 2020 fatal shooting that was caught on camera and who now claims he “did not know his actions were wrong at the time” will continue to serve a life sentence for the crime.

James Sanford Snider shot John Tallon Lee once in the chest with a .38 caliber revolver on Sept. 24, 2020. When Lake Charles Police officers arrived, Snider was still at the scene with the revolver in his hands.

Officer Houston Boyt testified Snider complied with his commands and laid the revolver down on a log so he could handcuff and detain him. He said the revolver contained one spent casing and five unfired rounds.

Boyt’s bodycam video shows Snider repeatedly telling officers he had been abused and “that man (Lee) had me on my knees with a machete.”

Lee’s nephew, Joseph Doucett Jr., also testified during the trial and presented a 22-second video of the actual shooting. Doucett told jury members his uncle asked him to record the interaction with Snider. In the video, Lee is standing by his car while Snider is standing in front of him holding a gun in his right hand. The video shows Snider poking Lee in the chest with the gun then shooting him at point-blank range before walking away and yelling, “He beat the s*** out of me.”

When officers read Snider his Miranda rights and got to the part of “you have the right to remain silent,” Snider replied, “Hell no.” He also said he tried to get Lee to pull a weapon on him so he could disarm him then kill him. He said he had been wanting to kill Lee for about two years, claiming he shot Lee “with intent.” He also said he “enjoyed” it and had lured Lee to the location where he shot him.

He also told officers he’d like to plead to “death row.”

Dr. Patrick Hayes testified Snider knew what he was doing at the time of the shooting. “If you yell the word die before you pull a trigger and kill somebody, you know who you are; you know who they are; you know what that action’s going to do.”

Hayes called Snider’s actions after the shooting were logical and coherent.

In his appeal to the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeal, Snider claims the evidence was insufficient to convict him and that “he proved by a preponderance of the evidence that he was insane at the time of the offense.”

The court disagreed stating, while “expressing the desire to get sentenced to die by lethal injection cannot be considered normal under any circumstances, the fact remains that simply is not proof Snider met the legal definition of insanity.” The court also found Hayes to be unequivocal in his assertion that Snider did not meet the legal definition of insanity at the time of the shooting.

The court also affirmed Snider’s conviction for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

 

 

 

 

 

A jury convicted Snider on March 4, 2022, of second-degree murder and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.