Marquan Banks was retained for first -degree murder trial in Norristown

Marquan Banks killed a man in a directed execution, prosecutors said Thursday, pulling him while crossing a Norristown street.

Banks, 26, saw Jermaine Pierce in a bar before the night of the murder and waited “a more appropriate time to get rid of him,” said the attached district prosecutor Samantha Cauffman.

“We do not have many murder methods in cases that try to be more demonstrative of an execution,” he said. “He threw his gun, backed away and shot.”

He gave no reason for the murder of Pierce, 37, but described him as deliberate and intentional.

Banks’ lawyer, Joseph Schultz, challenged that case theory, and said the shooting was caused. The scene surveillance video, he said, showed that Pierce, with a mask and with his hands in his pockets, had approached Banks in a suspicious and confrontational way on the nights of January that the banks shot him.

Banks, he said, “did not act as a murderer.” He raised his gun and shot only someone who perceived as a threat, and who wore a gun.

“This does not seem a first degree murder with a completely formed intention to kill,” said Schultz.

District Judge Denise Ashe kept banks for the trial for murder, charges for related weapons and crimes after the preliminary hearing. At one point during the procedure, Schultz entered an exchanged to Pierce’s family after he accused them of interrupting their argument in the court. .

The surveillance video reproduced in the Court on Thursday showed Banks and two other men who arrived in Airy Tavern just before 7 pm on the night of the murder. The men who were with banks entered and spoke briefly with Pierce, then left the facilities along with Banks, who had remained outside.

Banks and his associates returned to the area around 7:30 pm and parked their vehicle near the intersection of Noble and Marshall streets. The group then walked south on noble and saw a friend of Pierce, Isaiah Bell, standing in the opposite corner.

When the men approached Bell, Pierce crossed the street towards them, and Banks raised a gun and shot, hitting Pierce on the left side of his head, prosecutors said.

Banks and his friends fled, showed the video, but Bell ran to Pierce, took Pierce’s waist weapon and shot Banks and others. For that shooting, Bell was accused of crimes of weapons, theft and reckless danger.

The banks, who could not legally own a weapon due to a simple assault conviction in a case of domestic violence, will be processed in the County Court in April.