A 29-year-old Minnesota man was sentenced to 35½ years in prison in Olmsted County District Court on Monday, March 13, 2023, for murdering a Rochester man following a fight after a 2021 dice game in downtown Rochester.
Derrick Timothy Days pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon, both felonies, as part of a November 2022 plea deal that dismissed an additional felony charge of second-degree murder and illegally possessing a firearm, also a felony. He will serve approximately 284 months of his sentence with good behavior, serving the remaining time on supervised probation.
Days shot and killed 28-year-old Todd Lorne Banks Jr. following an argument over a dice game in the early morning hours of June 6, 2021.
District Judge Joseph Chase credited Days with 646 days for time served.
Chase rejected arguments from Days’ lawyer, Beau McGraw, for a lighter sentence during Monday’s hearing.
McGraw called for a downward departure based on Day’s remorse and the fact that Days was not the initial aggressor.
The Olmsted County Attorney’s Office played footage of the murder, which shows Banks and another man get into a fight and Days firing multiple shots while Banks was lying prone on the pavement.
“There was time to choose another course,” Chase said in court before sentencing Days.
A co-defendant in the case, Nautica Delshaun Cox, 23, of Robbinsdale, Minnesota, can be seen in the video firing multiple shots at another man. Cox is scheduled to appear in court May 25, 2023, on felony charges of aiding and abetting murder and the illegal possession of a firearm for his role in the Banks’ death.
“If I could take back my actions that day, I would,” Days said in court. “I am truly sorry for what I did.”
“He treated life as cheap. He treated life as disposable,” Olmsted County Chief Deputy Attorney Eric Woodford said while arguing for a harsher sentence in the case. Woodford pointed out that Banks had lost the fight and was on the ground when Days fired at least eight rounds during the incident.
Officers found Banks bleeding from gunshot wounds and unresponsive. Life-saving efforts were attempted on scene, and Banks was loaded into an ambulance. He was pronounced dead at 2:56 a.m. Sunday, June 6, 2021. He had at least five entrance wounds.
Banks’ mother and girlfriend spoke to the court Monday, with both outlining a man who supported friends and family.
“He was my baby and always came to my rescue,” Bank’s mother, Laneice Bryant, said in court.
Bryant said since her son’s death she’s taken multiple medications to help her sleep but nothing seems to work.
“I can’t sleep or move on from what happened to my son,” she said.
Banks learned a few months prior to his murder that he was going to be a dad, according to testimony Monday from his girlfriend, Katie Wempner.
“I like to believe our son holds a piece of JR,” Wempner said in court.
According to court documents:
A Rochester police officer was in the area at the time of the shooting. The officer saw a handgun in Cox’s hand and “shooting towards people” at the southwest corner of the intersection of First Avenue and Third Street Southwest.
A handgun was found behind a trash receptacle where the officer observed Cox reach out his arm.
Cox was arrested on scene. Days was arrested about two hours later at a southeast Rochester apartment complex. A Rochester police investigator reportedly recognized Days from a previous incident and knew he was associated with a man who lived at that complex. A review of the building’s surveillance footage reportedly showed Days entering the apartment shortly after the incident.
At the time of his arrest, Days denied being in any fight or seeing a shooting and said he was at a bar and then walked to his car and left.
Days was released from prison in December 2020 after serving a federal prison sentence for being a felon in possession of a firearm or ammunition. He is on supervised release on that charge until December 2023. He was previously ineligible to own a firearm following a 2015 conviction out of Ramsey County for second-degree burglary.
Cox was on probation at the time of the incident following a September 2020 felony conviction in Ramsey County of being ineligible to own a firearm. He is ineligible to own a firearm or possess any ammunition as a result of 2018 convictions in Hennepin County for fourth-degree felony assault and first-degree aggravated robbery.
Tell us your thoughts...