photo by: Sara Shepherd

Danny W. Queen listens as his attorney Dakota Loomis presents closing arguments in Queen's murder trial on Tuesday, July 31, 2018, in Douglas County District Court. Queen is charged with murder in the fatal shooting of Bo Hopson outside a Eudora bar on June 24, 2017.

Story updated: 5:37 p.m. Tuesday, July 31, 2018.

When Danny W. Queen fatally shot Bo Hopson outside a Eudora bar, was his use of deadly force legally justified?

A jury is now deciding.

After hearing closing arguments from attorneys Tuesday morning in Douglas County District Court, jurors began deliberations around 12:10 p.m. They went home for the day at 5 p.m. and were scheduled to resume deliberations Wednesday afternoon, as the judge said she had an immovable conflict Wednesday morning.

Queen’s murder trial began with jury selection on July 23 and had been scheduled to wrap up Friday, but has now been going on over a week.

Prosecutors say Queen’s actions were premeditated murder.

“This is not a case of self defense, this is not a threat that had to be neutralized,” Amy McGowan said in her closing arguments to the jury. “This is a situation where Danny Queen is in a bar, angry, drunk, humiliated and armed.”

Queen’s attorneys asked jurors to find Queen not guilty because he acted in self defense.

“He believed he was in imminent danger,” Dakota Loomis said. “There’s no overkill after the threat had been stopped … There’s no motive, Bo Hopson had not been involved with Danny Queen all night.”

The shooting happened shortly after 1 a.m. June 24, 2017, at D-Dubs Bar and Grill, 10 W. Ninth St. in Eudora. Hopson, 32, of Eudora, sustained one gunshot wound to his chest and one to his arm, and died at the hospital the next day.

Queen, 37, of Eudora, had been drinking heavily and got kicked out of the bar after making offensive comments to women inside. On the way out, he tussled with other bar-goers before being lifted onto a flatbed trailer in the parking lot. Queen pulled his pistol out of his pocket and shot Hopson, who was working security at the bar that night and standing by the trailer keeping an eye on Queen.

No one — including Queen himself, who testified on Monday — disputes that Queen killed Hopson.

The circumstances are what’s in question.

Queen is charged with first-degree murder for allegedly killing Hopson intentionally and with premeditation, Judge Peggy Kittel said.

Jurors could find Queen guilty of lesser crimes, Kittel said: either second-degree murder if they believe Queen killed Hopson intentionally, or voluntary manslaughter if they find Queen knowingly killed Hopson “based upon an unreasonable but honest belief that circumstances existed that justified deadly force in defense of a person.”

Jurors also could find that Queen didn’t commit a crime because his use of force was legal under Kansas law.

Kittel said the defendant is allowed to use potentially deadly force only when it reasonably appears to him that such force is needed to prevent death or great harm from someone else’s unlawful use of force. She said that when use of force is justified, there is no requirement to retreat.

In addition to Hopson’s killing, Queen also is charged with two counts of attempted first-degree murder of bargoers Clark Orth and Dustin Crowe, whom he pointed his gun at and attempted to shoot, as well, though the gun jammed.

photo by: Contributed photo

Bo M. Hopson

McGowan said that after being “bested” at the bar and continuing to pick fights on his way out, Queen “retaliated.” McGowan said that while Queen clearly was beaten after the shooting, witnesses contradicted Queen’s statements that he was punched and lost consciousness before the shooting.

“He propels and escalates this whole series of events forward,” McGowan said.

McGowan said that when he could have just left and walked home, accepted Hopson’s offer to get him a ride or made other choices, Queen instead spent more than 3 minutes sitting quietly on the trailer pre-meditating the murder.

At that point, McGowan said, Queen took out his anger on the people nearby — first Hopson. At the hospital before he died, Hopson told a friend that Queen suddenly sat up and said “What do you think about this?” before firing.

“He pulls out a gun nobody knows he has and shoots a man who is unarmed and doing nothing but trying to help,” McGowan said.

In his closing arguments Loomis reminded jurors that D-Dubs was like a “family” — a family Queen wasn’t a part of. Some of the people Queen crossed paths with said they went to the small-town bar three or four nights a week.

“Most everyone there that night knew each other except for Danny Queen,” Loomis said. “There’s no one there to help Danny out, Danny’s there by himself.”

Loomis said surveillance video from the entire evening contradicted bargoers’ recollections of the night’s events.

When he got kicked out, Queen had consumed four shots of whiskey and three beers in about an hour and a half — on top of numerous shots and beers he’d had before he got there, Loomis said.

Queen testified that he didn’t interact with Hopson at any point in the night. Queen said that he heard Hopson say he wanted to “stomp” his head, saw Hopson moving toward him on the trailer and feared he would be attacked again and possibly killed by him or other strangers who were still standing around.

Queen was alone, beaten, dazed, confused, scared and drunk, Loomis said.

“He had the right to use deadly force to protect himself,” Loomis said. “Danny Queen made a split-second decision … Under very difficult circumstances, he reacted — a reaction to protect himself.”

Loomis said there was no reason for Queen to “snap.” Things were going well at work and with co-parenting his daughter with his ex-wife, and he’d had no recent trauma.

Loomis added that Queen was honorably discharged after 13 years in the military, had no history of violence and had purchased the gun he used that night and others he had at home legally from federally licensed dealers. He took his guns and training seriously, and used his training that night — shoot twice, assess the situation, repeat.

In her final rebuttal Tuesday, McGowan reminded jurors that Hopson was known at the bar for helping others and being “notorious for being able to talk a fight down.”

McGowan said that before Hopson died — when Hopson had been through surgery and everyone, including him, thought he was going to make it — his personality shone through when he told a friend visiting him in the hospital, “I’m glad it was me that got shot and not somebody else.”