photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Nicholas Beaver is pictured at a hearing Friday, October 10, 2025, in Douglas County District Court.

Defense attorneys requested — and a judge denied on Friday — a new trial for a man who earlier this year was found guilty of murder in a downtown Lawrence shooting.

A jury in July found Nicholas Beaver guilty of first-degree murder in the shooting death of Vincent Lee Walker on March 6, 2024, in front of the Lawrence Public Library. At trial, defense attorney Razmi Tahirkheli argued that Beaver was acting in self-defense. Then-Deputy District Attorney David Greenwald, who has since left the DA’s office, argued that Beaver felt disrespected by Walker and simply decided to kill him.

At a hearing Friday in Douglas County District Court, Tahirkheli argued that several things were “very obviously wrong” with the case against Beaver and asked that Beaver be granted either a judgment of acquittal or a new trial.

Tahirkheli argued Friday that Beaver’s Fifth Amendment rights had been violated. At trial, Tahirkheli had fought to keep the jury from knowing that Beaver had told a detective “You got the wrong person, bro,” and Tahirkheli said Friday that Beaver had told the detective that after exercising his right to remain silent.

Back in July, Judge Stacey Donovan had overruled Tahirkheli’s objection, saying the statement was admissible because Beaver had made it voluntarily to police. On Friday, she said much the same. While “it certainly got messy” during trial, she said, the court had found that the police questioning had stopped after Beaver invoked his rights, and Beaver then reinitiated the exchange himself and denied involvement in the shooting.

Tahirkheli also argued that the way the state described premeditation at trial “wipes out the difference” between second-degree murder and first-degree murder, and he took issue with part of Greenwald’s closing argument in which Greenwald urged jurors to rewatch video evidence in the case.

Two surveillance videos from the day of the shooting showing an altercation in front of the library were entered into evidence at trial — one from the Lawrence Public Library that had no audio, and one from a climbing gym across the street — and Greenwald had encouraged the jurors to “Go back and watch the videos; crank up the volume.”

On Friday, Tahirkheli said that Greenwald’s statements could have put ideas in jurors’ minds about what they would hear in the videos and get the jury “hearing things that weren’t there.” In response, assistant DA Devin Canfield said that words could be heard in the video from the climbing gym, and that it had been up to the jury to watch it and determine what was said.

Canfield also said that federal courts urge “great caution” in deciding whether a defendant should be granted a new trial. “There were no sufficient errors in this case,” he said.

Donovan ruled that the defense’s arguments on Friday were not convincing, and she denied the requests for a judgment of acquittal and for a new trial. She then set Beaver’s sentencing for Dec. 17.

photo by: Contributed

Vincent Lee Walker