Opening statements made in case against man in fatal shooting

The defense says the state won't be able to prove its case.
YOUNGSTOWN -- Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul J. Gains told a jury that convicted felons will give key testimony in a murder trial.
Gains outlined his case in opening statements Tuesday in the trial of Ceyanie D. Dubose, 28, who listed a Lora Avenue address, who is charged with aggravated murder with a firearm specification.
Police said he killed Marcus Bradley on Nov. 12, 2001, on the city's South Side. Bradley was shot three times in the head.
The trial before Judge James C. Evans was to continue today.
Dubose faces life imprisonment if convicted. The firearm specification carries an additional three-year sentence.
Finding a lead
Gains told jurors police had no leads on the case until an informant came forward and linked Dubose and his cousin, Edward L. Dubose, to the homicide.
He said testimony from the informant and another man will show Bradley pulled a gun on Edward Dubose. Ceyanie Dubose's family would later attempt to clean an article of his clothing that had blood stains on it. Also, Ceyanie would tell the informant he and his cousin "were after Bradley," Gains said.
The prosecutor admitted the informant and the other witness were offered reduced prison sentences in exchange for their testimony against Dubose. One of the men is a convicted drug dealer; the other a convicted killer.
Gains said both will testify "there was a scheme to kill Bradley."
Dubose's lawyers are Douglas B. Taylor and Ronald E. Knickerbocker.
Questionable evidence
Taylor said in his opening statement that there are "two sides to this story" and that the state would be unable to identify Dubose as the shooter. He also said that the state would not be able to show that Dubose purposely designed to kill Bradley. The state must prove those things to convict someone of aggravated murder, he said.
Taylor told the 10-woman, two-man jury that an alibi witness, the mother of Dubose's child, will testify that Dubose was with her the night of the killing. She asked him to pick up some medicine for the child and he spent the night in her Liberty apartment.
Police brought no charges against Dubose after questioning him Nov. 12. Eighteen months later, however, police arrested him at his job and charged him with Bradley's murder, Taylor said.
Taylor said the state's two key witnesses would give "unreliable and tainted information." He said there is no gun, no witnesses to the shooting, or any fingerprints that will tie his client to the shooting.
Established witnesses
Gains called four witnesses to the stand -- a Hoffman Street couple who saw a Cadillac on the curb of their street, saw people walking and talking to the car's driver, and who later heard gunshots near their home during the early morning hours of Nov. 12; a city police officer who said he and his partner found Bradley's body while on patrol; and Dr. Jesse C. Giles, a forensic pathologist and former deputy county coroner who confirmed that Bradley died of the gunshot wounds. Dr. Giles is now working in Jacksonville, Fla. He worked seven years for the county.
Police found Bradley, also known as Marcus Moore, shot to death at Mercer Avenue and Hoffman Street. Bradley had moved to Youngstown from Minnesota about a year before he was killed, police officials have said.
A county grand jury indicted the Duboses on the aggravated murder charge in 2003. Both have been in the county jail since then. Edward Dubose, 23, of Albert Street, is scheduled for trial later this year.