The victim’s side of the courtroom gallery was a sea of red on Thursday afternoon, as the parents, relatives, friends and supporters of the late Garrett Hughes united in the red of Conch Pride to hear Hughes’s shooter, Preston Brewer, be sentenced.
“You have been found guilty by a jury of your peers and adjudicated guilty of murder in the first degree. I hereby sentence you to spend the rest of your life in prison without the possibility of parole,” Judge Mark Jones announced after asking Brewer, who was convicted last month, to approach the bench to be sentenced.
There was no cheer or celebration from the gallery in red. Only a sigh of relief that the case was over and justice had been served.
Brewer declined to say anything when invited to do so by the judge. And the family and friends of Garrett Hughes did not give victim impact statements, choosing not to give Brewer their time or emotion, prosecutor Colleen Dunne said.
The proceedings opened with Judge Jones denying a last-ditch motion for a new trial that was filed by Brewer’s attorneys. It’s a common, though not typically successful move following a guilty verdict.
Before sentencing Brewer to life without parole, Jones spoke of the tragedy of the shooting that “happened in the blink of an eye, and nothing I can say can change the situation today. But maybe something I say may change the way someone behaves in the future,” Jones said, acknowledging the impact of the shooting on the local community and the media attention the case has garnered since it occurred in February 2023.
Jones then discussed the responsible use of firearms.
“If a person chooses to own and carry a deadly weapon, a firearm, to have that firearm loaded with the type of bullets that we saw during this trial, that can rip a man’s guts apart, he better damn well use it responsibly and in a law-abiding manner.”
Jones quoted the biblical passage from Proverbs, “Pride goeth before the fall,” equating it to the case at hand.
“This case is a great example of that principle….One man has lost his life and one will spend the rest of his life in prison,” the judge said.
