GRAYSON — A Carter Circuit Court jury on Wednesday wasted no time in deciding to acquit Timothy Emerson in the shooting death of his neighbor, Richard Lawrence.

The seven-man, five-woman panel deliberated for only about an hour and 10 minutes before returning the not-guilty verdict.

Emerson, 51, of Fighting Fork, was charged with murder and could’ve gotten 20 years to life in prison if convicted of that charge. Jurors also had the option of convicting him of first- or second-degree manslaughter or reckless homicide.

Instead, the panel found that Emerson was privileged to act in self-defense when he shot the 41-year-old Lawrence in the face with a 12-gauge shotgun on Aug. 8.

Emerson, a slight, balding man, showed no visible reaction when Judge Rebecca Phillips read the verdict. However, he appeared to be in tears moments later as he spoke with his attorney, Michael Curtis. He appeared to mouth the words “Thank you” several times.

He smiled broadly as was embraced by one of his four sons, Kenneth Emerson, who was seated on the front row of the courtroom.

“I’m just glad to be back home with my family,” Emerson said as he was leaving. “This was a bad situation. I’m just going to have to watch who I help from now on.”

Lawrence’s widow, Barbara Lawrence, was in a room across a hallway from the courtroom when the jury returned the verdict. Loud wails could be heard coming from that direction a short time after Commonwealth’s Attorney Gary Conn and his assistant, Jennifer Barker, went to inform her of the decision.

Conn said after court that there was little he could say about the verdict, which closed out a six-day trial.

“When a jury speaks,” he said, “there’s not a whole lot you can say.”

Curtis said he believed the panel’s conclusion that the shooting was justified was the correct one.

“Richard Lawrence was looking for trouble,” he said. “Tim wasn’t looking for trouble.”

Curtis also said he believed the jury picked up on small details in the case that indicated Richard and Barbara Lawrence’s marriage wasn’t as loving as Barbara Lawrence made it out to be on the witness stand.

One of those, he said, was Barbara Lawrence referring to Richard Lawrence as “my ex-husband” in a 911 call she placed the day before the shooting to complain about her husband harassing her.

Also, Curtis noted that Carter County Coroner George Sparks had testified that he released Richard Lawrence’s remains to his father, rather than to his wife.

“That should tell you something about that relationship,” he said.

Barbara Lawrence and her daughter, Katie, 12, were living in Emerson’s trailer at the time of the shooting because Richard and Barbara Lawrence had taken out domestic-violence petitions against one another and weren’t supposed to have any contact. Emerson, a union pipefitter, worked out of town five days a week and Barbara Lawrence would take care of his home while he was gone.

Barbara Lawrence acknowledged during her testimony that her husband could be violent. She said he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and tended to be abusive when he was off his medication and drinking.

The shooting occurred after Richard Lawrence went to Emerson’s home to confront Emerson about the nature of his relationship with Barbara Lawrence. According to testimony, Richard Lawrence had heard a rumor that the two were sleeping together.

Emerson testified that when Richard Lawrence came to his door, he pulled the loaded shotgun from under his bed and was holding it when he answered the door. After he told Richard Lawrence there was nothing going on between him and his wife, Richard Lawrence became enraged, but backed out of his trailer and appeared to be leaving, he said.

However, Emerson told jurors that Richard Lawrence then began violently kicking the door while threatening to kill him. At that point, Emerson said he fired his weapon through a window in the door because he thought Lawrence was about to break in.

In his closing remarks, Conn told jurors that Emerson was not privileged to use deadly force against Richard Lawrence because the door was never breached. He also noted there was never any real danger of that happening because the door swung outward, rather than inward, and the frame was on the outside of the trailer.

“There was no need for Richard Lawrence to die,” he said. “Nobody really had to die in this case. “This was not a situation that called for a shotgun blast and blowing a man’s head off.”

But Curtis maintained that his client did what he did to protect himself and his property, and that he had every right to do so.

“Richard did not have the right to be there,” he said. “He had already been told to leave. Tim didn’t have any duty to retreat. He had the right to meet force with force.”

Emerson had been in custody since the shooting. He thanked Phillips, the judge, after she told him she was faxing an order to the Carter County Detention Center for him to be released immediately.

KENNETH HART can be reached at khart@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2654.