Darrin Lopez in Dallas court
Updated Friday evening: The jury deliberated much longer on sentencing than on the general verdict. In the end they sentenced Darrin Lopez to 62 years in a state penitentiary, including time served. He was arrested in January 2021 and has been in the Dallas County jail since then for the murder of James Faith.
Updated at 11:45 a.m. Friday: After less than an hour of deliberation, a jury found Darrin Lopez guilty of the murder of James Faith. During the Punishment phase, friends and family of James will discuss how the murder has impacted them. Lopez’s past trauma might also be considered.
At about 10:30 Friday morning the prosecution rested its case against Darrin Lopez, 51, for the murder of James Faith near his Oak Cliff home.
James Faith’s widow, Jennifer Faith, has already been sentenced to life in prison for manipulating Lopez, her high school sweetheart with whom she was engaged in an intense remote emotional and sexual affair, to kill James. The jurors do not know that, and they did not hear from Jennifer. They did, however, receive ample testimony and evidence to show that Jennifer did a lot of work to convince Lopez that she was being horrifically abused and that her life was in danger.
Jennifer and James Faith
Assistant district attorney Caitlyn Pavers, in closing arguments, reminded the jury that in order for deadly force to be justified in the eyes of the law, someone must be in immediate danger. The killer would need to be attempting to prevent an act in progress. Even if you accept that Lopez believed Jennifer’s life was in danger, James Faith was in no way threatening anyone the morning he was gunned down on Waverly Street, Pavers said.
“The idea that Darrin Lopez was justified in executing James Faith is as absurd and unbelievable as those emails [see Wednesday and Thursday testimonies],” Pavers said. Even if you believe everything he said, that he sincerely thought Jennifer Faith’s life was in danger, it still does not justify the murder. She said jurors are required to consider what a “just and prudent” person would have done in this case.
Prosecutors also added in closing that though he might have a brain injury, emotional trauma and PTSD, his military service does not excuse his actions. In fact, they implied, his special forces training, training to assess threat and in situational awareness, makes him especially equipped to consider all the other possible responses. “It all fell by the wayside when it came to getting James Faith out of the way.” Yes, Jennifer Faith is guilty, but also yes, Darrin Lopez is guilty, they said.
Defense attorney Cliff Duke began his statement by saying that Oak Cliff father and husband James Faith was a good man who did absolutely nothing wrong, that this utterly innocent man was killed in gruesome fashion on a neighborhood street. However, he said, displaying a photo of Jennifer Faith to the court, “this woman provoked and terrified Darrin Lopez.” And the idea that Lopez was in on this lie that James was a dangerous abuser, is not believable.
He asked jurors to consider, when deciding what a “reasonable and prudent” person would do, what a person in Lopez’s position as a “damaged, broken, entirely disabled war vet” would do when convinced that the woman he has pined for and loved for 30-plus years was going to be tortured, raped and potentially killed. The defense team detailed a litany of traumatic events in Lopez’s life — the horrors of war, injuries from explosions, massacre of his military brothers, at home the drowning death of his granddaughter, the suicide of his best friend and several other situations endured prior to reconnecting with Jennifer.
Darrin Lopez believed everything Jennifer said and would do anything she asked him to do, the defense said. “She created a monster and then sent Darrin, a disabled soldier, to do her bidding. He pulled the trigger, but she pulled him.”
Still, said prosecutor Brandi Mitchell as the trial came to a close, There is not a single legal defense of this execution, and there is but one victim, and that is James Faith.
If found guilty, Darrin Lopez could be sentenced to five-99 years or life. The sentencing phase of the trial begins after the jury returns the verdict. We will update this article if the verdict comes in today.
