Violent drug-dealing Penn Hills criminal who punched his own lawyer in court gets life in prison

At least this time, James Taric Byrd didn’t punch anyone.

He couldn’t, because he was in a wheelchair with his hands cuffed.

With U.S. marshals on the alert, Byrd faced U.S. District Judge Cathy Bissoon on Tuesday morning to answer for a lifetime of toting guns, shooting people, raping women and dealing drugs.

She put him away for the rest of his life. There is no parole in the federal court system, so life means life.

The judge also gave him 20 extra years and recommended that he be housed in a maximum-security facility as far away from Pittsburgh as possible.

Last year, during jury selection in his drug trial, Byrd suddenly reared back and clocked his lawyer, R. Damien Schorr, in the back of the head.

That was especially imprudent for two reasons. It’s never a wise legal tactic to assault your own lawyer inside a federal courtroom, where security cameras capture everything, and Schorr stands a good 6-foot-5 with the build of a middle linebacker.

Schorr didn’t hit him back, but U.S. marshals dog-piled Byrd that day, and he later had to listen to his trial from a cell because he was too disruptive to be in court.

He testified in prison clothes and shackles with four marshals surrounding him. That’s not the kind of image that plays well to a jury, and he was quickly convicted.

Tuesday was judgment day, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Brendan Conway didn’t spare the antipathy.

“He is an evil person with no willingness or capacity to empathize with others,” Conway said in sentencing papers. “His misconduct while incarcerated pending trial in this matter is mind-boggling in its scope and perniciousness.”

Conway added that Byrd, 46, threatened him and others, showed disdain for Judge Bissoon and sucker-punched an attorney who was trying to help him.

“In short, he is an absolute menace incapable of controlling his exceedingly violent nature, and there is no hope for rehabilitation,” Conway said.

Byrd had been convicted on numerous federal drug and gun counts related to an incident in McKeesport in which he had threatened to shoot up a house. He has experience with shooting, having wounded three people in a bar gunfight in Duquesne back in 1998 — one of his many convictions.

Byrd was indicted in his federal case in 2017. His trial focused on a February 2015 arrest in McKeesport, when police responded to a call that Byrd had threatened to shoot people. Searches turned up a loaded stolen gun, a bulletproof vest and a bunch of drugs: heroin, cocaine, crack and marijuana.

As a felon with a litany of convictions for assault, robbery and kidnapping, Byrd can’t have guns under federal law.

Conway said he needs to go to prison forever.

One government witness, a woman identified only as DH, described him as “the most dangerous person in all of Pittsburgh” and recounted numerous incidents of Byrd shooting and assaulting people as well as raping and beating her repeatedly from 1999 on.

After the 1998 bar shootout, Byrd was convicted on a variety of charges. He was also convicted for carrying an illegal gun while out on bond. Paroled on May 1, 2002, he was arrested again a few weeks later on escape charges. He fled to Ohio, where he was involved in yet another crime, this time a violent kidnapping and robbery of a drug dealer.

He went to prison again and didn’t get out until 2014. He was even worse after his release, according to DH.

Between 2014 and his arrest in 2015, Conway said, Byrd went on a crime rampage that included raping three women, assaulting others, kidnapping and issuing threats, some of which were recorded on jail calls.

Conway also recounted Byrd’s open disrespect for the law and U.S. court officers.

Most defendants in federal court, even hardcore criminals, tend to be contrite. They know the weight of the evidence against them and the gravity of the surroundings.

Byrd, however, unleashed vitriol from day one at his arraignment on Jan. 30, 2018, when he said “all you motherf—-rs are lucky I got these chains on my feet. When I get out, it’s over, hunting season’s just begun.”

In August of that year, he refused to be sworn in or answer questions by the judge, instead unleashing what Conway called a variety of “vulgarities, insults and non-sequiturs.”

In November 2019, he spewed more venom at a hearing. Conway, a veteran prosecutor, said he has never seen a defendant act worse.

When Byrd insisted on representing himself — never a good idea — the judge ordered a hearing on that request, but Byrd refused to come out of his cell. The marshals had to put him in restraints to secure his attendance at his own hearing. He also had to wear restraints at a later competency hearing.

In advance of other proceedings, Byrd told the marshals that he intended to urinate in the courtroom if they forced him to go to court.

Conway said Byrd also brazenly lied about the illegal gun in his case.

Byrd and someone identified as CR conspired to have CR testify at Byrd’s state court trial that the gun in question was his, not Byrd’s. That case ended in a mistrial, but federal agents later uncovered the conspiracy. Even so, Byrd tried to tell the same lie in federal court.

“To the jury’s credit, they rejected his perjurious testimony and unanimously found him guilty of all counts,” Conway said.

He also described numerous incidents in which Byrd threatened people while being held at the Allegheny County Jail, as well as uttering racial slurs, making sexual comments toward a nurse and threatening to throw urine on a jail officer.

U.S. marshals said they too had repeated clashes with Byrd during the case.

In October 2019, for instance, while he was being transported from a North Carolina prison to Pittsburgh for a hearing, he refused to get on a plane at Raleigh-Durham Airport. He had to be carried aboard, where he started to smack the window with his head. The marshals eventually had to use a stun gun on him.

Conway said Byrd was similarly disruptive while being held in federal custody at the North Carolina facility for a mental health evaluation.

Then there was the lawyer punch.

Byrd and Schorr, a court-appointed attorney, had many disagreements during the case. During jury selection in July, Schorr had his back to Byrd when Byrd socked him from behind in a “cowardly” attack captured on courtroom video, Conway said.

“The defendant intended to cause considerable harm to his counsel, and it is only his counsel’s considerable physical stature that prevented a more serious injury,” Conway said.

He said that attack was particularly egregious because Schorr defends indigent defendants. Without lawyers like him, Conway said, the courts could not function.

“The message from the court should be clear,” he said. “The court will not tolerate assaults on defense counsel, and every defendant from this case forward should know that courts will punish such conduct severely.”