Kalvin Suggs

MOULTRIE, Ga. — A Moultrie man is set to go on trial next week on a murder charge in a deadly 2015 shooting in the parking lot of a nightclub.

Kalvin Tyrone Suggs was scheduled to have a court date in August, but successfully had Superior Court Judge Brian McDaniel removed from the case, causing the postponement.

Suggs’ attorney argued that McDaniel should not preside over the case because, as an assistant district attorney, he had prosecuted Suggs in the past. McDaniel also was listed as a prosecution witness in the case against Suggs.

McDaniel, in his third year on the bench, served as a prosecutor in Colquitt County from 2001-2014. McDaniel granted the motion to have another judge hear the case.

Suggs, 28, is accused of fatally shooting 22-year-old Tony Harrison at about 1:30 a.m. on March 1, 2015, outside a nightclub in the Sunset Plaza on South Main Street.

At least three men exchanged gunfire during the confrontation, and several cars were struck by bullets. No bystanders were injured during the shootout.

At the time of Suggs’ arrest in 2015, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which was the lead agency in the slaying probe, said that Suggs and Harrison had been involved in an altercation that led to the shooting.

Suggs earlier entered a guilty plea to a single count of involuntary manslaughter in Harrison’s death. The Aug. 16, 2016, plea arrangement would have seen prosecutors drop charges related to the slaying, including felony murder, aggravated assault, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.

Under the deal, prosecutors also were willing to dismiss unrelated charges of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony stemming from an April 2014 case that was pending prior to Suggs’ arrest in connection with Harrison’s death.

The maximum sentence he would have faced on the involuntary manslaughter charge was 10 years.

However, the plea arrangement fell apart after Suggs was accused of violating terms set when he was released the day after he entered his guilty plea. A judge had allowed Suggs to be released pending sentencing on the condition that Suggs wear an ankle monitor, but he removed the monitor.

Suggs previously served two and a half years of a three-year sentence handed down in April 2010 on a conviction for possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, according to the Georgia Department of Corrections. At the time he also was sentenced on charges of possession of cocaine and theft by receiving stolen property in a separate case.

He was released in February 2013.