A jury trial is underway for a Kenosha man accused of stabbing another driver during a road rage incident, but the jury will not hear about the alleged marijuana growing operation police found in his house during their investigation.
Mark Carver, 53, was charged in April with first-degree reckless injury, maintaining a drug trafficking place and manufacture-delivery of THC. Prior to his trial, Judge Bruce Schroeder ruled in favor of a defense motion to sever the stabbing case from the drug prosecution, saying that the two cases were largely unrelated and that trying them together would be prejudicial to Carver.
According to the court record, Carver’s attorney and prosecutors have come to a plea agreement on the drug charges, with Carver expected to plead guilty to maintaining a drug trafficking place while the manufacture-delivery charge will be dropped.
The trial related to the stabbing began Tuesday.
Carver’s attorney is not disputing that his client stabbed Dequane Price, a 21-year-old Kenosha man on April 2. But he is arguing that Carver stabbed the younger man in self-defense after the two exchanged insults over a driving dispute.
The prosecution alleges that Carver became enraged after honking at Price because he had not pulled away from a red light quickly enough, and that Carver followed the man into a PDQ gas station parking lot on the corner of 80th Street and 39th Avenue to continue the dispute. The younger man was stabbed once in the back, which resulted in a collapsed lung and damage to one kidney.
