Las Vegas Punch Killing: Ex-Convict Pleads Not Guilty

LAS VEGAS, NV — An ex-convict pleaded not guilty Tuesday to throwing a punch that led to the death of a California father of five outside a downtown Las Vegas bar.

Surveillance video appeared to show the 1:30 a.m. April 30 punch was unprovoked, police and prosecutors said. Luis Campos, 45, was standing in line outside a lounge on Fremont Street when James Michael Beach, 28, stopped while walking past.

Beach asked Campos what he was looking at, and then punched him, police said. Defense attorney Greg Knapp has said the two men exchanged words, and that Beach didn't intend to kill Campos. (For more information on the fatal punch case and other Las Vegas stories, subscribe to Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

Campos, a truck driver from the Los Angeles-area city of La Puente, was in Las Vegas for a bachelor party. He never regained consciousness after falling to the sidewalk, dying at a hospital four days later.

Beach also is accused of threatening to harm a woman who identified him to police.

He spoke in court only to enter his pleas to murder and intimidating a witness charges. Beach remains jailed on $350,000 bail.

Defense attorney Knapp said outside court that he wants to check Campos' medical records to see whether other conditions contributed to his death.

A judge set trial to start Oct. 2.

Beach was released from Nevada state prison in September 2014 after serving more than four years for attempted murder and battery with a deadly weapon in a November 2008 shooting that left a 19-year-old man wounded in the heart and another man wounded in the groin.

By KEN RITTER, Associated Press

Photo credit: Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department via AP