Easton Man Will Serve 6-12 Years for Fatal Shooting

Early on March 13, 2010, two men with guns met on an Easton street corner.

One of them, Joe Rountree, was shot and died at the hospital. 

The other, Clinton Harris, was convicted earlier this year of voluntary manslaughter for killing Rountree.

And for that crime, Harris must now spend 6 to 12 years in state prison, a Northampton County judge ruled Wednesday. Judge Craig Dally also added an addition 60 to 120 days to his sentence on a probation violation.

No sentence can bring Rountree back, Dally said. But he noted that Harris needed to be punished.

"Certainly the people of Easton, the people of Northampton County, shouldn't have to live in fear of people out in the middle of the night with guns like it's the wild west," the judge said.

The reason Harris, 24, and Rountree, 22, of Wilson were out in the middle of the night with guns stems from an argument earlier that evening. At his trial, Harris argued that he fired in self-defense. The jury could have convicted him of first degree murder, which carries a life sentence.

Jodi Crowe, Rountree's mother, told Dally she wished Harris, a Berwick Street resident, had just stayed home that night.

"His mother wouldn't be in the pain she's in," she said, "and I'd have my son back."

She spoke of the pain Rountree's death has had on his own children.

"They cry. They have nightmares. They've regressed," said Crowe, of Wilson. "Every day I wake up in a hell."

Ramona Harris, Clinton's mother, called her son "the core of our family," and offered her condolences to Rountree's family.

"I pray for Mr. Rountree's mother every night," she said. "I still grieve for his family and his children."

Harris apologized to Rountree's family as well.

"I just wish I could take it all back," he said. "My parents, they didn't raise me to be like this."

There was testimony Wednesday about Harris' involvement with his family, church and community, his willingness to work and his 3.7 GPA at Northampton Community College. 

But in the end, Dally came back to that corner in Easton, and two men with guns.

"As we all know, nothing good can come of that situation," he said. "And as we all know, nothing did."