Joice Duane Williams was sentenced to 18 years in prison after pleading guilty to charges connected to a May 2022 shooting outside a nightclub on the 5400 block of South Tacoma Way, which killed 56-year-old Reginald Taylor. Prosecutors said the incident began as a confrontation outside the club that quickly escalated into gunfire, and the sentence was handed down last Tuesday in Pierce County Superior Court.
Sentence, plea and charges
Williams pleaded guilty to two counts of third-degree assault and unlawful possession of a firearm as part of a plea agreement. Judge Susan Adams imposed consecutive terms, five years for the assault of Taylor, three years for assaulting a second man and 10 years for the firearms count, for a total of 18 years in prison. As reported by The News Tribune, prosecutors had originally charged Williams with first- and second-degree murder and second-degree assault before the deal was reached.
Three-strikes risk
Pierce County prosecutors told the court that the plea deal kept Williams from potential exposure to Washington’s persistent-offender statute, sometimes called the three-strikes law, which can require life in prison without the possibility of release for a third "most serious" offense. Under RCW 9.94A.570, a persistent offender may be sentenced to life without the possibility of release.
Defense claims and witness accounts
Defense attorney Emily Gause argued that surveillance footage shows Taylor holding a knife before the shooting. Prosecutors countered that no witnesses reported seeing a knife and that investigators never recovered one. A witness told police the shooter ran to a Jeep Cherokee that then sped away, and court filings note Williams’s prior convictions, including a 2012 first-degree burglary and a 2002 second-degree manslaughter conviction. Relatives described Taylor as a father of six, and an aunt called him a "source of life." Williams, in a written statement to the court, expressed "profound remorse" for Taylor’s death. These details were reported by The News Tribune.
What comes next
Williams will now begin serving the 18-year term under Judge Adams’s order. A Pierce County Superior Court judge, Adams presided over a sentencing that weighed Williams’s criminal history, the fatal outcome of the shooting and the constraints of the plea bargain that removed the original murder counts. The family’s response to the sentence remains a prominent part of the court record. For background on the presiding judge’s role, see Pierce County Superior Court.
