‘Our hearts hurt’: Family of young mom slain in Old Town asks for maximum punishment

A 20-year-old Wichita woman must serve life in prison plus 5 1/2 years for a shooting in Old Town last year that left a 19-year-old mother dead.

A jury in March found La’Niha Banks guilty of eight charges : First-degree felony murder in the death of La’Tionna Johnson ; attempted first-degree premeditated murder, two counts of criminal discharge of a firearm at an occupied vehicle and four counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

The life sentence, imposed Friday in connection with Johnson’s murder, carries parole eligibility after 25 years — meaning Banks must spend 25 years in prison before she has her first chance to ask the prisoner review board to grant her parole. If she is granted parole, she will begin serving the 65-month portion of her sentence.

The earliest Banks could be released is when she’s around age 50, after serving 30 1/2 years.

Wichita police have said Johnson was shot after breaking up a fight between Banks and a childhood friend of Johnson’s as they were getting ready to leave Old Town on May 20, 2023. Johnson was with two younger sisters and two friends at the time. Banks pulled a gun and fired multiple shots into their vehicle as the women were pulling away from the argument, at around 11:10 p.m., police have said.

Johnson was struck in the neck and shoulder, causing fatal injuries. The shooting happened at First Street and Washington.

Johnson, the mother of a 6-month-old daughter, was a certified nursing assistant who had planned to attend aesthetician school, her family has said. She died at a Wichita hospital five days after the shooting , after undergoing surgery and being on life support.

Banks fled the shooting scene but later turned herself in at one of the Wichita Police Department’s substations, police have said. Prior to her jury trial, she had pleaded not guilty to the charges and has maintained she fired because she feared for her life and was defending herself after suffering a substantial beating by several people involved in the fight.

In a three-hour motions and sentencing hearing Friday, defense attorneys Philip White and Randall Price argued Banks’ convictions should be thrown out, that the state’s felony murder statute is unconstitutional and that she deserved leniency due to her age, the circumstances of the case and her lack of prior criminal history. They even brought in an expert witness who testified that the night of the shooting Banks’ still-developing brain left her unable to make reasonable and rational choices because she was in a heightened emotional state following her own attack, which included several blows to her head and body.

“There were a lot of choices that night. ... There are a lot of individuals that could have walked away, and they didn’t,” White said.

The prosecutor, Sedgwick County Assistant District Attorney Justin Edwards, shot back at any suggestion that Banks wasn’t fully responsible for her own actions and should receive anything but the maximum sentence. He pointed out that Banks had approached the car and instigated the fight with Johnson’s childhood friend and brought “a gun to a fistfight.”

In tearful pleas for justice, several of Johnson’s relatives and friends described in court how the killing had stripped them of a daughter, granddaughter and sister whom they adored and relied upon.

Johnson, only a few months into motherhood after having her own baby, was just beginning her life.

Now, she won’t see her daughter or siblings hit important milestones, leaving “a dark shadow over our lives,” her relatives said.

Lisa Johnson helped raise Johnson, her granddaughter, and treated her and her siblings as her own. She cut Johnson’s umbilical cord when she was born, took her to her first dance and went to all of her ballgames while she was growing up.

“Our hearts hurt. We miss her so much,” she told the judge.

Deja’Znae Evans said she and her siblings all looked up to Johnson. “My sister was like a mother to us.”

The night of the shooting “we were going out to have fun,” she said.

“Anger on top of anger” was the only thing that made Banks pull her gun at a car full of women leaving the area, Johnson’s mother, Na’Ceea Johnson, said.

She called on the judge to punish Banks to the full extent of the law.

“I feel like her charges should have been upped ... because it could have been worse (with more deaths). It should have never got that far,” she said, adding: “She’s ruined multiple lives. ... She is a menace to society.”

Banks sat emotionless as Johnson’s family spoke, something they said showed she felt no remorse for what she had done.

When it was her turn to address the court, Banks stayed seated between her lawyers and shook her head no to decline.

Her expression changed only when she left the courtroom: She flashed a smile, made a heart-shaped hand sign and quietly said “I love you” to some people sitting in the gallery.

After hearing all of the arguments and statements from Johnson’s family, the judge issued his ruling. Jeffrey Goering said he found no substantial or compelling reason to depart from the state’s sentencing guidelines. Jurors at the March trial had considered self-defense and other lesser offenses and decided against them, he said.

He sentenced Banks to life in prison for the murder, 165 months for attempted murder and 13 months on each count of aggravated assault and criminal discharge of a firearm at a vehicle. Banks will serve the 165-month sentence and one 13-month sentence concurrently, or at the same time, as the life sentence. But the other five 13-month sentences will be served consecutive to it.

He did that so Banks serves a sentence for each victim in the case, he said.

Goering also ordered Banks to pay $7,500 to the state’s crime victim compensation board for money it previously gave to Johnson’s relatives to help pay for her funeral costs. He also ordered her to pay $14,773.26 directly to Johnson’s family to cover other expenses tied to her medical care, death, funeral and burial.

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