LAWYERS ARGUE OVER TEEN'S ROLE IN FATAL BEATING; SELF-DEFENSE CLAIM DISPUTED.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

A jury hearing the case of a teen-ager fatally injured in a Newhall church parking lot was asked Tuesday to determine whether the accused acted in self-defense or attacked the victim out of jealousy.

The prosecution and defense presented closing arguments to the six-man, six-woman jury hearing the murder case against Joshua Sherman, charged with beating to death Michael Barnett, 18, in the parking lot of Grace Baptist Church last year.

During the trial that began April 30, Deputy District Attorney Marsh Goldstein and defense attorney Leslie Abramson have painted conflicting portraits of the two teens and the events leading up to and including the pair's early morning confrontation April 13, 1997.

About 5:30 that morning, a church member found Barnett mortally wounded in the church parking lot, across the street from his Quigley Canyon Road home.

Barnett died the next day at Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital, and Sherman surrendered to authorities four days after the incident. He was jailed for several months but has since been freed on $250,000 bail.

On Tuesday, Goldstein discounted the defense notion that the victim was a martial arts expert who had been the aggressor toward Sherman when they met in the parking lot at 2 a.m. Sherman, the prosecutor said, had left Barnett for dead and then dropped out of sight until agreeing to give himself up.

``Would you leave the person you had beaten so badly there to die if this was truly self-defense and your heart was pure?'' Goldstein asked the jury. ``What he did was murder.''

The prosecutor argued that Sherman had tried to break up the relationship Barnett shared with Roxanne Roy. Why, Goldstein asked, would Sherman walk several blocks in the middle of the night to meet up with a friend he had betrayed and whom he believed to be a martial arts expert if he were actually in fear of Barnett lashing out at him?

``Did the defendant actually believe his life was in danger?'' Goldstein said. ``There's no self-defense issue here. He knew that he was bigger and stronger than Michael Barnett.''

``He intentionally slammed Michael to the ground. He intentionally banged his head . . . and he intentionally kicked him,'' Goldstein said.

During her closing arguments - which will resume this morning in North Valley Superior Court - Abramson described her client as a socially awkward teen, home schooled by protective parents and in fear of Barnett's martial arts skills, whether they were real or imagined.

``This is not a murder case,'' she said. ``To convict an innocent youngster for acts that are totally lawful, whether you like them or not, is an abomination. There is no evidence here that what caused the death of Michael Barnett was other than an accident.''

Referring to the two young men, vying for the affections of the same young woman, Abramson characterized the actions of all as those of ``three stupid teen-agers'' that led to the death of one of them.

Sherman, she added, told several people afterward of the confrontation with Barnett - before he knew that the victim was in the hospital, and even after he learned of the victim's death. ``He has not sought to avoid responsibility.''

Abramson contended that Barnett ``lured'' Sherman to the dark and deserted parking lot.

``What matters is not whether Michael Barnett was skilled in martial arts. What matters is that Josh believed it,'' Abramson said. ``He was the one who was ambushed.''