Even Frank Anderson’s attorney conceded there was never any doubt about his guilt.

At question was what he was guilty of.

On Tuesday, a Coeur d’Alene jury answered with the harshest possible verdict, convicting Anderson of second-degree attempted murder.

He was returned to the Kootenai County Jail pending sentencing in February. Anderson faces up to life in prison.

Anderson’s attorney tried to convince the jury to convict his client of a lesser charge, such as aggravated battery or attempted voluntary manslaughter.

The six-man, six-woman jury returned its verdict within three hours.

Anderson, 31, stabbed John S. Gray, 26, at least nine times May 22 during a dispute over a drug deal.

Joel Ryan, Anderson’s court-appointed attorney, said Anderson was mentally impaired by the methamphetamine he’d been injecting. Witnesses said Anderson looked like he hadn’t slept for days.

“Mr. Anderson, simply put, was out of his mind at the time,” Ryan told the jury.

Anderson spent much of the day enraged over a drug deal with Gray, according to witnesses. When the two men met on the front porch of the house where Anderson was, Gray threw a punch, according to a witness.

Brawling, the two men tumbled down the porch steps. At some point, Anderson pulled a filet knife out of his sleeve and began slashing Gray.

“I don’t think that knife would have come out if John Gray had just stood on the porch and let Mr. Anderson walk on by,” Ryan told the jury.

Still, he conceded, Anderson’s right to self-defense ended when Gray, seeing his own blood, stopped fighting. Anderson chased him across the street, Ryan said.

Deputy prosecutor Scot Nass pointed out that Anderson had tucked the knife up his sleeve and repeatedly said he intended to kill Gray.

“He was aware of what he was doing,” said Nass.

“He was high, but he wasn’t crazy.”

Nass said the viciousness of Anderson’s attack grossly outweighed his right to defend himself.

Nass said the attack and Anderson’s arrest prompted several of Anderson’s drug-using acquaintances to give up drugs.

“This had such an impact on them that they went clean,” Nass said.

“That’s a silver lining, if there is one.”

, DataTimes