How can we miss him, when he won’t go away?
Marshall Coulter is, of course, the 15-year-old (then 14-year-old) shot through the head by Merritt Landry last July, when Landry found the youth inside his enclosed yard just feet away from his home’s door at 2AM. The event, following on the heels of the George Zimmerman acquittal, resulted in a number of “pro-Marshall Coulter” protests, including the one pictured above.
Boy, must THEY feel silly.
Coulter–who had been widely and repeatedly reported as bed ridden and essentially non-functional as a result of the bullet to the head–was arrested for burglary just this past Friday, as I posted here: Teenage burglar in high-profile New Orleans self-defense case burglarizes again.
Today the New Orleans Times-Picayune is reporting that Coulter was also booked over the weekend by the police on separate charges of home invasion: Marshall Coulter, teen shot by Marigny homeowner, now accused of crime of violence.
Interestingly, this home invasion is reported to have occurred not recently, but back in June 2012. At which time Coulter would have been a mere 13 years old. That’s not a typo. Thirteen.
The residents who suffered the home invasion reported to the police that they returned home at about 3:30AM from a night out, and found Coulter inside their home. They struggled with him, and then Coulter armed himself with the homeowner’s own gun. Coulter then fled with the gun, police said.
It is unclear when Coulter became a suspect in that 2012 home invasion, as well as when the warrant was issued for Coulter’s arrest in connection with that event.
The Times-Picayune reports Landy’s lawyer, Kevin Boshea, as saying that this disclosure of Coulter’s allegedly violent past buttresses his client’s reasonable belief that he was in danger of death or grave bodily harm when he shot Coulter the night of July 26, 2013 at 2AM. Boshea stated that Landry had repeated yelled “Stop, stop, stop” but that Coulter had continued to advance towards Landry and towards the door past which Landry’s pregnant wife. It was only then that Landry fired his single shot, Boshea said.
One would think that this latest news can only accelerate the date at which prosecutors will formally cease their efforts to prosecute Landry on the attempted second degree murder charges on which they have been unable to get an indictment after multiple attempts, even prior to Coulter’s latests series of arrests.
We’ll keep you informed as more news develops.
–-Andrew, @LawSelfDefense
Andrew F. Branca is an MA lawyer and the author of the seminal book “The Law of Self Defense, 2nd Edition,” available at the Law of Self Defense blog, Amazon.com (paperback and Kindle), Barnes & Noble (paperback and Nook), and elsewhere.
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