Jury selection begins today for the re-trial of Michael Dunn on a murder charge for the shooting death of teenager Jordan Davis, reports Business Insider.
At his prior criminal trial Dunn was convicted of three counts of attempted second-degree murder and one count of “throwing missiles” (firing a bullets) at a motor vehicle, but not on the charge of murder (on which the jury hung).
We followed the Michael Dunn case closely here at Legal Insurrection, doing far too many posts to list individually: those interested in viewing them can click here.
A quick summary of the facts of the case are that Michael Dunn found himself parked beside an SUV containing Jordan Davis and three friends. Dunn claimed that Davis threatened to kill him, pointed a shotgun-like object at him, and began to emerge from the SUV. In response, Dunn claims, he retrieved his lawfully licensed pistol from the glove compartment of his car and began engaging the SUV with fire.
Importantly, Dunn fired three distinct groups of rounds at the SUV. During the first group the two vehicles were beside each other, and Dunn fired from his driver’s seat position slightly backwards to rear-passenger door of the SUV, behind which Davis was sitting. Davis was mortally wounded by that fire.
Dunn then fired a second group of rounds as the SUV began to back-up from the parking space. These rounds struck the front-passenger side door, but failed to penetrate to the interior of the vehicle.
The third and final group of rounds was fired as the SUV was driving away. For these Dunn emerged from his car, took a knee, and sent four rounds after the fleeing SUV.
Dunn claimed self-defense as legal justification for all rounds fired.
That last group of rounds, fired while the SUV was fleeing, were sufficient to support the jury’s verdicts of guilty on the three counts of attempted murder (of Davis’ three friends in the car) and the throwing missiles charge.
That is, the jury was convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that this last burst of fire could not be justified as lawful self-defense.
The jury would ultimately hang (come to no unanimous decision) on the charge of murder for the killing of Jordan Davis. Post-trial interviews with the jurors revealed that at least three of them were unconvinced that the state had met its burden to disprove beyond a reasonable doubt Davis’ claim of self-defense with respect to the rounds that killed Davis.
Because the jury was not unanimous on the murder charge–either to acquit or convict–Dunn was subject to retrial on that charge, and indeed prosecutors announced immediately after the verdict on February 15 that they intended to do so. Thus we arrive at today’s jury selection.
Even if Dunn is acquitted on the murder charge on re-trial his prior convictions for attempted murder and throwing missiles would remain unchanged (subject, of course, to an appeal on those specific convictions).
Those prior convictions alone, as required by Florida’s mandatory-minimum “10-20-Life” law mean that Dunn is facing a minimum of 60 years in jail. Dunn has been held in prison while awaiting re-trial on the murder charge, but his sentencing was delayed until the results of that re-trial are known.
Judge Russell Healey, who presided over the first trial, will also preside over the re-trial.
–-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 (autographed copies available) and Amazon.com (paperback and Kindle). He also holds Law of Self Defense Seminars around the country, and provides free online self-defense law video lectures at the Law of Self Defense Institute and podcasts through iTunes, Stitcher, and elsewhere.
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