On June 5, 2013, Legal Insurrection commenter Andrew Branca came on board at my request to help cover the upcoming trial of George Zimmerman for the killing of Trayvon Martin.
Andrew’s his first post here, Getting to Murder 2: Finding George Zimmerman’s “Depraved Mind”, evolved into the best coverage of the Zimmerman...
The Department of Justice has declined to prosecute any police officers in the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore.
The decision comes after a complete failure of state prosecutions. Andrew Branca wrote dozens of posts analyzing the evidence, the law, and the trials.
I have left the coverage of the prosecution of six police officers in the Freddie Gray case to Andrew Branca. He had almost 100 posts.
As with the Geroge Zimmerman, Michael Dunn and other trials, Andrew did a superb job.
From the start of the prosecutions in the Freddie Gray case, Andrew called...
The re-trial of Baltimore Police Officer William Porter has been scheduled for June 13, 2016,according to reporting by The Baltimore Sun.
By that time the trials of the other 5 officers charged in Freddie Gray’s death will have been completed. Absent immunity, Porter therefore remains vulnerable to criminal prosecution throughout the course...
It’s very tempting to jump to conclusions in either direction about the Eric Garner Grand Jury non-indictment of one of the arresting police officers.
It would be really, really easy to jump on the “injustice” bandwagon, with a visceral reaction to the video. Or to take the contrarian view because there was,...
In breaking news CNN reports that Michael Dunn, the Florida man who fired multiple rounds at four black teenagers in an SUV after an argument about their loud music, has been sentenced to life without parole. One of those four teenagers, Jordan Davis, was mortally wounded. Dunn had argued self-defense as...
The re-trial of Michael Dunn began today “for real”, with the jury impanelled and the state and defense presenting their opening statements.
Dunn is on trial for the killing of Jordan Davis, a black teenager Dunn fired upon during a confrontation with Davis and three of Davis’ friends, who were...
It’s become so commonplace for “journalists” to be blind to obvious cause-and-effect relationships that fall outside the acceptable Progressive narrative that James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal has long used the tag-line “Fox Butterfield, Is That You?” as he notes these occurrences in his daily (and excellent) “Best of the Web”...
The jury has returned a verdict of guilty of second degree murder/voluntary manslaughter and weapons charges in the trial of Detroit homeowner Theodore Wafer for the front porch shooting death of Renisha McBride in the early morning hours of November 2, 2013. Trial Judge Hathaway has ordered Wafer imprisoned immediately,...
It was with considerable astonishment that I read the following headline in an ABC news post:
Marissa Alexander, who fired warning shot at husband attacking her, likely won’t see prison after Fl...
Yesterday I promised an update on the key self-defense trials coming our way over the course of this summer, and so here I am to keep that promise.
Before I get into that, however, I’d like to share a couple of items that have been brought to my attention in the last...
Back on February 28 I was invited down to the Washington DC bureau of N24, a prominent German television news station. The purpose of the invitation was to interview me about the (then) just completed Michael Dunn trial, the earlier George Zimmerman trial, and the ongoing Marissa Alexander extravaganza,...
An interesting quirk of Florida sentencing procedures has reared its head in the Marissa Alexander case, and will almost certainly impact the sentencing of Michael Dunn on March 24, as well. The issue: can the multiple convictions under Florida’s infamous “10-20-Life” statute be sentenced concurrently–served in parallel with each other–or sentenced...
Race has been a major element in many of the more prominent self-defense cases we’ve covered in recent months.
Both the George Zimmerman and Michael Dunn cases involved a white man shooting and killing a black teen, with both arguing the shootings were justified self-defense (Zimmerman successfully, Dunn temporarily so).
The Marissa Alexander...
The failure of the jury in the Michael Dunn case to convict Dunn of First Degree Murder or any of its lesser included offenses in the killing of Jordan Davis has led to a predictable outpouring of claims that that the case reflects societal racism, if not racism in the judicial...
Sunday night I was a guest on the Teri O’Brien radio show to talk about the Michael Dunn “loud music” murder trial.
If you missed the live broadcast, or even if you merely must have more of my dulcet tones, here you go:
–Andrew, @LawSelfDefense
Andrew F. Branca is an MA lawyer and the author...
As of this writing, we still have no verdict in the Michael Dunn “Loud Music” murder trial.
The jury now is in its 25th hour of deliberations, and has asked several questions about the law, including self defense. The verdict could come at any moment.
It’s interesting to watch the Twitter chatter...
