USA – -(AmmoLand.com)- Michael Dunn is one of the relatively rare criminal defendants who endured two trials and faced two juries for the same incident.
Dunn fatally shot seventeen-year-old Jordan Davis at a convenience store parking lot after an argument over the loud music Davis and his friends were listening to in their red Dodge Durango. While Dunn claimed Davis made death threats, displayed a shotgun, and attempted to get out of his car to attack him, no evidence or witness testimony corroborated his account. Dunn fled the scene and failed to contact law enforcement. A witness memorized Dunn’s license plate number, and detectives apprehended Dunn at his home the next day. He was eventually charged with one count of first-degree murder for the shooting of Jordan Davis, and three counts of first degree attempted murder for firing at a car full of teenagers as they sped away. The state threw in a charge of throwing or firing “deadly missiles” for good measure.
During the first trial, scrappy criminal defense attorney Cory Strolla, operating on a shoestring budget, made an impassioned argument that the state failed to disprove, beyond a reasonable doubt, Dunn’s claim that he shot Jordan Davis in self-defense. According to a juror who spoke to reporters after the trial, Strolla convinced two members of the jury that the state had not met their burden. They refused to convict Dunn on the murder charge and forced a mistrial on the central count. The jury was unanimous, however, on the three counts of attempted murder, although he opted for the lesser charge of second degree, telling the state they believed the act was done in the heat of the moment, not as a premeditated plot to kill. They found him guilty for the “deadly missile” charge as well.
The mandatory minimum sentence for second-degree murder in Florida is 20 years — each. Dunn would get 60 years in prison for the shots he fired that hurt no one, and he’d have to stand trial a second time to resolve the question surrounding the shot that took Jordan Davis’ life.
During the second trial, experienced public defender Waffa Hanania represented Dunn and worked methodically to convince the jury that “Jordan Davis escalated this situation until he ended up dead.” The jury didn’t buy it. After a short deliberation, they gave the state exactly what they asked for: a guilty verdict for first-degree murder. The verdict meant that the jury didn’t just reject Dunn’s self-defense claim — they felt that at some point in the argument, Dunn made a deliberate decision that he was going to kill Jordan Davis, and then he did.
Don West, veteran criminal defense lawyer and National Trial Counsel for CCW Safe said that the Dunn trial provides a “list of how not to act” as a concealed carrier.
Here’s a list of some of Dunn’s biggest mistakes:
When Dunn pulled into the convenience store, he heard the loud music. He could tell it was coming from the red Dodge Durango, and he chose to park right next to it anyway. Had he chosen any other parking spot, Davis would be alive, and Dunn would be free.
Dunn chose to confront the teenagers in the SUV about their loud music. While it was within his rights to do so, a grown man shouldn’t be surprised that cocksure teens out with their friends might take umbrage at a request to turn down the radio. Dunn invited the argument that ensued.
Once Jordan Davis got angry and started shouting obscenities, Dunn could have disengaged. He could have looked away or moved to a different parking spot. Instead, he rolled down his window and, stealing a line from Robert De Niro in the film Taxi Driver, he said, “Are you talking to me?”
Dunn told investigators, “I went over this a million times, and what I should have done is put the car in reverse . . . it was fight or flight. I don’t think there was any time for flight at that moment.” Dunn did have enough time, however, to reach across the passenger seat, open the glove box, grab his holstered pistol, draw the weapon, and rack the gun before firing.
Dunn fired too many times. The fact that the first jury failed to convict on murder says that the first round of bullets Dunn fired could have been considered justified. But everyone agreed that the final burst of gunfire was without justification.
Dunn fled the scene and failed to report the shooting to investigators, Don West says there was no plausible scenario to explain why Dunn left the scene without reporting the shooting to authorities — unless he had done something wrong.
Dunn spoke to police investigators without the advice of an attorney. His voluntary testimony was used against him in court.
Clearly, there are many lessons here for the concealed carrier, but perhaps this is the most important: don’t confuse anger for fear. No one could present any solid evidence or witness testimony to bolster Michael Dunn’s claims that Jordan Davis produced a shotgun and was starting to get out of the SUV to attack him. Without such evidence, combined with that fact that Dunn fled without calling the police, it must have appeared to most jurors that Dunn was inventing facts to justify the shooting.
The second jury, with their first-degree conviction, said that Dunn’s actions amounted to pre-meditated murder. Perhaps that’s true. The jurors with dissenting votes on the first jury must have felt that Dunn’s fear could have been reasonable. Perhaps that’s the truth.
Or perhaps the truth is somewhere in between, in a murky gray area where fear and anger mix. Self-defense is a matter of life and death, but it’s not often black and white. Should you ever find yourself suffering the tragedy of having to defend yourself with deadly force, people are going to look into your heart to determine whether its filled with fear or anger. Before you ever pull the trigger and take a life, you’d better be sure about what those people will find.
In the next installment of “The Four Elements of Self-Defense,” we’ll continue our exploration of so-called “road rage” shootings, and we’ll dissect the case Gerald Strebendt, a former Marine sniper and professional MMA fighter who shot a motorist after a vehicle collision on a dark, remote highway in Oregon.
About CCW Safe, LLC:
Founded by former police officers and attorneys who have all worked on local, and federal levels of law enforcement, CCW Safe, LLC offers legal service membership plans for concealed-carry permit/license holders and law enforcement officers. Two of the founders, Mike Darter and Stan Campbell, have spent more than 20 years each in law enforcement and have been victim of federal lawsuits themselves from shooting and use of force incidents as police officers. General Counsel, Kyle Sweet, is a former police officer and current owner of Sweet Law Firm, representing hospitals and health care professional across the United States. With a strong membership base in 50 states, CCW Safe will have the most experienced attorneys in the jurisdiction of the incident handle members’ cases. Learn more on how to become a member at CCWSafe.Com.
Tell me something; HOW IS IT THAT: The FIRST trial Jury:
“They refused to convict Dunn on the murder charge ”
and then the STATE tried him again on the SAME charges and the SECOND JURY came back with:
“a guilty verdict for first-degree murder” ?
That sounds like double jeopardy which is NOT legal according to our Constitution and Laws. Just changing the “name” of the supposed crime DOES NOT make it NOT a trial on the same accusation.
Because the states require a jury verdict . A hung jury on a count means the state can refile the charge(s).
If their refusal to convict had been a 12-0 vote against then they would not have been able to put him on trial again.
You can thank “law and order conservatives” for this standard.
. . . . .Uhh, —- the story said that the first jury vote was unanimous. That IS, with a jury of 12, a 12-0 vote/verdict.
Charles, please re-read the story. “Strolla convinced two members of the jury that the state had not met their burden. They refused to convict Dunn on the murder charge and forced a mistrial on the central count. The jury was unanimous, however, on the three counts of attempted murder […]”.
How the hell did you miss the fact that it was a hung jury? It says right there in the article: “According to a juror who spoke to reporters after the trial, Strolla convinced two members of the jury that the state had not met their burden. They refused to convict Dunn on the murder charge and forced a mistrial on the central count. The jury was unanimous, however, on the three counts of attempted murder, although he opted for the lesser charge of second degree, telling the state they believed the act was done in the heat of the… Read more »
When you choose to go armed you forfeit any perceived right to vent umbrage over trivialities. Michael Drejka exhibited Darwin Award with Swords and Diamonds level stupidity to start screaming at a woman over a parking space, and Michael Dunn should have simply parked elsewhere. The only thing an armed person has to prove is that they are not stupid enough to start trouble that could turn into a deadly incident. I fully support the concept of SYG, but common sense says that leaving if you can do so without incurring assault is preferable to discussing a SD shooting with… Read more »
Both Davis and Dunn went looking for trouble, they both found it. They both lost their future, nobody won. Unfortunate, but based on their actions, this most likely would have happened sometime in the future, just with 2 other individuals and there would be 4 families in pain instead of just these 2.
Davis wasn’t looking for anything. He was minding his own business, when somebody murdered him over his music selection.
I think that what we had here was a, “Failure to communicate”.
The phrase “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate”[1] is a quotation from the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke, spoken in the movie first by Strother Martin (as the Captain, a prison warden) and, later, paraphrased by Paul Newman (as Luke, a stubborn prisoner).