Jury’s failure to reject Dunn’s self-defense claim produces absurd result

Democracy Now report about the verdict and Amy Goodman’s interview of Michael Skolnik

Monday, February 17, 2014

Good morning:

The jury’s failure to reject Michael Dunn’s self-defense claim produced an absurd result.

It convicted him of shooting at and missing three black teenagers but did not convict him of any crime for killing Jordan Davis.

That result, though presumably not intended to punish Dunn for failing to kill the three black teenagers, nevertheless looks bad.

With the exception of Dunn’s self-serving testimony, there was no evidence of self-defense.

Therefore, the viability of his claim of self-defense depended entirely on his credibility.

He lied when he testified under oath that he contacted law enforcement officials after the shooting before they contacted him.

He told the jury that, while driving home to his residence in Brevard County the morning after the shooting, he called his neighbor, a federal agent employed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and told him that he wanted to discuss an urgent personal matter with him upon arrival.

The prosecution produced his cellular telephone bill that established that the phone call was initiated by the neighbor.

Rhonda Rourer, his fiancee who accompanied him on the drive, testified that he placed the call from the neighbor on speakerphone. The neighbor invited the two of them over to his place for a social event. Dunn declined claiming Rourer was not feeling well enough to attend. Dunn did not mention getting together later or at any other time to discuss an urgent personal matter.

Dunn’s false statement to the jury while under oath was important because, despite claiming that he fired into a vehicle occupied by black gangsters and thugs after being threatened with death, he never called 911 to request assistance or to report what happened. Instead, he drove out of the parking lot past a parked police vehicle on the other side of the street with its emergency lights on and drove to his hotel where he walked his dog and ordered a pizza.

The police would not have been able to identify Dunn as the shooter, but for the actions of a homeless young man living out of his car, who was in the right place at the right time, memorized Dunn’s license plate number and gave it to the store manager who called it into 911.

He did not call police that night and he did not call them next day.

Can anyone of sound mind seriously believe that his actions are consistent with a claim of self-defense in a case in which Jordan Davis and his three friends were unarmed and no weapon of any kind was in their vehicle?

Why wasn’t it obvious to every member of that jury and every person who followed this trial that Michael Dunn lied because he was hoping the police would not be able to identify him as the shooter.

Why wasn’t it obvious to every member of that jury and every person who followed this trial that Michael Dunn lied under oath to the jury hoping they would believe he initiated contact with the police?

Why wasn’t it obvious to every member of that jury and every person who followed this trial that Michael Dunn did not shoot Jordan Davis in self-defense?

Especially since Dunn never once told Rhonda Rourer that he saw a shotgun or the barrel of a shotgun or any other weapon before he fired 10 bullets into the red Durango.

The prosecution lost this case in jury selection.

I have repeatedly stressed the importance of jury selection to my clients and colleagues while practicing law, to my law-school students in trial advocacy, and to my readers on this blog.

To prepare for jury selection in the next trial, prosecutors must identify the jurors who believed Michael Dunn fired in self-defense. They must review the jury selection process to determine what they did wrong or failed to do that resulted in those jurors being seated on the jury.

They will lose again, if they fail to do that and justice again will be denied to Jordan Davis and his family.

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Fred