Michael Dunn was found guilty on four charges, including three for attempted second-degree murder, in connection with a shooting involving an SUV full of teens. Dunn allegedly got into an argument with them over loud music. He is looking at decades in prison, and yet there was no verdict on the first-degree murder charge related to the death of 17-year-old Jordan Davis. Michael Dunn Guilty of Attempted Murder Dunn’s lawyer, Cory Strolla, told reporters on Saturday that his client was “in disbelief … even as he sat next to me, he asked, how is this happening.” “It has not set in. I don’t think it will set in anytime soon.” The incomplete finale to this emotional, hot-button trial, largely because of the fact that Dunn is white and the teens who were shot at, including Davis, are black. For many, the Florida case echoed George Zimmerman ‘s trial for the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin about 120 miles down the road in Sanford. While the state’s controversial Stand Your Ground law wasn’t used by Dunn (or Zimmerman), his lawyers similarly argued that he fired in self-defense. Given the partially hung jury, State Attorney Angela Corey said prosecutors would press for a new trial in Duval County, Fla., on the murder charge. “Justice for Jordan Davis is as important as it is for any victim,” said Corey, whose office also famously handled the Zimmerman case in 2012-13. Dunn is not a free man , unlike Zimmerman. Nor may he ever be. Prosecutor Erin Wolfson explained on Saturday night that each attempted second-degree murder conviction carries a minimum sentence of at least 20 years. “You are looking at basically at life in prison,” Strolla said, even as he vowed to challenge the convictions. “At 47, that’s a life sentence regardless of count one.” The decision to convict on these counts, and not on murder, didn’t come easily for a jury that had deliberated for about 30 hours since getting the case. Judge Russell Healey said earlier that the jury of four white women, two black women, four white men, an Asian woman and a Hispanic man was “struggling, obviously.” “But it’s not for want of trying to reconcile all of this,” he said. “I think we’ve got some analytical people trying to do just that – trying to analyze this from every possible angle.” The lack of a murder conviction upset some, including protesters who marched outside the Jacksonville courthouse calling for Corey to lose her job. “The people united will never be defeated,” they also chanted. Yet Davis’ mother, Lucia McBath, didn’t express any anger when she addressed reporters last night. Her family, she said, is “so very happy to have just a little bit of closure.” “It’s sad for Mr. Dunn that he will live the rest of his life in that sense of torment, and I will pray for him,” McBath said. “And I’ve asked my family to pray for him.” It was back on November 23, 2012, when Michael Dunn pulled into a gas station in Jacksonville, parking next to a red Dodge Durango full of teenagers. The teens pulled in for gum and cigarettes; Dunn ad just left his son’s wedding with his fiancee, who’d gone inside the convenience store for wine and chips. Dunn didn’t like the loud music – “rap crap,” as he called it – coming from the teens’ SUV. He asked them to turn it down, and what came next depends on whom you ask. Dunn says Davis threatened him, and he decided to take matters into his own hands upon seeing what he thought was the barrel of a gun sticking out of the Durango. But prosecutors asserted that it was Dunn who lost control, firing three volleys of shots – 10 bullets total – at the SUV because of the music he didn’t like. Prosecutors challenged specifically what he did after the altercation: He left the gas station and drove 40 miles away to a bed and breakfast in St. Augustine. There, Dunn walked his dog, ordered a pizza, then drank rum and cola, “stunned and horrified, (shocked how) things escalated the way they did over a common courtesy.” After learning almost six hours later that he had killed Davis, Dunn testified that he became “crazy with grief,” experiencing stomach problems for hours before napping. “My intent was to stop the attack, not necessarily end a life,” he testified. Yet his fiancee, Rhonda Rouer, testified that Dunn never mentioned any weapon to her – be it a shotgun, a stick, a barrel or a lead pipe – unlike what Dunn said. In fact, police found a basketball, basketball shoes, clothing, a camera tripod and cups inside the teenagers’ Durango, but no evidence of any firearm. Dunn himself never called police, either. The first contacts he had with them were at his home in Satellite Beach, 130 miles south of St. Augustine, as he was being apprehended in the case. Arguing that he wasn’t in a rational state of mind, Dunn admitted, “It makes sense that I should have (contacted authorities). We didn’t. I can’t tell you why.”
See original here:
Michael Dunn Convicted of Attempted Murder For Firing on SUV Full of Teens Playing "Rap Crap"
