JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - After four days of deliberation, jurors in the trial of Michael Dunn - a Florida man who shot a teenager to death in a parking lot during a dispute over loud music - said they could not agree on whether Dunn had acted in self-defense or was guilty of murder.
The jurors did find Dunn guilty of three counts of attempted murder for getting out of his car and firing several times at the Dodge Durango sport utility vehicle in which Jordan Davis, 17, was killed but three other teenagers were not struck. Dunn continued to fire at the car as it pulled away. For that crime, Dunn could be sentenced 20 to 60 years in prison.
Judge Russell Healey declared a mistrial on the count of first-degree murder. The jury also failed to reach agreement on lesser charges that are automatically included in jury instructions. Those were second- and third-degree murder and manslaughter.
Earlier in the day, panel members said in a note to Healey that they were having trouble reaching agreement on the murder charge. He asked them to continue their work, and they went back to the deliberation room for two more hours before returning with a verdict.
“I’ve never seen a case where deliberations have gone on for this length of time …,” Healey said after the verdict. “They’ve embraced their civic duty, and they are to be commended for that.”
Dunn showed no emotion as the verdicts were read. A sentencing date will be set at a hearing next month. Each charge of attempted second-degree murder carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison, while the fourth charge carries a maximum of 15.
State Attorney Angela Corey said her office planned to retry Dunn on a first-degree murder charge, and she hoped jurors would tell prosecutors where they questioned their case. Jurors declined to talk to the media.
The deadlock means that at least one person on the jury had reasonable doubt about the prosecution’s version of events.
Prosecutors had argued Dunn did not shoot Davis out of fear for his life, as he testified.
He shot him, they said, because he was enraged that when he asked the teenagers to turn down the music booming from a car in a gas station parking lot - he described it to his fiancee as “thug music” - Davis did not do so and cursed him.
Prosecutors argued Dunn had enough time to reflect before acting, which is why they accused him of premeditated murder.
Dunn, who testified Tuesday, told jurors that Davis had pointed a shotgun at him from the window of the Dodge Durango, threatened to kill him and tried to get out of the car. It was only then, Dunn said, he reached into his glove box, unholstered his pistol, chambered a round and opened fire,shooting 10 times.
“It was Jordan Davis who kept escalating this to the point where I had no choice but to defend myself,” Dunn said on the stand. “It was life or death.”
Davis, a high school senior who had spent the day with three friends at the mall on the day he was killed, Nov. 23, 2012, was hit three times and died in the car.
Davis’ parents left the courtroom in tears, and afterward his mother, Lucia McBath, expressed gratitude for the verdict. Today would have been the teen’s 19th birthday.
“We are so grateful for the charges that have been brought against him,” McBath said of Dunn. “We are so grateful for the truth. We are so grateful that the jurors were able to understand the common sense of it all.”
On Dunn’s potentially lengthy sentence, Davis’ father, Ron Davis, said: “He’s going to learn that he must be remorseful for the killing of my son, that it was not just another day at the office.”
Since their son’s death, Davis’ parents have worked to try to change Florida’s self-defense laws, which grant wide latitude to people who think they face a threat.
Prosecutors argued Dunn had fabricated his story about the shotgun to bolster his self-defense claim. The police never found a shotgun, and no witnesses reported seeing one. The teenagers testified that none of them had a shotgun in the car - that is why no one shot back at Dunn, the prosecutors said.
The trial, which lasted six days before deliberations began Wednesday, was the latest courtroom test for Florida’s expansive self-defense statutes, including the “stand your ground” law.
Under the law, Dunn need only to have been convinced that he saw a shotgun, whether one was present or not.
The trial came six months after George Zimmerman was acquitted in the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, about 125 miles south of Jacksonville. The Dunn trial was prosecuted by the same state attorney’s office that handled the Zimmerman case.
Dunn’s attorney, Cory Strolla, said he plans to appeal the case.
He said before the verdict that he thought there was political pressure on the prosecutors and an excess of media attention because of Zimmerman’s acquittal.
“I believe there is a lot vested in this case, politically,” Strolla said. “The case, on the heels of not guilty in George Zimmerman, just escalated that political pressure.” Information for this article was contributed by Lizette Alvarez of The New York Times and by Derek Kinner and Jennifer Kay of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 5 on 02/16/2014