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Michael Dunn trial What will be the verdict???


Shawn1814

What will be the verdict???  

6 members have voted

  1. 1. Guilty or Innocent?



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On Trial For Murder, Michael Dunn Explains Why He Shot And Killed Jordan Davis

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — The Florida man charged with fatally shooting a 17-year-old boy after an argument over loud music testified Tuesday that he thought he saw the barrel of a gun from a neighboring vehicle pointed at him and that he feared for his life before firing his weapon.

Michael Dunn said he tried to de-escalate the confrontation with three teens in a neighboring SUV outside a Jacksonville convenience store in November 2012.

"I couldn't believe what I was seeing and hearing," Dunn said.

Dunn is charged with first-degree murder. He has pleaded not guilty and says he acted in self-defense when he fatally shot 17-year-old Jordan Davis of Marietta, Ga., outside a Jacksonville convenience store in 2012.

The defense rested its case Tuesday, and then prosecutors called Dunn's fiancee back to the witness stand. Rhonda Rouer contradicted Dunn's assertion that he had told her he had seen a gun in the teens' SUV.

In his testimony, Dunn told jurors he was in Jacksonville with his fiancee to attend his son's wedding. He had brought along on the trip his 7-month-old dog, and at one point in testimony he wiped away tears when talking about his fiancee and dog.

Dunn said he and his fiancee went to the convenience store after the wedding for wine and chips. He said he pulled into a spot next to an SUV where music with a "thumping" bass was playing.

"It got really loud," Dunn said. "My rear view mirror was shaking. My eardrums were vibrating. It was ridiculously loud."

Dunn said he asked the three men in the SUV to turn down the music and they turned it off. "I said, 'Thank you,'" Dunn said. But soon afterward, Dunn said he heard someone in the SUV shouting expletives and the word "cracker" at him. Dunn is white, and the teens in the SUV were black.

The music was turned back on, and Dunn testified, "I wasn't going to ask for favors anymore."

Dunn said the men in the SUV had "menacing expressions," and he asked the teens whether they were talking about him. He said he wanted to de-escalate the situation but saw a teen in the backseat reach down for something which he slammed into the car door. Dunn said it looked as if the barrel of a shotgun was sticking out the window.

One of the teens stepped out of the SUV, Dunn said, and he felt "this was a clear and present danger." He reached for his pistol in a glove box.

Dunn, who had a concealed weapons permit, fired nine shots into the car, according to an affidavit. Once his fiancee returned to the car, he drove off out of fear of the SUV returning, he said.

He described having "tunnel vision," with everything focused on his target.

No weapons were found in the SUV.

Dunn said he told his fiancee on the drive back to the hotel that he had shot in self-defense. The fiancee, Rouer, testified Saturday.

"I didn't do anything wrong," Dunn said he told his fiancee.

Dunn and Rouer drove back to their hotel without calling police. Dunn said he didn't call the police because his focus was on the well-being of Rouer, whom he described as in hysterics. The next morning, Dunn said, Rouer insisted they wanted to go home and they drove back to their home in Brevard County, 175 miles away. There, Dunn said he contacted a neighbor who is in law enforcement for advice on how to turn himself in to authorities.

During cross-examination, prosecutor John Guy challenged Dunn's assertion that he had told his fiancee after the shooting that he thought one of the teens had a gun.

"You never told the love of your life that those guys had a gun," Guy said. "Did you?"

Dunn responded, "You were not there."

Guy challenged Dunn on other parts of his story, citing letters Dunn had written from jail and interviews with investigators. The prosecutor said Dunn had told detectives the day after the shooting that it could have been a stick he saw pointing from the vehicle. But Dunn countered he was just suggesting a far-fetched possibility.

Guy also suggested that Dunn was angry because he was being disrespected by a young black man. Dunn responded, "I was being threatened, not disrespected."

The prosecutor also said Dunn had stated in a jailhouse letter that his car was parked so close to the SUV that it would have been hard for him to exit. Guy said that mean Davis also would have had a hard time getting out of the SUV.

"Jordan Davis was never a threat to you, was he, Mr. Dunn?" Guy said.

Dunn responded, "Absolutely, he was."

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Sorry but these white people done gone crazy in Florida. wtf. Oh he'll be found guilty. You can't shoot someone for having their music up loud although he said he shot the boy cause he heard them saying racial slurs and saying they were gonna kill him which i'm sure is a lie. Also I hear the prosecution ask him something to the effect of "So you asked the boy who are you talking to as if to confront or engage with him in a confrontation" which is exactly what he did.

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I don't have faith in the justice system.

IF he's found guilty, I truly believe it'll be because "some" people finally realize they fucked up in their summation of George Zimmerman.

...and I say that for a multitude of reasons. It's sad that my faith in the system and people in general has been reduced to that though.

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TOF, I do have faith in the Justice system..juss not in Florida.

Sidebar : I was wondering when we were gonna start discussing this trial

Nah... not anymore. I thought we were past a certain point in this country. I was reminded, and rather brutally, that we aren't.

Florida's insane rules allowed it, but the nature of people and perceptions is what I'm talking about.

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Michael Dunn, the Florida man charged with shooting 17-year-old Jordan Davis after an argument over loud music, is currently awaiting trial and maintaining that he acted in self-defense but is attempting to get his voice heard through letter written in jail.

In several of the letters Dunn rants and goes on about killing “thugs” so “they take the hint and change their behavior,” as well the kind of jury he will get and having a better chance that George Zimmerman.

“insert side eye*

In a letter to his grandmother, Dunn writes:

The jail is full of blacks and they all act like thugs. This may sound a bit radical but if more people would arm themselves and kill these (expletive) idiots, when they’re threatening you, eventually they may take the hint and change their behavior.

In another he insist he is not a racist:

I’m really not prejudiced against race, but I have no use for certain cultures. This gangster-rap, ghetto talking thug ‘culture’ that certain segments of society flock to is intolerable. They espouse violence and disrespect towards women. The black community here in Jacksonville is in an uproar against me — the three other thugs that were in the car are telling stories to cover up their true “colors.”

Wait… what?!

And he sends shots at liberal media. Writing to his grandmother:

I am amazed at what is going on with the way the media has been covering this case. Their [sic] have been several other shootings here in Jacksonville, yet they are all either black-on-black or black-on-white, and none of them have garnered any attention from the media. I guess it’s news when someone dares to not to be a victim, but they are twisting it around sand saying I was the “bad guy.”

GTFOH!

He continues in a letter to an unknown supporter:

I’m not getting much in the way of sympathy from the press. They’re a bunch of liberal bastards! … They seem to have a lot of racial guilt, or at least the prosecutors [sic] office does. The jail here is almost all black prisoners. You’d think Jacksonville was 90-90% black judging by the makeup of the folks in jail here! … My fear is that if I get 1 black on my jury it will be a mistrial as I am convinced they will be racially biased.

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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — A 47-year-old software developer was convicted Saturday of attempted murder for shooting into a carful of teenagers after an argument about loud music, but jurors couldn't agree on the most serious charge of first-degree murder.

After more than 30 hours of jury deliberations over four days, a mistrial was declared on the murder charge that Michael Dunn faced in the fatal shooting of one of the black teens. The 12 jurors found him guilty of three counts of attempted second-degree murder and a count of firing into an occupied car.

Dunn was charged with fatally shooting 17-year-old Jordan Davis, of Marietta, Ga., in 2012 after they got into an argument over loud music that was coming from the parked SUV Davis was in outside a Jacksonville convenience store. Dunn, who is white, had described the music to his fiancee as "thug music."

Dunn showed no emotion as the verdicts were read. Davis' parents each left the courtroom in tears.

Earlier in the day, jurors said in a note to Judge Russell L. 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.

"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 claimed he acted in self-defense, testifying he thought he saw a firearm pointed at him from the SUV as Davis yelled insults at him and the argument escalated. No weapon was found in the SUV. Three friends of Davis also were in the vehicle.

Dunn told jurors he feared for his life, perceiving "this was a clear and present danger." Dunn, who has a concealed weapons permit, fired 10 shots, hitting the vehicle nine times.

Prosecutors contended that Dunn opened fire because he felt disrespected by Davis. The teen made his friend turn the music back up after they initially turned it down at Dunn's request. Dunn was parked in the spot next to the SUV outside the convenience store.

"That defendant didn't shoot into a carful of kids to save his life. He shot into it to save his pride," Assistant State Attorney John Guy told the jury. "Jordan Davis didn't have a weapon, he had a big mouth."

The trial was the latest Florida case to raise questions about self-defense and race; Dunn is white and the teens were black. It came six months after George Zimmerman was acquitted of any crime for fatally shooting 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla., about 125 miles south of Jacksonville. The Dunn trial was prosecuted by the same State Attorney's Office as was the Zimmerman case.

Dunn's attorney, Cory Strolla, told reporters before the verdict that he believed there was political pressure on the State Attorney's Office 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."

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