Courtesy of Mother Jones
A white man named Michael Dunn shot and killed an unarmed black teenager named Jordan Davis in Florida last year after a brief dispute. The prosecutor overseeing the case is Florida state attorney Angela Corey. Dunn, who will be tried for murder, claims the shooting was in self-defense. Sound familiar?
Now that the state’s nationally televised and notorious self-defense case has ended with the acquittal of defendant George Zimmerman, a next potentially high-profile test of the state’s criminal-justice system may come when Dunn goes on trial for first-degree murder this September. And while Florida’s controversial Stand Your Ground gun law didn’t in the end figure into the Zimmerman decision, it may be tested in the Dunn case.
The killing took place in November 2012, while Dunn was parked at a gas station convenience store, waiting for his girlfriend to emerge from inside. Four teenagers, including 17-year-old Davis, were parked* next to Dunn’s car in an SUV. After an argument over the teens’ loud music, Dunn fired on the boys from his car, killing Davis. Dunn claims he opened fire only after one of the teens threatened his life, brandished a gun, and started to exit the SUV. Later he told police that he had “never been so scared” in his life.
The Davis family attorney, John Phillips, told HLN recently that Davis’ parents are “freaking out about justice” after the Zimmerman verdict. But in another HLN interview, he cautioned that the two cases aren’t identical, saying “the justice process is different for both. You gotta keep them separate.”
Continue reading at Mother Jones
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