Michael Dunn will be retried for shooting 17-year-old Jordan Davis. The two got into an argument after Davis and his three teenage friends refused to turn down their music at a gas station. Circuit Judge Russell Healey denied a motion to relocate the trial from Jacksonville, Florida due to the enormous amount of attention the trial originally received.
Dunn, 47, was previously tried for the first-degree murder in February, but a deadlocked jury resulted in a mistrial. He will have his final pretrial hearing for this new trial on Thursday, before jury selection is set to begin a week later on September 22, the Florida Times Union reports.
Dunn’s original trial and the murder of Davis received considerable attention for its similarities to George Zimmerman’s acquittal in the fatal shooting of teenager Trayvon Martin. Florida State Prosecutor Angela Corey, also the prosecutor in the Trayvon Martin case, opposed the motion. The Florida judge said he would consider moving the trial if interviews of possible jurors in the retrial don’t provide a pool of unbiased candidates.
Dunn is accused of opening fire into a van of four teenagers and fatally shooting Davis during a dispute over loud music at a gas station on November 23, 2012. After the shooting, Dunn and his fiancee fled the scene, retreating to their hotel room before traveling back to their hometown of Miami, even after news of Davis’ death hit the news. Dunn was convicted on three counts of attempted murder and a weapons charge for firing at the three other teens in the car with Davis. But the jury was unable to come to a decision on the charge of first degree murder in the death of Davis.
Attorneys for Dunn argued he shot at the van in self-defense after Davis and the other teens threatened to kill him and flashed a shotgun at him. Dunn took the stand during the trial and stated he heard the teenagers yell, “‘Something, something cracker,’ and this and that, I hear, ‘I should kill that mother f****r.’” Police officials searched the teens and their bullet-riddled Dodge Durango SUV, but found no evidence of a weapon.
In the months since jurors deadlocked on a first degree murder conviction for Dunn, shootings of Black teens have been increasingly common, including Renisha McBride and more recently Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO. The McBride case ended in a guilty conviction.