NOTE: REFRESH SCREEN FOR LATEST UPDATE!
UPDATE: 6:20 That’s it for tonight, no jury decision yet, we start again at 9:00AM US EST tomorrow. Legal Insurrection’s live-coverage will be AT THIS PAGE, so bookmark to come back.
UPDATE 4:30 Court back in session. Jury asking when letter exhibit #201 written? One of Dunn’s jail house letters. Court looks through transcript, identifies as June 2013. This is the “Black Friday” letter, though obviously not written that date. Jury now retiring back to jury room. Healey tells all four alternates they’ll be held overnight tonight, but tomorrow can be sequestered in hotel room rather than in court house, more comfortable for them.
Update: 2:25PM Jury reports that one set of jury instructions is missing pages 32-41. (Holy cow, that’s a lot of instructions.) Weighing the evidence, defendant’s statements, rules for deliberations, cautionary instructions, verdict, submitting case to the jury, not substantive discussions. We didn’t change any of these from the model instructions. Just sending back the missing pages. No objections from State or defense. Jurors also requested a dry easel or large paper, which will be sent back to them. Back in recess.
UPDATE: 1:45PMJury asks if they can see “Bendie,” the dummy with the trajectory dowels. Normally such demonstrative evidence would not go back to jury. Healey suggests he’ll allow if the defense has no objection. Strolla doesn’t initially object, but then turns out that the dowels in Bendie were moved around since last seen in court, no longer representative, so objects. Bendie won’t go back. Healey writes out explanatory note for bailiff to give to jurors. Calls jurors into court room, reads them the note, “can’t send dummy back because it was demonstrative exhibit for demonstrative purposes, not entered into evidence.” Sends them back to continue their deliberations.
UPDATE: 1:20PM Jury asks if they can be provided with the “trajectory-rod dummy.” Problem is, dummy is demonstrative evidence only, normally would not go back to jury room. State has no objection. Strolla and Dunn discuss briefly in separate room, return and say they also have no objection. Healey, in abundance of caution, recesses for 15 minutes so case law can be reviewed, ensure they don’t inadvertently make a move that could result in reversal.
UPDATE: 11:50AM Defense counsel Cory Strolla speaking to reporters in live feed.
UPDATE: 9:43AM. Healey speaks with the four alternate jurors. They were held over in sequester last night, both from the public and the other jurors. He tells them he’s not inclined to keep all them overnight again if there’s no verdict again, and is inclined to let one or two of them go home even if no verdict. Seems he’ll decide later in the day.
UPDATE: 9:39AM. Healey welcomed the jury back. They were not scheduled to start until 10:00AM, but are present and ready to go, so he is not going to hold them up. Last night they requested the gas station market surveillance video, and this morning they have been provided with that video and instructions on how to play it. Court is now in recess until it receives either another jury instruction or a verdict. (As this update was being typed the juror requested an external monitor on which to view the video.)
Today Legal Insurrection is on real-time Verdict Watch in the “loud music” murder trial of Michael Dunn in the shooting death of Jordan Davis. Dunn is charged with 1st degree murder for the death of Davis, three counts of attempted murder in the first degree for firing at Davis’ three friends with him in the SUV, and one count of firing a missile into a vehicle. He will also be subject to Florida’s “10-20-Life” statute, as well as all lesser included offenses of the primary charges. Dunn claims he acted in lawful self-defense.
We will update with breaking news as it happens in real-time.
The jury is will re-start deliberations at 10AM US EST. Before breaking last night they asked to be provided with the surveillance video from the gas station market. The video is 20 minutes long, and consists of 6 distinct camera angles. At 9:30AM the State, defense, and Judge Healey will meet to finalize the protocol for providing the jury the video.
The Florida Model Jury Instructions for all these criminal charges as well as justifiable use of deadly force can be found here:
“Loud Music” Murder Trial: Relevant Florida Jury Instructions
Profiles of the 12 jurors currently in deliberations can be found here:
“Loud Music” Murder Trial: THE 12 FINAL JURORS
Immediately below are three live video feeds from the court room, and below the live video feeds is a live Twitter feed with my live tweets and those of others reporting on the trial.
FOX 35 News Orlando Tweets from https://twitter.com/LegInsurrection/loud-music-murder-trial
–Andrew, @LawSelfDefense
Andrew F. Branca is an MA lawyer and the author of the seminal book “The Law of Self Defense, 2nd Edition,” available at the Law of Self Defense blog, Amazon.com (paperback and Kindle), Barnes & Noble (paperback and Nook), and elsewhere.