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 Michael Dunn, 47, faces first-degree murder charges in the death
of 17-year-old Jordan Davis on November 23, 2012.
The white, middle-aged software engineer opened fire on a car with
four black teenage boys inside that was parked next to him in the
parking lot of a Jacksonville gas station convenience store in
northeast Florida.
Dunn has said he feared for his life, drawing comparisons to the
trial of George Zimmerman, the former central Florida neighborhood
watchman who was acquitted last year of murder after saying he shot
a 17-year-old unarmed black teenager, Trayvon Martin, in
self-defense.
Dunn said he had asked the teenagers to turn down the volume of
their music. From the back passenger seat, Davis refused and the two
exchanged words. Dunn says he opened fire because he saw the barrel
of a gun pointed out the back window at him, though police found no
weapon.
The case has garnered national and international media attention
because of the racial overtones and the self-defense claims. Like
Zimmerman, Dunn said he feared a black teenager who was unarmed.
Media credentials have been issued to 178 journalists and 24 media
outlets seeking to cover the case in Duval county court.
If found guilty, Dunn faces life in prison. Prosecutors say they
won't seek the death penalty.
Dunn's attorney, Cory Strolla, has filed motions asking the judge
not to allow references in the trial to comments Dunn made in
jailhouse letters or phone calls where he referred to Davis and to
some inmates as "thugs", and made other "alleged racial comments,"
according to court documents.
In a letter that Dunn sent to a local television reporter, he
described Davis as a thug. "This case has never been about loud
music," Dunn wrote to news anchor Heather Crawford in October. "This
case is about a local thug threatening to kill me because I dared to
ask him to turn the music down."
Strolla also asked that the judge bar the prosecution from referring
to Davis as a "victim."
The media attention will also thrust back into the spotlight
Jacksonville's state attorney Angela Corey, the special prosecutor
who was chosen by Florida Governor Rick Scott to handle the
Zimmerman case.
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She is also the prosecutor in the case of Marissa Anderson, a
Jacksonville woman sentenced to 20 years in prison for firing what
she said was a warning shot at her abusive husband.
Jordan's parents, Ron Davis and Lucia McBath, said they plan to be
in the courtroom throughout the trial.
"I need to experience what happened to my son that day," Ron Davis
told Reuters. "As a parent you want to know, 'What happened to my
son? Why did you do this to my son?'"
Since their son's death, Davis and McBath have become advocates for
gun control and for changing Florida's Stand Your Ground law, which
allows people in fear of serious injury to use deadly force to
defend themselves rather than retreat.
They have testified before the Florida state legislature and the
United States Congress. Both have appeared on national television,
talking about the case and about their son.
After the trial, Davis said he will continue to work to have the
state Stand Your Ground law revised to include a duty to retreat. If
someone is threatened in public, Davis said, the law should require
that he or she try to defuse the situation rather than use deadly
force.
That requirement might have changed the outcome for his son, he
said. "In your home, you have every right to protect your castle,"
Davis said. "In public, we can't all walk around acting like we are
in our home, telling people what to do in a public place. We have to
share the public space."
(Reporting by David Adams; editing by Ken Wills)
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