(MintPress) — A 37-year-old Texas man who shot and killed an unarmed school teacher during a neighborhood conflict over loud music was found guilty this week of murder after attempting to justify his actions through the state’s ‘stand your ground’ law.
A jury found Raul Rodriguez guilty of murdering Kelly Danaher — a conviction that could lead to life in prison.
The case comes before a well-known trial in which George Zimmerman, who admitted killing unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin, will use Florida’s version of the controversial law as a defense, claiming he was protecting his own life when he fired the shot.
Rodriguez, too, argued from the start that he was defending himself in the February conflict with Danaher and fellow party attendants, which stemmed from complaints that the party crew, celebrating Danaher’s wife’s birthday, were playing the music too loud.
Brandishing a gun, Rodriguez went outdoors, where he was met by Danaher and fellow partygoers. Videotaping the incident, Rodriguez stood across the street and told the men to keep it down — a request that wasn’t met well by those who recognized he had a gun.
A video of the incident, taken by Rodriguez, shows partygoers’ concern with Rodriguez showing his weapon. At one point, an attendant at the party said he would go into the house and become “equal” to Rodriguez, insinuating he, too, would get a gun.
Despite the fact that Rodriguez himself had a gun, he took it as a threat — one in which prompted him to say over and over again on video tape that he was “going to have to defend” himself. He’s also caught on tape claiming he was going to “stand his ground.”
“Now I’m standing my ground here — now these people are going to try to kill me,” Rodriguez said.
As someone — presumably Danaher — attempted to take the video camera away from Rodriguez, he fired a shot.
At no point did Rodriguez attempt to flee the situation. However, under Texas’ ‘stand your ground law’ he doesn’t have a legal obligation to do so, as it allows someone to use force when reasonably threatened, without the obligation to first attempt to flee.
But it wasn’t that aspect of the law the jury was issued to decide. Instead, the argument was whether or not Rodriguez’s life was threatened at the time he shot and killed Kelly Danaher — the jury didn’t think so.
Texas’ ‘stand your ground’ law also indicates that a person cannot provoke a situation only to turn around and defend oneself. That was also an issue for the jury — and a point of argument for the prosecuting attorney, Kelli Johnson.
According to the Associated Press, Johnson argued that Rodriguez started the confrontation, choosing to first show a weapon rather than calmly ask that the music be turned down. Johnson summed this up as harassment.
“This is not what stand your ground is,” Johnson said. “Stand your ground is something the law takes very seriously. The law makes it very clear.”
Rodriguez’s attorney, however, argued that his client was very much threatened, claiming he was justified and protected under Texas law for his actions.
“He had a right to be in the street,” Attorney Neal Davis said, according to the Associated Press. “He was not provoking anybody. He was not engaged in any criminal activity. The (stand your ground) law is not only for home invasions. That’s why the law was changed.”
The Associated Press reported that Danaher’s wife cried when the verdict was read, saying she was relieved to know Rodriguez would not harm another, as he did her husband.
Rodriguez’s attorneys did not provide comments for the press after the verdict was read.