(PHONE RINGING)
(WOMAN SPEAKING)
(DISPATCHER SPEAKING)
(WOMAN SPEAKING)
(DISPATCHER SPEAKING)
(WOMAN SPEAKING)
I'm in my garage. I looked up.
She was right there with the bat.
She swung at my front windshield like six, seven times.
I panicked. I shot once.
He bought a gun to a bat fight, she didn't have a gun.
It was a baseball bat.
DAVONNIE: I'd never seen her like that before.
RUSSELL JONES: This is a serious charge. It's a homicide.
And would be scary for anybody.
This is also someone he loved that died.
DAVONNIE: None of this stuff ever was supposed to happen at all.
Feel like, a dark cloud just walking above me.
All day, every day since this stuff happened.
My name's Russell Jones. I'm a criminal defense attorney here in Milwaukee
I represent Davonnie Dyson in this case.
He's accused of killing his ex- girlfriend after a domestic dispute.
The state has charged him with second degree reckless homicide,
which carries a 25 year maximum sentence.
The bullet points essentially in this case are back in June of 2020
they were living together and dating off and on for a couple of years.
Had an argument the night before, he'd actually kicked her out of the apartment.
When she moved out, he thought she took some of his stuff,
I think some bottles of liquor and some other things
and they got into a texting argument.
She came back to prove to him she didn't have his stuff.
Once Davonnie got to Alona's car, he started looking through the car.
He went through the trunk, he went through everything.
And that's when Alona got mad and it heated up.
She started hitting him, ripped his shirt,
and they get into a confrontation outside.
And over here around the corner is where Alona parked.
That's where the fight started, so that's where the initial contact happened.
After that exchange, he leaves and walks all the way back past these few houses
from the corner back to his apartment building.
And what you see here is this U-shaped building. That's the apartment complex.
And Alona follows him. So she's following him for the distance
of one, two, three houses, so half a city block,
then into this apartment complex.
This front door right by the pink tab is what was smashed.
She breaks into his apartment with a baseball bat.
Davonnie goes down to the parking garage.
He tried to escape in his car.
She then follows him down to the parking garage.
She was beating the car up with a baseball bat,
damaging it everywhere
and he warns her that he has a gun, he warns her to leave him alone.
She doesn't. He fires one shot, hits her, and then,
Alona eventually goes down this alleyway and collapses
somewhere in front of this house.
Tragically, this ends in her death.
So, we're arguing that his actions were reasonable
given the attack that he was facing.
From the state's perspective, he acted unreasonably
and ultimately, that's going to be the jury's question to answer.
What's at stake for my client, Vonnie?
He was a corrections officer, he had his life on track, he had a good job, you know?
And things were progressing for him quite well and now all of that's derailed.
DAVONNIE: One situation can change your life
in a minute, less than a second.
I was a correctional officer for the state of Wisconsin,
and I was doing that for like almost close to two years.
Being a correctional officer is basically a career job.
Like it's something you can retire from.
It was lovely while it was going.
My goal is to go back to being a correctional officer
if everything goes right.
(WATER SPLASHING)
This case has turned our world upside down for the last two years.
We don't know what's going on. We don't know what's gonna happen.
Right now, we all are in turmoil.
I know he's my cousin, but he's more of a younger brother,
uh, he's my go-to. He's the calm one out of us, which is crazy
(LAUGHS) but he's just like a big, lovable teddy bear.
I was with Alona for two years on and off.
Our relationship was...
Like we was good friends when we was not even together Iike,
I would call in check up on her, she would call and check up on me.
Yeah, recently we had got back together that April.
Alona moved in with me.
It was good at first and then a couple of days got rocky.
THERESA YOUNG: He loved her. He would do anything for her.
It was just an unforeseen accident.
DAVONNIE: My life went from being great to horrible
with a dark cloud just chasing behind me.
The stress is real.
RUSSELL: I've asked Davonnie to come in today and I want his perspective.
The broad strokes of what happened that day.
But I think it's also critical
that he understands what he's facing
and really the gravity of the situation.
RUSSELL: Good to see you, man. DAVONNIE: Nice to see you too.
All right, so we're here to talk about a few things.
Number one, we need to talk about, you know, the charges
-to make sure you understand them. -DAVONNIE: Okay.
It's second-degree reckless homicide.
Okay, what that means is that they have to prove a few things.
Number one, that you caused the death,
and two, that you did that through reckless behavior.
So that's a 25 year maximum. Does that make sense?
-It makes sense. -RUSSELL: Okay.
We're saying self-defense.
So, we're saying you're not guilty and that's why we're going to trial.
Okay.
So what I need from you though is the general overview
of what happened that day and then we'll get into details as we develop into your case.
-All right, it makes sense. -RUSSELL: Okay, okay.
RUSSELL: So, you were living together
-and you got in a fight that morning, I think or... -DAVONNIE: Yeah.
RUSSELL: Tell me. DAVONNIE: The day before.
It was just something was bothering her,
and I just asked her like what was going on and everything.
And she got attitude. So it was like, okay, whatever.
-So she ended up leaving. -RUSSELL: Okay, then what happened?
I walked into my room, noticed some belongings was missing.
So I instantly texted her like, "Hey, you been in my house?"
-RUSSELL: So she comes over with her car? -Yes.
RUSSELL: Did she come alone?
No, she came with two of her friends.
She met me downstairs from my apartment.
We walked around the corner to her car 'cause that's where she parked at.
RUSSELL: My big issue is why were you carrying the gun when you first met Alona?
DAVONNIE: I already had the gun on me.
I keep it with me majority of the time.
-RUSSELL: You use a gun for your job right? -Yes.
You're a correctional officer at the prisons,
you're licensed to have a gun, all that stuff.
-Yes -RUSSELL: Okay.
DAVONNIE We got into an argument. I disengaged myself from the argument
RUSSELL: And you were gonna go back into your apartment?
DAVONNIE: Yes, I was about to actually leave.
Okay, so you're going through the front door. You're gonna go up to your place?
DAVONNIE: No, I was going downstairs to the garage. RUSSELL: Oh.
DAVONNIE: About to leave RUSSELL: Gotcha. Okay.
DAVONNIE: And by the time I reached the garage,
I heard glass being shattered.
RUSSELL: From the front door? DAVONNIE: Yes.
Gotcha and that was Alona smashing?
Using the bat to get in because she didn't have no entry.
I'm in my garage.
I got in my car and everything.
Next thing you know, I looked up
when I was putting my car in reverse,
she was downstairs with the bat swinging it.
I'd never seen her like that before.
She broke my front windshield,
she swung at my front windshield like six, seven times.
I pressed on the gas to reverse out
and I forgot my driver's side door was open
and my door had got smashed in between the pole,
so it got stuck.
I was trapped, okay? My car was not moving backwards at all
while she was still going for it with the bat.
-RUSSELL: The fear came from the fact that you didn't know... -Never.
-Yeah, I'd never seen this side of her at all -RUSSELL: Like, this is like,
-Jekyll and Hyde, right? Kind of like. Okay. -Yeah.
I panicked, I shot once and I was like, "What's going on?" 'Cause she hurried up and ran,
so I didn't even know if it hit her or not.
So the prosecution, they're saying that basically
you didn't need to fire a shot, that what you did was unreasonable.
But your defense is that in that situation, in that moment, okay,
it was reasonable for you to fire that shot.
You have somebody that you cared about,
somebody that was acting out of character.
You had to fire that shot.
The entire case is going to turn on whether or not what you did is reasonable
-and that's what I'm gonna do. -Okay.
I'm just hoping we get this win,
so I can get back to having a normal life, and we've got another journey ahead of us.
Second degree reckless homicide. That's a lot.
Still care about her, still love her.
There ain't no hate. It was never that.
None of this was supposed to happen at all.
Feel like a dark cloud just walking above me.
All day, every day since this stuff happened.
RUSSELL: Every aspect of his life, his personal,
his social, his emotional, his physical
are all being taxed.
And I think part of my job is to try and allay
some of those concerns, try and minimize those
but at the same point you know, I need to keep it realistic with him
that this is something that might go south
and if it does, he needs to be prepared for that.
DAVONNIE: Come on.
-DAVONNIE: And it go in. Yeah, the table leans. -(THERESA LAUGHS)
DAVONNIE: Yeah, it's been a rocky road.
Right now, I'm bouncing in between
my sister's house and my aunt house.
Basically where I can lay my head at.
-I thought it must be a stripe right here? -THERESA: Mmm-mmm.
-Oh, it don't. -Mmm-mmm.
Unless you just wanna move this one over here?
Oh. Oh.
Then you have your every other one.
-(THERESA LAUGHS) -Not every other one but all right.
THERESA: Vonnie is very angry.
Vonnie is nervous about what's going on.
This has impacted the type of jobs he can work.
How are you feeling right about now?
I'm just ready for it to get over with, so I can figure out
do I got a free life or not.
I'm just ready to get this done with.
THERESA: Both his parents are deceased.
His father was killed, my sister died,
so I took custody of him.
So he's my child.
Good shot.
Uh-oh.
What do you feel is going to be the outcome
if everything clears your name?
Try to get back into
being a correctional officer, everything,
it'll be a process but hopefully I can.
THERESA: He's sorry for what happened
but right now, life is life and he's just trying to get through this
and trying to get his life back on track.
For you to go from a correctional officer
to now maybe going behind bars.
-DAVONNIE: Yeah. -How are you feeling?
Me being a correctional officer,
I would definitely have to go to PC, protective custody.
Prison is bad enough in itself
but then being in solitary confinement in itself,
that's a scary thing for him at this point.
I love my baby.
This is something that should never have happened,
and I'm praying for the best outcome for him.
At this point all I can do is wait to see what happens at the trial.
So today what I'm doing is, we're looking at the witness statements here
and we're looking at whether or not there's consistencies and inconsistencies.
What Davonnie says is that she punched him, she ripped his shirt,
then he got aggressive.
One of the women that came with Alona, one of her friends,
she makes a statement to police saying that Alona
punched Von three times and ripped his shirt
because he was choking her and then used the gun.
It says right here that Von, meaning Davonnie, pulled out a gun
and was pointing the gun at both her and the victim.
It then says that he, Von, hit the front passenger window
with the gun actually breaking the window.
Okay so, and even says that Von was grabbing the victim
with one hand and choking her.
These are gonna be critical pieces of information
because if he's an aggressor out of this argument,
that creates a different issue on whether or not he's being the aggressor,
whether he gets self-defense or not.
If the jury believes he's the aggressor, then the law says
he has to actually disengage from the argument entirely.
I need to be able to argue to the jury that there's a clear delineation
where he stopped and broke off the entire fight outside.
And then if in if Alona is the aggressor in the future
the we're looking at a different incident
So, I know it sounds kind of, you know, academic
to say there might... There's two different arguments
but you need to look at each segment and then how that applies to the law.
If we can prove that he disengaged or walked away,
which is what he claims but, again, I don't know right now,
if we can prove that or establish that.
And that's a real concern.
One of the things I'm concerned about is that Davonnie
maybe was the aggressor, at least initially,
and we need to see if we can find a way to establish that
he broke off or disengaged from the fight.
-So this is Dyson. -LAURA JONES: Okay.
Remember that self-defense shooting?
-It's a ring video doorbell from across the street -Okay. Gotcha.
So this is before the shooting that we're looking at.
So, the apartment's over here on the right,
-and on the left is where the victim parked her car. -LAURA: Okay.
So they're in an argument over off screen
that we can't see or hear. There's no audio.
-They're over this way? -Right, they're over there.
-Right there that guy that just came in screen? -LAURA: Mmm-hmm.
That's Vonnie and then now look at the woman behind him.
LAURA: With the baseball bat?
RUSSELL: Exactly. LAURA: And on the phone.
She's on the phone. Hold on.
There was a 911 call that she made.
LAURA: So you want me to play this? RUSSELL: Yeah, play it.
-LAURA: Okay. -Let's just listen to what she says.
RUSSELL: Pause it. So, she said, "He just pulled a gun on me."
There's an allegation that he used the gun
not shooting it but like he banged it on her window.
RUSSELL: Meaning off the screen. LAURA: Okay.
LAURA: It looks like he's just holding his hand up to his chest
like it doesn't look like he's holding anything.
RUSSELL: The gun, it's in his pocket.
He certainly isn't showing it or pointing it.
Okay, keep playing.
(ALONA SPEAKING)
RUSSELL: Okay, she says Davonnie did it.
-Hold on. -(ALONA SPEAKING)
-Woah, woah, woah. -LAURA: Hmm.
BOTH: I'm walking right behind him.
What she just got done saying was
that she's following the guy.
RUSSELL: He's clearly walking away here, I mean they gotta be
-six to ten feet between them at least, right? -LAURA: Absolutely.
Even if Davonnie's over here smashing her car window when they're in an argument, right?
-Which would make him the aggressor. -LAURA: He is walking away.
RUSSELL: 'Cause the law requires him to disengage from the fight
-or to stop right? Fighting. -LAURA: Yep.
RUSSELL: Witness statement says he went back in the apartment behind a locked door
and then she smashed her way through with a baseball bat.
LAURA: It does not appear to me right now that
he's the aggressor, at least in this moment in time.
He's walking away.
Today, I think it's a critical piece of evidence.
We're gonna be able to demonstrate to the jury
he broke off the attack.
He wasn't trying to be dominating.
He was simply trying walk away
and that's when this escalated into the situation it did.
DAVONNIE: Court is coming up soon.
It could be my last holiday, Thanksgiving.
It's a lot to think about,
so we just enjoying our time together right now.
THERESA: Go check the turkey outside.
It's close too.
DAMANN YOUNG: That's called deep fried turkey.
THERESA: Every year, me and my husband host Thanksgiving
for our family, friends.
Anyone who don't have a meal, come to our home.
You're always welcome to eat.
DAVONNIE: My family is like a pot full of everything.
Everybody is different, so you can get
a pinch of this, a pinch of that.
It's all type of seasoning in one pot.
My family has been great through this whole process for the last couple of years.
They've been there through, since day one.
And they also give me my space when I also need it,
so I'm in a good one.
DAMANN: All right, everybody, bow their head.
I want to thank you, Almighty Father, creator, for this blessed day.
This day called Thanksgiving.
And we also ask you Father in the name of Yeshua,
to bless our nephew, Vonnie, as he's going through his situation,
so everything gonna come out on the right end.
-Amen. -ALL: Amen!
MAN 1: Are we ready to eat? MAN 2: Whoo.
MAN 3: This is the bird.
RUSSELL: Anytime you're dealing with self-defense, you have to look at first of all,
the legal standard is whether or not my client
acted reasonably in those circumstances.
So what we really need to ascertain
is what the circumstances really were.
How much danger was he really in?
How close was she to the car? What kind of damage there was.
Because ultimately you're trying to decide
if someone shooting a gun is reasonable.
That's really up to the jury to decide.
And when 12 people need to make that decision,
we need to set the scene for them as best as we can.
I need the jury to understand truly
how terrifying the situation was in that moment.
Carol and I, we weren't able to get into the actual crime scene,
so we've been able to find a garage that's similar.
and then we're going to make sure that we fully understand
what happened between these two people during this attack.
Okay, so, if I look at the photos,
Davonnie fled down the stairs to his car, to his garage.
He would have walked you know, around his car...
-WEYMIER: Right? -To get into the driver's side over here.
Right.
Okay, so right about where this kayak opening, that's the door.
This is about where the door is.
And then his car is literally parked right here.
When she comes out this door, makes sense that she's following him
and going to smash the front of the car.
-Where's that pole? Go back to that other photo. -All right.
WEYMIER: His car's here. Right. RUSSELL: His car's here. Yes.
RUSSELL: And the pole's there.
I'm now trying to back out.
If my door is open and I'm backing out,
and he hits that pole, gets cut.
Look at the door damage.
If she's standing in front of the car smashing,
he can't pull forward, close his door and go out 'cause he'll hit her.
I'm looking behind my shoulder,
I don't... No back up cam in this car.
Plus she's you know, she's screaming, his door is open.
-Now you're here right? -Right.
Now you're smashing the back window.
So, she's on the path to attacking him.
'Cause that's where she gets shot.
-Right. Okay, so she comes around this way. -RUSSELL: She comes around.
He is sitting, you know, now he's probably about where the pole is here
and he's got the gun and he shoots one way across like that and hits her.
So one of the critical things is, was firing that shot reasonable?
And he does say the shot was designed to scare her.
If he wanted to scare her...
-RUSSELL: No, no, no. -Could have put his hand out the window
-and shot up to the ceiling. -RUSSELL: Carol, but this is okay.
Remember, you're allowed to defend yourself.
-He's trapped, right? -WEYMIER: Right.
That's the key here, is he's trapped.
WEYMIER: I would have been petrified. RUSSELL: Yeah.
And this is what we've got to convey to the jury
Anybody cam can be challenging,
'cause it sometimes doesn't tell a good story for my clients and sometimes it does.
We usually play it with a little bit of trepidation and our fingers are crossed.
He's arriving on scene here about nine minutes after she's been shot.
There's already an ambulance, already firefighters are there.
So they got there quick.
Right, so she's coming out of the garage
and then she went left and then collapsed in the neighbor's driveway.
-The neighbor's driveway. -So that's what we're looking at right now.
CAROL: All right, okay.
So, Vonnie is not there.
The longer he's gone, the bigger a problem it is, right?
'Cause, you know, in self-defense cases,
if you think you've committed self-defense,
a lot of times you stay on the scene.
WEYMIER: "Dyson stated after he fired the shot,
"she went out the sliding door.
"Since she was holding her stomach, he thought he might have shot her.
"He stated that he ran after her and didn't see her.
"He then went through his front door.
"He observed her lying next door.
"He stated that her friends were there."
He shot at her. She ran away.
He ran outside and saw her laying in the driveway
next door.
If I was a prosecutor, that's something I would really dwell on.
RUSSELL: Who knows how they're going to react
until they're in a situation?
I think what we gotta tell the jury is "This is how he did react.
"Is it reasonable?"
-Okay. -Right, 'cause remember it's the realm of reasonable.
Not... Not perfect.
WEYMIER: So why did he stash the gun, Russ? Doesn't that hurt?
Some of those facts are bad, right?
Stashing a gun, bad fact, maybe seeing her, not rendering her aid, bad fact right?
-Mmm-hmm. -And leaving. There's illogic to what he did.
It shows the scattered brain,
which means he shows the state of panic, which shows reasonableness.
What we were able to determine when we watched the body cam is we're probably
gonna have to embrace the fact that he did hide the gun
and the fact that he fled.
The consequences of this case, obviously,
I mean, they're dire, right?
And ultimately, if the jury doesn't find what he did was reasonable,
he's going to prison for at least a decade or more.
RUSSELL: So we're going to start trial next week.
So what we're going to do today is,
we're going to look at the video of Davonnie's statement to law enforcement.
It happened the night of the shooting.
So he's giving a very fresh account of what just occurred.
(DAVONNIE SPEAKING)
OFFICER: So what were you thinking during this whole time?
(DAVONNIE SPEAKING)
The concern is that he might have just
been trying to get away from the fight,
meaning he wasn't really fearful for his life
but he really just wanted to disengage.
You're not allowed to shoot someone to disengage a fight.
You are allowed to shoot someone if you're in fear of your life.
And I think the state might make that argument,
so that is a concern.
(OFFICER SPEAKING)
(DAVONNIE SPEAKING)
(OFFICER SPEAKING)
(DAVONNIE SPEAKING)
The officers are trying to pin him down to say he wasn't afraid for his life.
I think the jury hopefully will see it for what it is, and that is that
they wouldn't know what would happen,
I wouldn't know what would happen
and neither did Davonnie know what would happen
if someone's that irrational, that out of control,
swinging a baseball bat that many times.
I think the state might make the argument that he damaged her property,
she was there to damage his property.
He doesn't have the right of self-defense of property
under the law, the way it's constituted.
Ultimately, it will be for the jury to decide,
but I think overall this interview will be a critical piece of evidence.
RUSSELL: Everything we've worked on in this trial is coming down to today,
so going through the garage, meeting with Davonnie, mapping this out with my staff,
you know, this is what we prepare for
and this is what we're ready for today.
What happened on June 5th of 2020
is Mr. Dyson shot and killed Alona.
Mr. Dyson, I don't anticipate,
is gonna dispute that he shot her.
The issue is simply going to be this,
whether or not his conduct is privileged
under the law of self-defense in Wisconsin.
The state's position at the end of the trial,
given the law of self-defense as you'll be instructed.
Mr. Dyson's conduct was not privileged
and what he did by shooting at one time
is second degree reckless homicide.
-Thank you. -JUDGE: Thank you, counsel.
So the state said the issue here will be whether or not his actions were privileged.
Privileged meaning he's allowed to do it
under certain circumstances if it was reasonable.
That's the question for you throughout this entire trial,
albeit tragic, were they reasonable?
Thank you.
JUDGE: Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,
so help you God?
PAUL TIFFIN: Correct to say you get over there in that area and Alona parks?
(PERDITA BLUETT SPEAKING)
-TIFFIN: Where does she park? -(BLUETT SPEAKING)
-TIFFIN: Around the corner from? -(BLUETT SPEAKING)
-TIFFIN: On, like, the sidewalk? -(BLUETT SPEAKING)
TIFFIN: What do you recall happening?
(BLUETT SPEAKING)
TIFFIN: And what happens then?
(BLUETT SPEAKING)
TIFFIN: What did you see happened then?
(BLUETT SPEAKING)
TIFFIN: And what did he do?
(BLUETT SPEAKING)
TIFFIN: Judge, I have no further questions.
RUSSELL: All right, ma'am, so I want to ask you a few questions.
Davonnie starts walking back to his apartment.
That's a true statement, right?
-(BLUETT SPEAKING) -RUSSELL: Okay.
-Does anyone follow him? -(BLUETT SPEAKING)
-RUSSELL: He wasn't pointing the gun anymore, was he? -(BLUETT SPEAKING)
RUSSELL: So someone who just pointed a gun at you, you decide to follow him? Go after him?
RUSSELL: Yes?
In fact, I think you testified that you told Alona that
you wanted to go back to the car and leave, right?
(BLUETT SPEAKING)
RUSSELL: So you were advising Alona that you guys should leave?
(BLUETT SPEAKING)
RUSSELL: She wasn't listening to you was she?
-She was still going after Davonnie? -(BLUETT SPEAKING)
-RUSSELL: With her bat? -(BLUETT SPEAKING)
Broke into his door?
RUSSELL: Okay.
Nothing else. Thank you, ma'am.
TIFFIN: After the window was broken, where did Davonnie start going?
(AUSTRIA JONES SPEAKING)
TIFFIN: Alona had a bat in the car?
(AUSTRIA SPEAKING)
TIFFIN: Fair to say she followed him?
(AUSTRIA SPEAKING)
TIFFIN: Did you see anything happen at Davonnie's apartment?
(AUSTRIA SPEAKING)
TIFFIN: What happened then?
(AUSTRIA SPEAKING)
-TIFFIN: One shot? -(AUSTRIA SPEAKING)
TIFFIN: Could you tell where that shot came from?
(AUSTRIA SPEAKING)
TIFFIN: And what, if anything, did you see?
(AUSTRIA SPEAKING)
TIFFIN: Thank you. I have no other questions JUDGE: Russ.
RUSSELL: Thank you.
So he points a gun at all three of you
and then breaks the window?
(AUSTRIA SPEAKING)
RUSSELL: Did want Alona to come back to the car?
(AUSTRIA SPEAKING)
RUSSELL: You wanted to leave, right?
Perdita wanted to leave, correct?
(AUSTRIA SPEAKING)
RUSSELL: Were you trying to get Alona to leave?
Yes or no, ma'am?
-Were you trying to... -(AUSTRIA SPEAKING)
JUDGE: Wait... Wait for the question to be asked again and just answer it.
RUSSELL: Were you trying to encourage... JUDGE Could you just wait
-till I... -RUSSELL: Sorry, Sorry, Judge.
(AUSTRIA SPEAKING)
RUSSELL: Were you trying to encourage Alona to leave?
(AUSTRIA SPEAKING)
RUSSELL: I have nothing else. Thanks.
The two witnesses admitted that they were trying to get Alona to leave with them.
That's a good piece of evidence for us
because he needs to be not the aggressor here,
so if her friends even thought she should leave
that means that they knew she was going down a path she shouldn't have.
TIFFIN: This is a recording of the interview
-that was conducted on June 6th. Is that Correct? -CRAIG THIMM: Correct.
(THIMM SPEAKING)
(DAVONNIE SPEAKING)
(THIMM SPEAKING)
(DAVONNIE SPEAKING)
-(THIMM SPEAKING) -(DAVONNIE SPEAKING)
(THIMM SPEAKING)
(DAVONNIE SPEAKING)
TIFFIN: Those are accurate recordings of the interview that was conducted with you,
Detective Kushnick and Mr. Dyson, correct?
THIMM: Yes.
RUSSELL: Nothing he told you in that recording for over an hour
was inconsistent with any of the evidence you'd reviewed
prior to interviewing him, true?
-Correct. -RUSSELL: Nothing else.
The cop said everything he said was consistent with the evidence.
Basically, it's exactly what he's always maintained
the version to be, and that is that they had an argument
up by the vehicle, he walked away.
Davonnie's version, which I think is supported by the evidence,
is consistent with him genuinely breaking off any sort of attack.
Really the issue tomorrow is gonna be the closing argument.
It's gonna be so the jury really can put themselves
in the shoes of Davonnie at the time this occurred.
So my job is to put them in that garage.
TIFFIN: Judge, at this time the state
is not going to call any further witnesses
in subject or rebuttal. The state rests.
RUSSELL: Davonnie, we've got to consider
-whether you testify or not. -DAVONNIE: Okay.
You know, and in a self-defense case,
usually I'm leaning towards a guy testifying
because you have to kind of talk about what you believed in the moment.
-DAVONNIE: All right. -But I think in your case,
they played an hour, basically an hour of your statement to law enforcement.
You weren't highly emotional in that statement
but my concern is now two and a half years later,
maybe you wouldn't be emotional
and they would be and that might come off bad.
I mean, it's up to you ultimately and the judge is gonna ask you
but that's my advice.
-DAVONNIE: All right. -All right.
RUSSELL: Let's get out of here. DAVONNIE: All right.
JUDGE: So you understand, sir,
you have a constitutional right to testify or not to testify.
You understand that?
DAVONNIE: Yes, sir.
JUDGE: And it's, uh, my understanding
based upon those representations by the state
that you are not going to exercise your right to testify.
DAVONNIE: Yes, sir. JUDGE: And you've discussed that with your lawyer?
DAVONNIE: Yes, sir. JUDGE: And it's a choice that you are alone making?
DAVONNIE: Yes, sir.
RUSSELL: The closing statement in this case in particular,
I think is, uh, the crescendo, it's the be all, end all
because ultimately it's your last chance to talk to that jury
and convince them of your position.
We're not really arguing what happened as much as we're arguing why it happened
and the why is persuasion
and that's why the closing arguments are so critical in this case
TIFFIN: Taking a handgun, aiming at somebody
and pulling the trigger
creates a risk of death or great bodily harm.
His conduct was that crime.
He basically had enough.
This was, "I want out of here, I'm just gonna shoot."
That's not reasonable.
Based on what he did.
Based upon the evidence is to say to you,
his conduct is not privileged, it's not reasonable.
JUDGE: Thank you, Counsel.
-Mr. Jones? -RUSSELL: Thank you, Your Honor.
RUSSELL: Let's look at what we know, okay?
What do we know? We know that Mr. Dyson,
he walked away.
He'd never seen her that out of control.
He'd never seen her like that before.
He yelled stop three times
and all he does is fire one shot, one shot.
He was scared,
he was terrified for his life.
We don't know how we would react in that situation.
The truth is here, this is a tragedy
that Alona is dead. You're not here
to avenge a tragedy, you're here to apply the law.
You have to do it. It's a tough job.
But on that day, in that moment,
Mr. Dyson had to make that choice.
Thank you.
RUSSELL: I'm always nervous when juries are out.
I'm confident that we presented a good case, I'm confident the jury was listening,
but at the end of the day, 12 people decide this
and Davonnie's life is in their hands.
DAVONNIE: Hopefully they do come back not guilty,
so I can really do whatever I need to do.
Court is going to read the verdict.
(DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING)
This is State of Wisconsin versus Dyson.
"We, the jury, find the defendant
"not guilty of second degree reckless homicide
"as charged in the information dated this 21st day of February."
Signed by the foreperson.
-Not guilty, man, so it's over. -Thank you.
All right, got your life back. You're released on bail, okay?
-You can get your gun back. -Yeah.
-I mean, hell, you can even apply for your job if you want. -Yeah.
So I'm glad it's over for you.
I'm sorry it was such a long road.
Yeah, long rodeo.
RUSSELL: You know, but I'm glad it's over.
Thanks, you did your job.
RUSSELL: (CHUCKLES) I tried, man, let's get out of here, all right?
DAVONNIE: Yeah. RUSSELL: Come on.
DAVONNIE: My emotions when the verdict came in, it was shock.
It's a relief on me, even though
I'm always gonna miss her no matter what.
I still think about her to this day.
This case has been dragging me for the last two years.
I'm just ready to get back to having a normal life.
RUSSELL: This was the right result.
At the end of the day, the jury got it right.
It was a tough decision for them and they took their time
but I think they realized that under those circumstances,
Davonnie acted reasonably.
Even though it was tragic.