Michael Dunn guilty of 1st-degree murder in "loud music" case
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - A jury in Jacksonville, Fla., found Michael Dunn, a white man who fatally shot a black teenager after an argument over loud music outside a convenience store, guilty of first-degree murder Wednesday.
Prosecutors said the 47-year-old Dunn shot with intent to kill when he fired 10 times into a sports utility vehicle carrying 17-year-old Jordan Davis and three of his friends in November 2012. The jury reached its verdict after more than five hours of deliberations.
Dunn, who took the stand in his own defense, said he fired in self-defense. He told jurors that he saw Davis flash what he believed to be a rifle after the two exchanged words outside a convenience store.
Investigators never found a gun in the SUV or in the nearby area, and Davis' three friends testified that there was no gun.
Dunn was convicted of three counts of attempted second-degree murder in February and already faced at least 60 years in prison. The jury in the first trial deadlocked on the first-degree murder count, which led prosecutors to retry him.
Prosecutors didn't seek the death penalty, which means Dunn now faces a mandatory life sentence.
Throughout the second trial, prosecutors portrayed Dunn as a cold-blooded killer. Dunn never called police after firing into the SUV, and afterward he went back to his hotel, made a drink, ordered pizza, walked his dog and went to sleep.
After learning on the news about Davis' death, Dunn drove home and did not contact authorities until they called him.
Before the verdict, Davis' parents, Ron Davis and Lucia McBath, said they never expect to hear condolences from Dunn.
"Ron and I don't expect that he'll ever apologize to us, you know, and that's not even a concern of ours because we know that we raised a good human being," McBath said.