Jason Meade testifies in his defense after fatally shooting Casey Goodson Jr.

NBC4 is covering the murder trial of Jason Meade from gavel to gavel. Viewer discretion is advised. 4:30 p.m. update: The trial will break for the day. The prosecution’s cross-examination will continue at 9 a.m. Wednesday.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – A former deputy who killed a Black man outside his grandmother’s house in 2020 testified for hours in his own defense Tuesday afternoon.

Jason Meade, a former Franklin County sheriff’s deputy, is on trial for the death of 23-year-old Casey Goodson Jr. Meade’s attorneys have asserted that Meade, fresh off an assignment with the U.S. Marshals Service, trailed Goodson after seeing him wave a gun while driving. He shot Goodson after he pointed his gun at Meade, his attorneys have claimed.

Goodson’s family, and the state, have argued that Goodson was not holding his gun, for which he had a concealed carry permit. He could not have been a threat, they’ve said, because his back was toward Meade when Meade shot him six times, five of which hit Goodson’s back. If Meade identified himself and gave Goodson commands, Goodson wouldn’t have been able to hear them, the prosecution has said; he was listening to music with AirPods at the time.

Meade faces two counts of murder and one count of reckless homicide.

On the stand, Meade said that he didn’t think there was any other action he could have taken other than to shoot Goodson when he did.

Meade testified that while waiting at a red light, he saw Goodson turn, brandishing a gun in a “pumping” fashion. Goodson pointed it at another driver before pointing it at Meade, he said.

He then turned his unmarked U.S. Marshals truck around and tailed Goodson, turning onto the first street he saw: Estates Place. Meade saw Goodson’s car, parked the wrong way in front of Goodson’s grandmother’s house, so he stopped several houses away. He got his bulletproof vest out of a locked vault in the back of his truck.

Meade claimed that when Goodson saw him with his Marshals vest on, he ran, with a plastic bag in one hand and a gun in the other. At that point, Meade said he assumed Goodson was eluding arrest, so he got back in his truck and sped toward Goodson’s grandmother’s house. Once he got there, he began commanding Goodson to put his hands up and drop the gun, Meade said.

Goodson had opened the metal storm door to the side of the house and was unlocking the door to enter the kitchen. Meade said he couldn’t see Goodson’s hands, and he didn’t know how he had opened the door. He said he assumed Goodson was entering a house he didn’t live in to avoid being arrested.

Goodson stepped into the house. His shoulders slumped forward, which Meade thought meant he was going to surrender. Then he said he saw Goodson, with his back still turned, point the gun back at Meade.

“I thought he was going to shoot me, “ Meade said. “I’m thinking, ‘I don’t want to die.’”

Defense attorney Mark Collins asked Meade if he could have deescalated the situation. Meade replied that once Goodson pointed the gun at him, he had no choice but to act to protect himself.

“I remember thinking, ‘It’s my boy’s birthday, and I just ruined his birthday,’” Meade added, wiping a few tears from his eyes.

During a tense hour of cross-examination, prosecutor Gary Shroyer highlighted inconsistencies in Meade’s testimony with the written statement he provided a few weeks after the shooting. He wrote that Goodson had stopped at the intersection before turning; on the stand, he clarified that he had been mistaken – Goodson made a continuous turn, as proven by security footage of the intersection.

Shroyer noted that if Goodson saw Meade standing outside the truck, like Meade claimed he did, he didn’t point the gun at Meade then. Shroyer asked if Meade reassessed Goodson’s potential threat level at that time, before he decided to close the gap between them.

“No, I did not,” Meade said. He asserted it didn’t change the threat level.

Shroyer asked why Meade didn’t take other steps to alert Goodson that he was there, including by turning on his police lights or siren. That would have been much faster than parking the truck and getting his vest out of the back of the truck, Shroyer said.

Meade said his first priority was getting himself safe by donning his bulletproof vest. He didn’t consider whether someone might reasonably expect that Goodson lived on that street or that he was entering his own house.

After about an hour of cross-examination, the judge ordered the court to break for the day. Shroyer will resume questioning Meade at 9 a.m. Wednesday.

Meade looked like he ‘saw a ghost’ after the shooting, U.S. Marshal testifies

Tuesday morning, a neighbor testified that she and her husband were driving down Estates Place when she heard someone – later identified as Meade – yelling at someone to “put your gun down.” She heard the command at least twice, she said, before hearing gunshots.

Neither the neighbor nor her husband actually saw the shooting, she said; they were parked in the driveway when the shots rang out.

Deputy U.S. Marshal David Youngless led the fugitive task force team that Meade was working with on the day of the shooting. He testified that he heard Meade radio for help and that when he arrived on the scene, he had “never seen J’s demeanor what I saw that day.”

“He had a blank stare on his face, like he just saw a ghost,” Youngless said.

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While cross-examining Youngless, special prosecutor Tim Merkle played body camera footage from a responding officer that showed Meade, on the front porch of the house, explain that he saw Goodson “out the street with a gun.” Meade appeared to briefly chuckle while speaking.

“But that’s not the demeanor that you observed on Mr. Meade’s face?” Merkle asked.

“No, it was not,” Youngless said.

Youngless also testified about his use-of-force training. He said officers are trained to shoot center-mass because it is the largest, stillest area of the body. They’re also trained to use “whatever force is necessary to stop the threat at hand,” including by using deadly force.

Upon questioning by defense attorney Steven Nolder, Youngless said that he’s heard of cases when an officer had to shoot someone multiple times before that person was incapacitated.

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On Monday, jurors heard from officers and a paramedic who responded to the shooting. They reviewed body camera footage that showed Meade, on Goodson’s grandmother’s front porch, saying he saw Goodson with a gun.

A detective who analyzed Goodson’s phone and Google account testified that Goodson was listening to music with AirPods up until about 12:20 p.m. — likely the time medics removed the AirPods from Goodson’s ears.

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Across multiple witnesses, both the prosecution and defense focused on Goodson’s holster, a piece of cloth with a metal clip. One detective testified that, in his experience using a cloth holster while undercover, his gun has never fallen out. The lead detective in the case, meanwhile, noted that he would expect a gun to fall out of a cloth holster while a person was running – or if they fell.

Last week, jurors first heard from Goodson’s grandmother, uncle and sister, who were all in the house when Goodson was shot at the side door. Technical experts involved in the investigation, including an FBI firearms expert and the medical examiner who performed Goodson’s autopsy, also testified.

Meade spent his entire law enforcement career at the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, first becoming a deputy in 2007. He left the force in July 2021 on disability retirement, five months before he was charged in Goodson’s death. He had been on paid leave since shooting Goodson.

The former Marine had been on the sheriff’s office SWAT team since 2014, according to his personnel file. He was previously a pastor at Rosedale Freewill Baptist Church in Irwin.

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Representing Meade are three seasoned criminal defense attorneys: Mark Collins, Kaitlyn Stephens and Steven Nolder. Collins and Stephens have represented a swathe of law enforcement officials under prosecutorial scrutiny for their use of force, including former Columbus police vice officer Andrew Mitchell, who killed Donna Castleberry in 2018.

Presenting the state’s case are special prosecutors Gary Shroyer, Tim Merkle and Joshua Shaw, tapped by the Franklin County prosecutor’s office since it typically represents the sheriff’s office. Shroyer and Merkle have ample experience investigating officers who use deadly force — most recently, the duo is handling the murder case against former Columbus police officer Ricky Anderson, who killed Donovan Lewis in his bed in the Hilltop in August 2022.

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