He saw a rival on a motor bike and opened fire. Miami jury acquitted him of murder
A jury late Thursday acquitted a South Miami-Dade man who claimed he acted in self-defense when he fatally shot a neighborhood rival who was riding a motor bike toward him.
Jurors deliberated just over two hours in acquitting Daishun Doctor of a charge of second-degree murder.
Doctor, at this week’s trial, testified that as he was driving down a Perrine street, he saw Devin Smith riding toward him while on a motorbike. Jurors saw surveillance video showing Doctor slowed down his car, opened the door, and fired a volley of bullets — hurling Smith from the speeding bike.
Doctor, 34, told jurors that Smith had been threatening him for years, and had beaten him up previously. He said that he had put his gun on his lap while driving through Smith’s neighborhood. When he saw Smith on his motorbike, from afar, he could see Smith was reaching for his waistband.
“He testified that he saw him reach down and that he was in fear for his life,” defense attorney Michael Grieco said on Friday. “He said, ‘If I didn’t do that, we’d be at my funeral, not my trial.’ ”
The defense contended that Smith was armed with a Glock pistol — with an extended clip and 30 bullets — that was stolen from the scene before police arrived, but later returned to the slain man’s family. The Glock was introduced into evidence at trial.
A Miami-Dade judge earlier this year declined to dismiss the charge under Florida’s controversial “Stand Your Ground” self-defense law, which made it easier for judges to throw out criminal charges before jurors ever hear a case. But the 2005 law nevertheless played a role in the acquittal.
The reason: The 2005 law eliminated a citizen’s duty to retreat before using deadly force to counter a threat of death or great bodily harm. “My guy has no duty to retreat,” Grieco said.
Critics have long said that the law emboldens vigilante justice and makes it easier for people to get away with murder and avoid criminal charges.
In the years after its passage, Florida media have chronicled example after example of gunmen killing unarmed people and beating charges under the law — including a man who shot and killed two unarmed men outside a Northwest Miami-Dade Chili’s restaurant, and a woman who shot and killed an unarmed man during a brawl outside a Kendall strip club.
The law was thrust into the national spotlight with the killing of teenager Trayvon Martin in Sanford. In 2012, Sanford police cited the law in not initially arresting neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon, a Black teenager from Miami Gardens who was visiting his father.
Zimmerman, who followed Trayvon after falsely believing he was a neighborhood prowler, was later charged with second-degree murder. He chose not to ask a judge to grant him immunity, and instead took his case to the jury — which heard legal instructions that Zimmerman had “no duty to retreat.” Jurors acquitted Zimmerman.
