Was shooting murder or justified? Trial of former Columbus officer Andrew Mitchell underway

One small phrase uttered by a witness Wednesday morning nearly derailed the retrial of former Columbus police vice officer Andrew Mitchell before it had gotten very far.

Laura Evans, a now-retired Columbus police detective, testified Wednesday morning as the prosecution's second witness in the case. Evans worked on the vice squad with Mitchell, who faces charges of murder and voluntary manslaughter in connection with the fatal Aug. 23, 2018, shooting of 23-year-old Donna Dalton Castleberry. He is facing a retrial after a jury in April 2022 was unable to reach a unanimous verdict in the case.

Assistant Franklin County Prosecutor Dan Cable asked Evans if she kept in contact with Mitchell or his family since 2018. Evans began to answer that police officers need special permission to visit someone in jail when attorneys quickly halted her testimony and went to speak with Franklin County Common Pleas Judge David Young, who is presiding over the case.

More: Who is former Columbus police vice officer Andrew Mitchell and why is he on trial?

More for subscribers: Who is the lawyer for Columbus-area cops in trouble? Collins has been go-to for decades

Mitchell has been in police custody since March 2019, when police arrested him on federal charges. Juries are not typically told a defendant is in jail because it could imply the person is guilty.

After what appeared to be a tense and somewhat heated conversation at Young's bench, Cable finished his questioning without further mention of contact with Mitchell's family. Mark Collins, one of Mitchell's defense attorneys, then cross-examined Evans without any objections from the prosecution.

Jurors in the trial, who were picked over about a day and a half from a pool of about 50 people, heard testimony from two witnesses Wednesday morning. A third witness, the lead Columbus police investigator on the shooting, was expected to take the stand Wednesday afternoon.

Attorneys gave their opening statements Tuesday afternoon before jurors boarded a Franklin County Sheriff's office bus to visit the scene of the shooting on South Yale Avenue in Franklinton, as well as Mitchell's undercover car, which is at the police division's impound lot.

On the day of the shooting, Mitchell was working undercover. He was in an unmarked Mitsubishi Galant and did not have his badge or police radio with him.

After picking up Castleberry, who was working as a prostitute along Sullivant Avenue on the city's West Side, Mitchell parked the car so the passenger side, where Castleberry was sitting, was tight against a brick wall of an apartment building. When Mitchell could not show Castleberry his badge, the pair struggled inside the vehicle and over the course of about a minute, Castleberry slashed Mitchell on one hand, and Mitchell shot Castleberry three times. She died a short time later at OhioHealth Grant Medical Center.

During her 13-minute opening statement, Assistant Franklin County Prosecutor Sheryl Prichard focused on the audio recording of the interaction between Mitchell and Castleberry inside the car, captured on Mitchell's police-issued cellphone. The recording, Prichard said, shows Mitchell was upset that Castleberry did not believe he was a police officer. During the struggle, which is heard on the recording, Castleberry cut Mitchell and scrambled into the back seat of the car, which had the childproof locks engaged, effectively trapping her inside the vehicle.

Prichard said Mitchell, who fired six shots in about 12 seconds, shot Castleberry because he was angry he had been cut by a knife — an injury that required stitches and surgery — and not because he feared for his life.

"She wasn't a threat when she was trapped in the back of the car with no way out," Prichard said. "This wasn't a shot cadence of an officer firing to save his life."

Prichard noted Mitchell had the front driver-side door of the car open and at least one foot outside when he fired some of the shots.

"There is no evidence Donna Castleberry had a knife in the back seat," Prichard said. "The knife was found on his seat."

In her opening statement, defense attorney Kaitlyn Stephens told the jury that Mitchell was justified in using deadly force and that prosecutors won't be able to prove their case.

"The situation escalated from non-compliance to violence in a matter of seconds," Stephens said.

Police officers are allowed to use deadly force when they fear for their lives, Stephens said, and that applies to Mitchell. She told the jury that officers are trained to shoot until "the threat stops moving" and that Castleberry was willing to do "anything to keep her from the inside of a jail cell."

Stephens acknowledged the struggle lasted more than a split-second but said Mitchell's decision to shoot was made that quickly.

"He believed she still had a knife. She came towards him to get in the back seat," Stephens said. "He thinks she's going to slash his throat."

Stephens also noted the prosecution will be using a new expert witness in the case, Urey Patrick. She said Patrick's testimony will contradict other evidence Patrick has given in trials and what he wrote in his own book, "In Defense of Self and Others — Issues, Facts & Fallacies — the Realities of Law Enforcement's Use of Deadly Force."

Patrick, who is based in Virginia, is a retired FBI agent who specializes in use-of-force cases and has testified across the country. In the first trial, prosecutors used Jamie Borden, a retired Nevada police officer, as their use-of-force expert.

Testimony in the case will begin Wednesday morning. The prosecution is expected to rest its case before the end of the week, and Mitchell could take the stand in his own defense as early as Friday.

On Monday, Mitchell's attorneys filed a motion with Young seeking to bar prosecutors from discussing Castleberry's state of mind at the time of her interaction with Mitchell. The motion argues that what Castleberry thought is not relevant under Ohio law to whether or not Mitchell's actions were justified, which is the key legal question in the case.

"Nobody in this case … has any type of personal knowledge of what was in (Castleberry's) mind when she was making certain statements" on the cellphone recording, the motion said. "Any testimony that would substitute the State's own notions or interpretations for (Castleberry's) own words should be precluded."

In the first trial, prosecutors argued Castleberry cut Mitchell's hand out of fear that Mitchell was trying to kidnap her and that her actions were in self-defense. If Young approves the defense's motion, it would not allow prosecutors to argue Castleberry feared being kidnapped without an eyewitness or question expert witnesses about what was in Castleberry's mind at the time of the encounter.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Young hadn't ruled on the motion. In her opening statement Tuesday, Prichard argued Castleberry's actions were in self-defense because Mitchell could not produce evidence he was a police officer and did not specifically argue Castleberry feared being kidnapped.

bbruner@dispatch.com

@bethany_bruner

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Murder trial for former Columbus vice officer Andrew Mitchell underway