Jury selection was completed yesterday in a Milwaukee case that has drawn national attention because of its similarity to the George Zimmerman-Trayvon Martin case, as 76-year-old John Henry Spooner is accused of the shooting death of a 13-year-old black boy last year on a Milwaukee sidewalk because Spooner mistakenly thought the boy had stolen guns from him.
Because the trial is occurring just after a jury acquitted Zimmerman in the shooting death of 17-year-old Martin in Sanford, Fla., the judge in the case actually polled the prospective jurors to make sure they could separate the cases.
“You understand the facts aren’t the same,” Judge Jeffrey Wagner asked those in the jury pool. “It’s a whole different case.”The prospective jurors nodded their understanding.
Spooner is charged with first-degree intentional homicide in the May 2012 death of Darius Simmons, who was his next-door neighbor. He suspected Simmons of breaking into his Milwaukee home and stealing guns, according to prosecutors, so he confronted the teen on the sidewalk two days after the weapons came up missing and demanded that he return them. Simmons denied stealing anything from him, so Spooner shot him in the chest from five feet away—right in front of the teen’s mother.
But Spooner didn’t stop there—he fired a second shot as Simmons tried to run away, according to the criminal complaint. At the scene police recovered a weapon and two spent bullet casings. The autopsy revealed that Simmons suffered a gunshot wound to his torso and the bullet exited his back.
While Spooner’s defense attorney, Franklyn Gimbel, conceded that Spooner shot Simmons, the lawyer claimed that he didn’t intend to kill the boy. Gimbel said an expert would testify that Spooner had a mental illness at the time of shooting that prevented him from knowing right from wrong.
Spooner had breakfast with Milwaukee Alderman Bob Donovan on the morning of the shooting and told him he had lost $3,000 worth of shotguns in a burglary that week and was frustrated with police. In addition, he told Donovan he was dying of lung cancer, according to the alderman.
Gimbel said he was concerned that people would link Spooner’s case to Zimmerman. “I am concerned to the extent that the jury blends in the details of what that outcome might have been,” Gimbel said. “Otherwise it should have no bearing.” Of the overall pool of prospective jurors, there were only four black people and three of them were removed by the defense. Prosecutor Mark Williams told the judge he wasn’t pleased about having just one black remaining.
Though Wisconsin does not have a ‘stand your ground’ law, it does have a castle doctrine, which creates a presumption of legal immunity for someone who kills or injures a person breaking into his or her home, vehicle or workplace. It would require a judge to presume that the use of deadly force was necessary.But the castle doctrine isn’t relevant to the Spooner case because it happened outside of Spooner’s house.
After the shooting, Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition called for federal hate crimes charges against Spooner. Jackson’s group also was upset about the way police treated Simmons’ family during the shooting investigation, as they forced the teen’s grieving mother, Patricia Larry, to sit in a squad car for more than an hour rather than let her hold her dying son or join him at the hospital.
The police also searched the mother’s home for the allegedly stolen firearms, which were not found, and they arrested another one of her sons on a year-old truancy violation.
But Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn said investigators only get one chance to collect evidence and interview witnesses at the scene, which means they must keep witnesses apart to prevent them from talking, even family members who are mourning and want to be together. Simmons’ mother was a primary witness, Flynn said. “I wish it had been the mailman,” the chief said. “But it wasn’t. It was the mom.” The mother has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Spooner.
