Appeals Court Reverses Murder Conviction Of Cop Who Killed Suicidal Man 11 Seconds After Entering His House

Legal Issues

from the protect-and-serve? dept

Huntsville, Alabama police officer William Darby was the only officer on the scene who felt a suicidal man needed to be murdered. And he was the last to arrive, uninvited, to a scene apparently under control, handled by two other officers who were doing an admirable job de-escalating the situation.

Darby made his decision to kill in eleven seconds. He immediately escalated upon arrival, shouting his first instructions at Officer Genisha Pegues to point her weapon at the suicidal man. The man, Jeffrey Parker, never threatened or moved towards the officers. Instead, he sat in a chair pointing a black-painted flare gun at his own head. For the crime of threatening his own life, Darby took Parker’s life. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to prison.

That conviction has been reversed. Former officer Darby will get a new trial.

The appeals court ruled that Madison County Circuit Judge Donna Pate should have instructed the jury to decide the case from the perspective of a reasonable police officer.

“The opinion confirms our position that police officers are under a different standard when it comes to a self-defense situation,” said Robert Tuten, one of Darby’s defense attorneys. “It’s different than the average person because police are expected to go into dangerous situations as part of their job.”

The 62-page reversal [PDF] recounts most of the case’s facts before coming down on the side of the officer. The court’s failure to explicitly instruct the jury to put themselves in the shoes of a “reasonable officer” is apparently a reversible error.

But this doesn’t mean Darby will end up without a conviction by the time the second trial concludes. There was plenty of testimony from “reasonable” officers. Those testifying on Darby’s behalf claimed a person’s refusal to drop a gun justifies deadly force, even if the weapon never moves, is never aimed at officers, and other officers who had been at the scene far longer never felt compelled to shoot the suicidal man.

So, it will come down to which officers can be considered to have the most “reasonable” perception of the situation that ended with Darby’s unprovoked shots. This is what the officers already on the scene reasonably perceived before being interrupted by a far more unreasonable officer.

Officer Pegues testified that she “could feel the tension just rising” (R. 612) when Darby entered the residence, so she began to plead with Parker to put his weapon down. However, despite the officers’ commands and pleas, it was undisputed that Parker “[n]ever move[d] [the weapon] from his head” (R. 614), and, seconds after entering the residence, Darby shot and killed Parker while Parker was still seated on the couch. When asked if she had felt threatened by Parker, Officer Pegues testified that Parker “did not threaten [her]” (R. 613) or behave “in a threatening manner” (R. 614), that he did not “do anything to make [her] believe he wanted to do anything other than commit suicide” (id.), and that she “didn’t think [he] was an imminent threat … to … anyone … but himself.” (R. 628.)

It’s extremely unusual to have a cop testify against another cop. But Darby’s actions that day ensured this happened twice.

Officer Beckles’s testimony was consistent with Officer Pegues’s testimony. According to Officer Beckles, although Parker refused to put his weapon down, he did not “show any hostility” or “aggression” toward the officers (R. 661), “didn’t make any overt action to” indicate that he “was about to point [his weapon] at [the officers]” (R. 658), and appeared to have the intent to harm only himself. (R. 661-62.) In fact, Officer
Beckles testified that he “definitely thought … things were going in a direction [they] needed … to go” before Darby arrived. (R. 659.) Officer Beckles did testify that, if Parker had continued to refuse to put his weapon down, at some point the officers “were probably going to have to end up … terminating that threat.” (R. 660.) However, Officer Beckles testified that “at [no] time during this event did [he] feel the need to take deadly force action.”

The problem here was Darby, the previously-convicted murderer. His appearance on the scene created tension that hadn’t previously existed. His first shouted directions were aimed at another officer, rather than the supposed “threat” he felt he needed to “terminate” moments after arriving.

There were two professionals on the scene. And then there was Officer Darby. This is from his own tesitimony:

Well, I see this so I give her a verbal command, ‘Point your gun at him,’ and I said it loudly. I said it to be heard. And you have to raise your voice to cut through the intensity of that situation. I yelled loud enough to where she could hear me through the intensity of this situation and the radio going on and who knows what was going through her mind: ‘Point your gun at him. He can shoot you.’ And she listened to me for a second, because she knew and she raised her gun. But it was – it was for less than a whole second. And I couldn’t believe it. I saw her raise her gun and then she put it down and she’s in the house and she puts her hand up in front of her and she says, ‘No, he’s right here in front of me.’ So right now my fear is through the roof.

The officers felt safe enough to lower their weapons. But then Darby arrived, bringing with him intensity and fear no other officer felt. Then he killed someone because he alone felt that was the “reasonable” option.

We’ll have to see what the second jury does with this information, but it appears Darby was the unreasonable person here. He was the last to arrive and the first to act. And the first thing he did was try to project his fear on the officers who were de-escalating a situation where only one person was threatened with physical harm: the suicidal man holding a gun (and not even a real one) to his own head.

This is not to say the court isn’t right to declare this a reversible error. But let’s hope this doesn’t result in the jury deciding the only officer being “reasonable” is the one who decided the only acceptable conclusion was killing someone rather than trying to save them.

Filed Under: alabama, huntsville, jeffrey parker, jury instructions, murder, police killing, suicidal, william darby