Trial Review: Defendant Acquitted of All Counts in Murder Case

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After more than four years of pretrial detention, several weeks of trial proceedings and two days of jury deliberations, a jury found 33-year-old Dewayne Shorter not guilty on all counts in the shooting of Daniel Parker on July 26, 2017.

Shorter was charged with first-degree murder while armed, five counts of possessing a firearm during a crime of violence, four counts of assault with intent to kill while armed and unlawful possession of a firearm with a prior conviction.

All charges against him, in this case, were dismissed on Dec. 9.

The prosecutors argued that Shorter killed 38-year-old Parker in an act of retaliation after Parker allegedly shot Shorter a few months prior to the homicide.

After Parker was killed, the doctor who performed his autopsy could not count the exact number of entry and exit wounds he sustained since he had been shot so many times.

Parker’s fatal shooting took place on the 2000 block of Fairlawn Avenue, SE. During the trial, Parker’s brother said he saw Shorter at the scene of the crime and allegedly told the brother “you got bodies, I got bodies.” Parker’s brother said “having bodies” means to kill someone, but denied having ever killed someone himself.

Defense attorney Jon Norris told the jury during his closing arguments that prosecutors had built their case around Parker’s brother’s testimony and the alleged statement about “having bodies.”

“What you just heard is a case based on falsehood,” he said.

The prosecution was unable to use DNA evidence to point to Shorter as the shooter. During their closing arguments, they told the jury that not every case needs to have DNA evidence. Instead, their arguments focused on the strength of the witness testimony. One of the witnesses was allegedly told by Parker that if anything happens to him, Shorter was to blame.

A total of 24 witnesses testified during the trial. Norris called an eyewitness – a neighbor who had seen someone leaving the area of the shooting. He said he saw an individual with a light complexion holding a long firearm. He went on to testify that he knew Shorter and would have known if the person he saw was him.

A member of Parker’s family testified about a conversation between two people at the crime scene, which could be seen in Body Worn Camera footage.

Parker’s family member testified, saying that she had spoken to one of the individuals who was seen conversing at the scene of the crime and they said to her that the other person had requested that she give the police an inaccurate description of the suspect, D.C. Witness previously reported. The victim’s family member also said during the trial that she had spoken to both individuals days after the shooting. Both had told her that Shorter was the shooter, but Norris questioned the legitimacy of these claims since she said she was only relaying what she heard from other people.

“Mr. Shorter is innocent,” Norris told the jury. Shorter was found not guilty of all counts.

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