JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) - A Florida man convicted of attempted murder in a confrontation over loud music will have to wait until at least Friday to see if a judge sentences him or waits until after the 47-year-old software developer’s retrial on first-degree murder.
Jurors deadlocked last month on the murder charge against Michael Dunn in the shooting of 17-year-old Jordan Davis outside a Jacksonville convenience store. Prosecutors have vowed to retry him on the count.
Dunn could face a maximum of 60 years in prison for the charges on which he already has been convicted.
Dunn’s attorney on Monday asked that sentencing be postponed until after the second trial. Defense attorney Cory Strolla says he is concerned that statements Dunn makes at a sentencing hearing could be used against him in his second trial.
Strolla also said he is stepping down as Dunn’s attorney and asked Judge Russell Healey to appoint public defenders.
Healey, an interim circuit judge, said he has never come across a case with similar circumstances in 150 trials.
“I’ve never had a hung jury,” Healey said at Monday’s hearing.
A mistrial was declared on the murder charge after jurors deliberated for four days. The 12 jurors found him guilty of three counts of attempted second-degree murder and a count of firing into an occupied car.
Dunn was charged with fatally shooting Davis, of Marietta, Ga., in 2012 after the argument over loud music coming from the SUV occupied by Davis and three friends. The teens were black. Dunn, who is white, had described the music to his fiancee as “thug music.”
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