Deshaun Scott left his wife's dead body on the side of a Little Rock street after she was fatally shot, but that doesn't mean he murdered her, his lawyer told a Pulaski County jury Wednesday.
A close examination of all the evidence, including a blood-spattered car door, will prove that the November 2012 slaying of Lacrisa Renee Foot, 33, was not deliberate, defense attorney Bill James said.
"If pushing his wife out of the car and then leaving her there equates to purposeful [conduct], then we're done," James said in opening statements in Scott's first-degree murder trial before Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen. "The truth in this case is that this was an accident."
James warned the nine women and three men of the jury not to rush to convict the 34-year-old defendant of murder.
Scott's actions the night of the killing, among them lying to her family, friends and police about her death, were "reprehensible," but they do not add up to the deliberate killing of his wife, James said.
Scott was holding the gun when Foot was shot, James said, because he'd been trying to keep the weapon away from her, out of concern she might use it on him, as they argued inside the borrowed Cadillac Catera that Scott was driving.
Foot hit Scott's hand, causing the weapon to fire, James told jurors. In a panic and not thinking clearly, Scott pushed her out of the car and left, the attorney said.
The quarrelling couple had been thrown out from a nightclub about an hour before the body of the mother of five was found at the intersection of Katherine and 39th streets by a passing motorist.
Acknowledging that Scott, who was on parole at the time of the killing, has a criminal record, James said jurors should also consider the couple's combative, but loving relationship, the defendant's "reckless lifestyle" and his subsequent cooperation with police, and at least reduce the charge from murder, although he did not suggest what the lesser charge should be.
"This is not something he thought about and did. It's about something that happened," the attorney said. "He's guilty of something, but he's not guilty of this [charge.]"
James told jurors that Scott will testify, although his opportunity to take the witness stand is not expected to come before this afternoon. Proceedings resume at 9 a.m., with jurors reviewing security video that shows the couple at Elevations nightclub, and prosecutors will call at least four more witnesses before resting their case.
Deputy prosecutor Emily Abbott showed jurors in her opening statement a photograph of Foot as police found her, face down in a puddle of blood almost as big as she was. Foot had been shot through the left ear, with the bullet piercing her brain, and she also suffered a fracture on the back of her head, Abbott said.
Forensic examiners found no evidence that she'd been shot at close range, estimating that the gun must have been at least 2 feet from her head when she was shot, the prosecutor said.
When detectives learned that Foot had been last seen with Scott, police were first concerned that he might be injured or dead, and tracking him down resulted in their first lead -- the Cadillac with Foot's blood peppering the passenger side was parked at his mother's home, the prosecutor said.
Abbott asked jurors to consider how Scott acted after the slaying. When he arrived at Foot's mother's house -- five hours after Foot's body was found -- he "falls out," crying and calling out his wife's name and calling her cellphone 16 times, she said.
Questioned by police, Scott first told detectives the couple had gone to the club, but after getting tossed out for a drink-throwing altercation, they left separately because police had split them up as they further quarrelled outside, the prosecutor said.
Abbott played that recording for jurors on Wednesday.
"What you will hear is a man extremely calm, he even laughs," Abbott said. "But what you'll never hear him say is, I was with her" when she died.
About 15 minutes after that interview, police confronted him with photographs of the bloody car. Scott then becomes emotional, telling detectives in a second recorded interview that the shooting was accidental and caused by Foot hitting his hand as he tried to move the pistol out of her reach, Abbott said.
In that recording, also played in court Wednesday, Scott told the detectives he had pushed Foot's body out of the car because he was scared and panicked.
Pointing out that Scott only changed his story when challenged by police, Abbott called on jurors to consider that Scott had another motive to lie about the killing.
"The truth is there even when we don't want to face it. The truth is there even when we know we're caught," Abbott said. "The truth is there even when we try to convince other people we're lying because we're afraid, not because we've been caught."
Metro on 07/17/2014