Second Court of Appeals affirms Aaron Dean manslaughter conviction in Fort Worth killing
The Second Court of Appeals on Thursday affirmed the manslaughter conviction of Aaron Dean, who in 2019 when he was a police officer fatally shot a woman as she held a handgun inside the Fort Worth house where she was living, overruling four trial errors that were alleged by the defense attorneys who represent Dean.
Whether public assessments of the circumstances of Atatiana Jefferson’s killing offered by influential people in Tarrant County impacted the juror pool was the central element in dispute in the appeal.
The year that elapsed between when many of the statements, which were reported in news organization accounts, were made and when the defense filed a motion to change the trial’s venue muted the statements’ ability to impact the pool, the state argued.
Beyond whether a new venue was merited because the statements created a dangerous combination or because affidavits that the state filed on the matter were were insufficient, the defense argued that the trial court erroneously instructed the jury on the phrase “reasonable belief” in a self-defense justification advisory and erred in instructing it on manslaughter, a lesser-included offense. A grand jury indicted Dean on murder.
“Because the trial court did not err or abuse its discretion by not granting Dean’s request to change venue and because it did not err in instructing the jury, we will affirm Dean’s conviction in this case, with all its levels of tragedy,” Justice Elizabeth Kerr wrote in the opinion.
Kerr, Justice Dabney Bassel and Justice Brian Walker considered the case. Tarrant County Assistant District Attorney Victoria Ford Oblon handled the appeal for the state. Defense attorney Bob Gill represented Dean.
The observations and assessments of influential people cast the case as a racial matter, Gill argued. Jefferson was Black; Dean is white.
Eighty-two of the 191 people who reported for jury selection had never heard about Dean’s case prior to his trial. Sixty-five of the 109 people who had previously heard about the case said the publicity they viewed did not influence them to the point that they could not deliver a fair verdict, leaving 44 people who were excused after questions on pre-trial press reports.
Of those seated on the jury, five had indicated that they previously heard about the case.
Judge George Gallagher, who presides in the 396th District Court in Tarrant County, had the discretion to believe the prospective jurors offered truthful responses, the state argued. In response to a question from Justice Walker during oral argument on the matter, Gill suggested that trial judges should evaluate such responses with skepticism.
Gallagher erred by not changing venue for the trial because there was sufficient evidence to support the existence of a dangerous combination of influential people, Gill argued.
The venue change was sought in a defense motion Gallagher denied on Dec. 5, 2022.
Fort Worth Police Chief Ed Kraus, Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney Sharen Wilson, Mayor Betsy Price and others dangerously combined against Dean beginning immediately after the killing in offering an opinion that Dean was guilty of murder and that there was no justification for the shooting, according to the defense appellate brief. Kraus, Wilson and Price have since retired.
Price assessed publicly the fact a handgun was found next to Jefferson was “irrelevant.” Price also said that the shooting was unjustified. The statements were untrue and may have misled people who later became jurors in the trial, Gill wrote.
Kraus, Wilson, Price and others “did not want to take any public stance that cast the decedent in a negative light so they cast [Dean] in a negative light instead,” Gill wrote.
“In sum, although the media coverage in this case was intense and the DA’s Office deviated from its standard practices in officer-involved-shooting cases, the trial court could have reasonably concluded that Dean failed to show a dangerous combination against him that was led by influential persons such that he could not expect a fair trial in Tarrant County,” Justice Kerr wrote.
The jury found Dean guilty of manslaughter, a reckless killing. In December 2022, it assessed Dean’s punishment at 11 years, 10 months and 12 days in prison. Dean will be eligible for parole on Nov. 18, 2028, the date on which he will have served half of the term.
In October 2019 Jefferson’s neighbor described open front doors in a phone call with a police communications employee. Dean and another officer were dispatched to the house to investigate an open structure.
The officers walked into the back yard. Inside the home, Jefferson was playing video games in a bedroom in which her 8-year-old nephew was also present.
Dean, through a window, shot Jefferson, 28. Dean was outside the house in the 1200 block of East Allen Avenue. Jefferson was inside the house.
The direction at which Jefferson pointed the gun at the time that Dean fired is in dispute. Her nephew, Zion Carr, testified at trial that she was holding the gun by her side. In the hours after the shooting, Zion told a civilian forensic interviewer trained to question children who may have knowledge of crimes, that he and Jefferson were in the back bedroom. Jefferson told Zion “that she heard noises coming from outside and she took her handgun from her purse,” the child said in an interview, according to an affidavit supporting Dean’s arrest.
Zion said that, “Jefferson raised her handgun, pointed it toward the window, then Jefferson was shot and fell to the ground,” according to the affidavit.
At trial, prosecutors argued that Dean did not see the gun until he went inside the house after he shot Jefferson. Dean did not identify himself as a police officer and fired his gun within seconds of seeing a silhouette in a window, according to his body-worn camera video recording.
To resolve a lawsuit in U.S. District Court, the city of Fort Worth agreed to a $3.5 million settlement, to be disbursed in periodic payments, for Zion. There has been no final judgment in the case.
This story was originally published February 16, 2024 at 10:40 AM.
