Able to mull justifications in Cowboys tailgate death, retrial jury settles on manslaughter
Jammed trash cans dotted the edge of an AT&T Stadium parking lot in Arlington as the daylong drunken jubilation of a tailgate faded and a Dallas Cowboys game ended.
Grills, televisions and tents were being packed away in the dark. In one telling, warm beer splattered onto a man from a container flung by another and spurred an argument that erupted into coils of combatants who piled on the ground.
As Cowboys fans confronted a loss to the New England Patriots in October 2015, the brawl grew at the end of the parking lot, in grass near a retaining wall.
Men, some without shirts, swung. Girlfriends and wives tried to break up the burgeoning melee.
The scrum moved toward Richard Sells, a 43-year-old retail loss prevention employee, who also had been tailgating. He was shot once in the neck. The projectile, with a hollow nose, expanded as it broke his ribs and settled in his back.
The round tracked within his body front to back, up to down and left to right. Sells died at a hospital.
The shooter, Marvin Rodriguez, offered two central arguments. He unintentionally squeezed his pistol’s trigger when Sells reared or jerked back as Rodriguez lifted Sells off of Candido Rodriguez, the shooter’s brother, and the killing was justified by self-defense and his defense of Candido Rodriguez.
A jury in August 2017 convicted Marvin Rodriguez of murder, the offense on which he was indicted, and assessed his punishment at 20 years in prison. The Second Court of Appeals affirmed his conviction. On petition for discretionary review, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals held that the trial court had erred by denying Rodriguez’s request for jury instructions on the justification defenses of self-defense and defense of a third person.
The Second Court of Appeals reversed Rodriguez’s conviction and remanded his case to the trial court for a new trial.
Nine years after the killing, a retrial was held in the 396th District Court in Tarrant County. Its jury appears to have been persuaded by the defense argument that the killing perhaps was reckless, not intentional or knowing, as the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office argued.
The jury on Friday found Marvin Rodriguez guilty of manslaughter and on Monday assessed his punishment at 10 years of probation under which a $10,000 fine to be paid to the state is a condition.
The jury rejected the defense justification arguments.
The lesser included offense of manslaughter was also among instructions to the first jury.
“An innocent man was slain in front of his pregnant [fiancee],” Assistant Criminal District Attorney Matt Rivers told the jury in his closing argument. Rivers is prosecuting the case with Assistant Criminal District Attorney Peter Gieseking.
“Did you intend to kill Richard Sells?” defense attorney Pam Fernandez asked in the first question of her client as he testified on Thursday.
“No ma’am,” the defendant testified.
Fernandez represents the defendant with defense attorney Abe Factor.
Before he shot Sells, Marvin Rodriguez testified that he held the handgun to Lester Peters, a tailgater from Lufkin.
Sells’ fiancee, Angelica Secundino, testified that she and Sells were watching the fight from a distance when it moved to the couple.
Sells was trying to help and was trying to pull Candido, whom she described as being Sells’ good friend, away when Rodriguez confronted and shot Sells, she said.
Judge George Gallagher presided at both trials.
This story was originally published August 4, 2024 at 5:54 PM.
