After two other sets of jurors struggled over the issue, a third panel has acquitted Trenton Thornton of murdering Patrick Edwards, 35, during a Feb. 4, 2020, road rage incident. This was his third trial after the first two ended in hung juries.
“Of course he was very emotional and of course, so was his family after being put through three trials,” defense lawyer Chase Dearman said, according to Mobile, Alabama, Fox affiliate WALA. “You can only imagine the emotion it was.”
Jurors in the first trial did convict him of shooting into an occupied vehicle and leaving the scene of an accident, but they and the jury in the ensuing retrial did not reach a consensus as to whether Thornton committed murder by shooting and killing Edwards after what was reportedly described as a “minor traffic collision” on Feb. 4, 2020.
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Edwards allegedly followed Thornton after the crash. The defense described the shooting scene as a dead-end street at night and said that Edwards had threatened Thornton. He allegedly said, “Make one more move, and I’ll kill you.”
“It was late at night and he ended up on a dead-end road and tried to blend himself in with other cars and turn his lights off,” one of Thornton’s defense lawyers, Dennis Knizley, said, according to WALA. “Then the people in the other car got out and approached his car. Thornton thought the man was about to hurt him or kill him and given all the circumstances of a high-crime area, he felt he had no choice except to defend himself and that’s what he did.”
The outlet said they did not get to speak to Edwards’ family after the acquittal, but did talk to his brother, Azelle Edwards, during deliberations.
“I wanted to say that we were trying to receive justice for my brother for the last four and a half years,” he said. “My family has been going through a really bad time with this.”
Thornton, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the charges in his first trial, reportedly got out of prison after serving two years.
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