CNN
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A Florida jury began deliberations Friday afternoon on whether a 60-year-old white woman was justified in shooting and killing an unarmed Black mother during a dispute over her children playing near her home.
The panel will decide whether Susan Lorincz is guilty of manslaughter or whether her shooting, which killed 35-year-old Azike “AJ” Owens as he was knocking on Lorincz’s door last June, was justified under the state’s controversial self-defense law.
Lorincz has pleaded not guilty to a charge of negligent homicide with a firearm and could face up to 30 years in prison if convicted, according to State’s Attorney Bill Gladson’s office.
Prosecutor Rich Baxman told jurors in his closing argument that Lorincz admitted to pulling the trigger and killing Owens.
“This was not an accidental situation. This was not a situation where she slipped and the gun accidentally went off, hitting the door and striking Ms. Owens,” Baxman said. “This is not the case. She fired the gun intentionally. There is no question that the defendant knowingly committed acts that caused the death of Ajike Owens.”
Baxman said Lorincz acted with “total disregard for the lives of others.”
“She pointed a loaded gun at someone she knew was on the other side of the door and knowingly pulled the trigger, demonstrating a reckless disregard for human life,” she told jurors.
In closing arguments, defense attorney Amanda Sizemore told jurors the case was about perception.
“Our Constitution provides for the right to self-defense,” Sizemore said after the prosecution’s closing arguments. “The law demands that we step back from the perspective of the moment, not from the comfort of the courtroom, to evaluate the reasonableness of that perception.”
Sizemore said Florida law gives citizens the right to defend themselves if they face imminent danger. “She has no duty to retreat and can stand her ground while in her own home if she faces imminent danger,” she said of Lorincz.
Sizemore explained that Ms Lorincz was an elderly woman with health problems who lived alone in a troubled neighborhood and who one night was “startled by a barrage of screaming, yelling and banging on the door”.
“In that situation, Susan Lorincz rightly believed prevention was necessary — prevention is a very important word. The law does not say you can’t wait until you’ve been hit or attacked before you act. You can use deadly force to prevent someone from coming into your home and hurting or attacking you,” Sizemore said.
“So how do you determine whether someone is justified in using deadly force?” the lawyer asked.
“You have to take into account all the circumstances surrounding the use of force: the fact that she was at home, that she was alone, that it was at night; that she knew Ajike Owens and had previous interactions with him; the noise level, the banging on the door, the verbal abuse.”
The defense has argued that Lorincz “had no choice” but to fire, but Judge Baxman disputed that logic Friday morning, saying the threat to her life “had to be imminent” for the defendant to lawfully use deadly force.
“It must have been prepared to happen. It must have been so close to her that she had to act in that moment to protect her life,” the prosecutor said in closing argument.
“If Ms. Owens had somehow managed to break through this locked, deadbolted metal door, entered the home and lunged at her, the defendant may have had the right to fire … but that was not the case here.”
Lorincz said in court Thursday that after consulting with his lawyers, he decided not to testify. The defense wrapped up its testimony after calling expert witnesses in ballistics and police training to testify about where Lorincz was when he fired the shot and what his state of mind was at the time.
The previous day, jurors heard testimony from Marion County Sheriff’s Detective Ryan Stith, the lead investigator in the case. Prosecutors asked Stith to read letters that Lorincz allegedly wrote to Owens’ four children after he told them he would be charged in Owens’ death.
“I am truly sorry,” Judge Stith read to the court. “I never intended to kill your mother. I was afraid your mother would kill me. I was so scared that I fired my gun.”
Outside the courthouse, Owens’ mother, Pamala Diaz, told reporters she struggled to stay calm throughout the trial.
“‘Difficult’ is an understatement,” Diaz said. “Sitting literally feet away from the woman who took my daughter’s life brings up a whole range of emotions, disgust, anguish, pain. I have to dig deep into my strength and faith to keep it all in.”
In an opening video of questioning shown to jurors on Wednesday, Lorincz told detectives she had previous arguments with Owens over her children playing loudly and leaving toys outside the house, but she told police the situation escalated on June 2, 2023, after she confronted the children about noise and he threw his roller skates.
Lorincz told detectives that she had called police that evening to say some neighborhood kids had threatened to kill her, and that a dispatcher told her to lock her doors and that officers were on the way.
But before police arrived, Owens began “banging on my door” and said, “I’m going to kill you,” Lorincz told detectives.
“She banged on the door so hard I thought it was going to fly off,” Lorincz said in the video. “I panicked and I was like, ‘Oh my God, they’re really going to kill me this time,’ you know? So I don’t even remember picking up the gun, I just remember shooting.”
