‘He felt he had no choice’: Driver acquitted in third trial for road shooting in ‘minor traffic collision’ – Law & Crime

Trenton Thornton (WALA).

After two other sets of juries struggled on the issue, a third jury acquitted Trenton Thornton of killing 35-year-old Patrick Edwards during a traffic accident on February 4, 2020. It was his third trial after the first two ended in hung juries.

“Obviously he was very emotional and of course his family was too after going through three trials,” defense attorney Chase Dearman said, according to Mobile, Ala. Fox affiliate WALA. “You can only imagine what an emotion it was.”

Jurors in the first trial convicted him of shooting into an occupied vehicle and leaving the scene, but they and the jury in the subsequent retrial did not reach a consensus on whether Thornton committed murder by shooting and killing Edwards after what was reportedly described as a “minor road collision” on February 4, 2020.

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Edwards allegedly followed Thornton after the crash. The defense described the shooting scene as a dead end night and said Edwards had threatened Thornton. He is said to have said: “Make one more move and I’ll kill you.”

“It was late at night and he ended up in a dead end and tried to merge with the other cars and turn off his lights,” said one of Thornton’s defense attorneys, Dennis Knizley, according to WALA. “Then the people in the other car got out and approached his car. Thornton thought the man was going to hurt or kill him, and given all the circumstances in a high crime area, he felt he had no choice but to defend himself, and that’s exactly what he did.