We have an opening on behalf of the defense.
All right, Please proceed. Have
to know, ladies and gentlemen,
let me just say this because I have to
sort of focus when things become weird.
Everything about the case is we.
The evidence is weird.
The indictment is weird.
The prosecutor telling you that
he intends to impeach Dr. Terry,
who wrote Manner of death Undetermined.
The medical examiner's already
submitted a report within 24 hos
of the death saying I can't tell
if it's a suicide or a homicide.
So the prosecutor getting up here saying,
well, she can't tell,
but she really can tell.
That's weird to me.
My client's response and reactin
to the suicide there in Yellow
River Park is totally weird.
The whole case is just weird.
Everything about the case is weird to me.
So I'm going to have to really e
a lot of energy to focus because
I really don't do weird being
a lawyer and following facts.
Weird and I really don't go together.
So we have to go to the indictm.
My client is plead not guilty to each
and every count in the indictme.
Count. One is felony murder.
My my client is charged with
felony murder for an aggravated
assault saying he shot, he shot.
That's what it says in count on.
We moved to count 2 which is the
aggravated assault which is the felony
underlying the felony murder and
it reads by pointing said firea.
It doesn't matter how long you
point a firearm.
You can't cause any
felony murder by pointing.
But then the prosecutor just
explained it to me.
Count one is felony murder shoo.
But if you don't like that
he shot when Tory laid down,
my client may have helped Tory point the
gun at herself when she pulled the trigger.
What? So count 2 words.
Matter. Words matter.
So Count 2 reads that he committed an
aggravated assault by pointing a firearm,
so she shot herself, but he held
steer the gun after she laid do.
I don't think Doctor
Terry's going to say that,
but let's assume for a moment Doctor Terry
said that she laid down and shot herself.
Then Count 3 is not guilty because it reads
causes the death as a result of a sudden,
violent or irresistible passion
resulting from serious provocat.
Tory laid down and he helped
point the gun at her.
So there's no,
there's no voluntary manslaught.
That's when you come home and your wife
is in bed and your husband's in bed with
somebody else and you said I'llx
you and you pull a gun and start firing.
He just told you she laid down d
my client either shot her or hed
steer the gun to to shoot her.
So she can't.
The provocation.
So what's the provocation there?
There will be absolutely no
evidence that these two very god
friends at any point in time,
ever had any argument that would amount
to any of the language in Count.
The whole thing is weird.
There's no text messages,
there's no voicemail.
There's no anything that would indicate
that my client was angry at her.
She was angry at him.
They were friends when?
When?
When you see her walk up on then
camera to his door before she shoots herself,
when they walk out,
when he walks back.
There's no indication that theyt
any time were mad or had a figh.
There's nobody that heard in
the yelling before the gunshot.
You're not going to hear anything about that.
That's just pie in the sky.
Foolishness to try to explain the weirdness.
You're never going to be able to explain.
Weird.
That's why I picked the law
rather than a different field,
because I can't stand weird.
So we get the counts four and f,
counts four and five or possessn
of a firearm.
The prosecutors already told you there's
no evidence that there's two firearms.
And the prosecutor believes thae
two shell casings that were foud
belong to the same gun and they think
it belongs to Tory's mother's g.
So when my client,
when you see that my client is
charging count six with taking the gun,
he means taking the gun from the scene.
My client was never at Tory's
house stealing any gun.
Tory came to the park with her mother's gun,
so count count 6,
unlawfully taking the gun is
taking the gun that Tory used to
shoot herself away from the sce.
That's what that is.
Tory's.
That's what they that's what they believe.
Gun is Tory's mother's gun.
I don't know that they know tha,
but we all know that there's no gun there.
Two rounds. We think they're the same.
We think it's Tory's mother's
gun that only Tory had access t.
Because my client not charged with burglary,
because he didn't break in anybody's house.
And he didn't sneak in anybody's bedroom and
take any gun when he was at Tory's house.
That never happened.
So the theft is removing
the gun from the scene.
Count 7 is unlawfully left withe
car Six and seven are basicallyt
enhancement of Count 8
tampering with evidence.
And the only reason they know that that
my you can just say guilty Account 8 now.
You can write down guilty accounting.
The only reason they know that s
because my client told him that.
That's the only thing they know in the case.
They know she's dead.
They know she has a gunshot wouo
the head and they know that he was there
because he told the police I was there.
She shot herself and I took the gun and
the and the and the and the car and left.
He didn't.
He doesn't even say he burned up the car.
The car is burnt up some mile and a half
or two miles away as the crow f.
They don't even know when the car was
burned up. The whole thing is w.
Why didn't he,
why didn't he call the police
after she shot herself?
Why didn't he stay there?
Well, he says he was nervous.
He says he was nervous.
Well, do you believe he was ner?
I I'm just like that guy.
I personally don't get nervous.
When I see the police,
I understand other people get nervous.
Soon as the blue lights
come on on the highway,
I know it's for me because I'm a
speeder and I pull right over.
I don't have a problem.
But he explains to the police.
Listen, the optics didn't look .
I'm a black man.
She's black, yes, but she's light skinned.
I'm dark skinned.
The optics just doesn't look go.
It just doesn't look good.
So no, this is what I did.
He explains it to the police.
So the whole thing is weird.
So we have to try to go through
the actual facts.
Opening statement is where we're going to,
where we're supposed to outline
for you the evidence that you
think that we expected you to se
during the course of the trial.
What you're going to see is youe
going to see a ring camera and you're
going to see a ring camera that belongs
to somebody who who may or may not be here.
I won't have a whole bunch of questions
for the people with the ring ca.
Well, Mr.
Lewis, you said it was ring,
but it was really ghost.
Listen, let's stop playing game.
Whatever surveillance.
You see,
I'm a call it ring.
I don't care if it's called ghosts or
vivid or whatever it is let's got let's
not get bogged down in foolishn.
Someone has a surveillance camea
and that camera is going to cath
Tori coming over to my clients
apartment about 10:30 at night.
On July 27th, 2021,
it's going to have my client cog
back to his apartment without
Tory somewhere around 12:30 in
the morning on July 28th, 2021.
So although the indictment says July 27th,
2021,
you're never going to hear
me stand up here and say,
hey,
it says July 27th,
but but they can't prove
that she that's foolishness.
Somebody's dead and we need to get at it.
July 27th, 2021 July into the morning
of July 28, 2021, Tori was shot.
Her body is located at about 6:M
by a passerby and we know that because
they call 911 and 911 responds n
July 28th at 6:30 in the mornin,
the Emmy doesn't autopsy.
There's one bullet in Tori.
Two rounds.
I don't know where the second bullet is.
I don't know if there wasn't sed
bullet fire there or if there ws
just an extra casing. I don't k.
I don't have the answer to that.
That's weird.
But that's not super weird.
2 rounds she struck one time ane
medical examiner, Doctor Terry o
will tell you she's done like 6000 autopsies.
She's not brand new.
Nobody here is new.
Nobody. Nobody here.
OK, maybe filing Stimson is new.
Prosecutor doesn't look new.
All his hair is going.
All my hair is going to doctor.
Terry's going to tell you she's got 6000.
Autopsies. Nobody's new.
And she's going to tell
you based on her expertise.
She cannot tell if it's
a suicide or a homicide.
She doesn't know Austin Ford,
but she's going to tell you.
Science cannot tell me if it
was a suicide or homicide.
She's not going to tell you.
Science tells me it's 10%
suicide and 90% homicide.
Please do not wait for that,
Doctor.
Doctor Terry is a person after my own heart.
She doesn't suffer fools lightl.
And if you say something foolish
like undetermined means,
you're going to hear it from Doctor Terry.
She does not suffer fools light.
With 6000 autopsy,
she's going to tell you she cant
determine if it's a homicide or suicide.
That's the end of that.
With Doctor Terry,
the vehicle is found about four
days after the body is found burnt up.
We don't know who burnt it up.
We don't know even know when it was burnt up.
When the when the vehicle is fo,
it's not burning.
So we know it doesn't get burned within
two hours of the discovery becaI
don't think it's warm to the to.
I think it's sort of just burntd
burnt out and they they find the
shell of a of a vehicle and we n
look at as many photos as you w.
Any indictment is my client
charge of burning up a vehicle?
No,
because they don't know that
he burned up a vehicle.
The whole,
the whole theft of a vehicle
and theft of firearm,
that's just all a big distracti.
He moved the vehicle and
he moved the firearm.
I don't know what the conversatn
was between him and his best fr.
Pretend that it's not a suicide.
I don't want my family to know
it's a suicide.
I don't know what the conversation was.
He doesn't get that far into the
conversation with the detectives
when they speak to him.
And the detectives speak to my client
on March 29th, 2022, eight months later.
They have an actual Facetoface conversation.
Do I think my client is dodging the law
enforcement in between the time of the
shooting and the time that they speak to him?
Absolutely. I absolutely preten.
I absolutely believe he's dodging the the,
the, the police.
Dodging law enforcement the same
way people who know they doing
95 in a 55 say why'd you pull?
You know why I pulled you over?
I don't know why you pulled me .
Really do Really.
You don't know why we pulled you over?
I don't know why you pulled me over, officer.
He's dodging the police.
They finally catch up to him at
the Clayton County jail because
he's there on some unrelated gun
offense and they sit down and ty
talk to him and he says listen,
I was there at Yellow River.
And my friend killed herself anI
removed the gun and I removed the car.
And that's how they know that he
removed the gun and he removed
the car because he told them two
weeks after the conversation.
Which is 8 months after the actual body
is discovered and autopsy is do.
Two weeks after they speak to Austin Ford,
the lead investigator takes a
warrant for felony murder.
They don't have any more information after
they speak to Austin Ford than they had
after Doctor Terry presented her report.
No, no, nothing.
Nothing to distinguish suicide from homicide.
Nothing. And so as you sit here and you
listen to this evidence over the next three,
3 1/2 days, maybe to you by Fri,
it may not be to you as a jury
for you to deliberate till Mond.
As you sit here and you listen
to this evidence,
the evidence needs to answer 3 questions.
Question number one, what happe?
I'm not really even used to tha.
Look, normally when I come to court and
my client is charged with somet,
I know what happened.
They say it's a burglary and
something got burglarized.
Somebody got shot.
Somebody says they got raped.
I understand what happened.
I don't even know what happened here.
I don't even know what happened.
The prosecutor giving you 3 theories.
He could have shot her, could have shot her.
He could have helped her steer the gun,
Shot her. He could have, he could have.
He could have just watched her shoot herself.
That was all the idea.
It done nothing.
Well, which is it?
Now I'm going to let you decide.
So first thing you have to decie
on the evidence that you see.
First thing you have to
decide is what happened.
Was it a suicide or homicide?
Did Tori kill herself?
Or did Austin Ford kill her?
Because you don't have you're not pointed in
any other directions with any other suspect.
First question that the
evidence needs to answer.
Is what happened.
Then the second question is who was present?
Who was present?
If Austin Ford doesn't tell you he's present,
there's no evidence that he's ultimately
present and you're going to hear
from him through his his record.
I don't know if he's going to testify or not.
He has a right to testify.
He has a right not to testify.
The judge is going to tell you ,
but it's clear the gun was remod
from the park and her vehicle.
Was removed from the park and the evidence
shows that she was shot at the .
I don't know that the evidence s
going to show if she was standig
up on her knees laying down,
head turn.
I'm not willing to go that far.
Maybe you think the evidence is going
to show that or maybe the prosecutors
live with the evidence long enoh
that he can make that inference.
I I'm I'm just comfortable sayig
she was shot at the park versust
someplace else and brought to the park.
But you're going to have to determine
who was present in the park whee
gun and or the vehicle was remo.
The evidence is going to have
to ultimately tell you that
information and then I can tell.
The evidence is going to be
clear that Austin Ford is lying.
Why is Austin Ford lying?
I've been doing enough jury tris
that I trust that juries aren't
going to be finding people guily
of felony murder because they
they lie in to the police.
I don't know why he told
the police what he did.
I don't know why he told
the police he was there.
I don't know why he told the poe
beforehand that he wasn't there.
I don't know. I don't know.
But you will get to,
you will get to review all of his statements.
He's dodging the police.
So the first three calls on the phone,
you can just put down Dodger.
He's dodging the police.
When they catch up with him,
he's already in custody.
They read him his rights and he
gives a voluntary statement.
He voluntarily gives a statemend
he explains ultimately what happened.
He doesn't have Doctor Terry's
report at that time.
Austin Ford doesn't have Doctor
Terry's report saying that
it is potentially a suicide.
He doesn't say,
oh,
we went to the park and there
was a third figure that came up
and shot me and shot her and sad
that they were going to shoot
me or shot her and then shot at
me. That explains the second ro.
No, he's not doing that.
He's not doing that, Doctor Terry says
It's undetermined suicide, Homi.
He then tells the detective
eight months after that autopsy,
which he's never seen.
It was a suicide.
How in the world did he get that right?
So he explains that ultimately to the police.
Why'd you take the gun
and throw it in the water?
Why'd you move the car any place else?
That's all weird.
That's just weird. And.
And I think that's what
the prosecutor's hoping.
He's hoping that you will convict Austin
Ford on the weirdness of this whole case.
Everything is weird,
so I'm going to use half of
my energy not to be weird,
as the case is weird.
I'm going to try to stay focusen
the evidence so that it comes to you,
so that you can use your cognitive abilities
in evaluating the evidence and not fall
into the abyss of This is just weird.
It's all, it's all weird.
At the end you're going to see there's no
way you can find him guilty of everything,
because in order to find
him guilty of everything,
you got to find him guilty
of multiple theories.
You got to find find that he
shot and he helped Tory by by
by helping her by pointing,
which is the felony murder.
And he had to be mad when she
laid down for some reason.
So that's impossible.
You it's impossible for you to d
them guilty of all the charges.
And what you're going to see thh
the weirdness of the case is that the
state hasn't proven anything to,
which is why the only verdict in the case
is going to be not guilty in all the charges.
Thank you very much,
Judge.
Right.
Thank you.
Lawrence Lewis for the defense.