In the trial over murdered U.S. Marine Cpl. Jonathan Price, the defense got a white state witness to confirm he wrote a racist Facebook post. Defendants Quincinio Canada, 26, and his uncle Dawan Mulazim, 34, are African-Americans.
Prosecutors said the duo robbed the victim and his wife Megan Price outside a Lexington, Kentucky saloon on June 21, 2014. Cpl. Price fought back and was killed. Mrs. Price was shot and injured. Authorities claim the murder weapon was actually stolen six days before during a robbery at a Quality Inn. One of the victims in that crime, Mitchell Smith, took the stand Wednesday afternoon. That day, he had been in town to sell weapons at a gun show.
The defense pressed him on a Facebook post he made after the day after the robbery.
“This Was Me And and [sic] bro If They All Didn’t Look Alike They Would Be Dead,” he wrote in a post from June 16, 2014. Under cross-examination, he confirmed that by “they,” he meant black people.
“That was written out of anger,” he said on the stand.
Smith later picked out two alleged perpetrators out of a lineup that ended up linking Canada and Mulazim to the Quality Inn robbery.
Jessica Hansford, who was also there at the Quality Inn robbery, said she could not 100 percent identify anyone from a photo lineup. Her husband Shane, who owned the .45 handgun that took Price’s life, said he identified Mulazim from the shooting.
A defense lawyer said in opening statements that this is a matter of mistaken identity. DNA evidence would exonerate them. Canada and Mulazim face the death penalty if convicted of charges of murder, first-degree robbery, and first-degree assault.
[Screengrab via Law&Crime]
