Jupiter man claims ‘stand your ground’ in alleged hate crime killing

WEST PALM BEACH — Could the beating death of a Guatemalan teen in Jupiter, which prosecutors have classified as a hate crime, actually be a case of self-defense?

This is the new claim from the attorney of one of three Jupiter men charged in the April 18, 2015, slaying of 18-year-old Onesimo Marcelino Lopez-Ramos, who was found dead after prosecutors say he and relatives were attacked by a trio of teens out “Guat hunting.”

David Harris was 19 when Jupiter police arrested him, his 18-year-old brother, Jesse Harris, and their 18-year-old friend, Austin Taggart, on one count each of first-degree murder and aggravated battery committed with evidence of prejudice. The case was set to go to trial next month, but Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Samantha Schosberg Feuer split up the trials and delayed them indefinitely after defense attorney Franklin Prince filed a request asking her to throw out David Harris’ charges under Florida’s “stand your ground” law.

Police described the term “Guat” as “a derogatory slang term describing an individual of Guatemalan descent.”

In his request, filed Sept. 28, Prince described the fatal encounter in the 300 block of Jupiter’s Fourth Street much differently than the way police set forth two years ago. First, Prince said, the only person who was armed at the start of the fight was then 31-year-old Elmer Lopez, Lopez-Ramos’ uncle. Elmer Lopez also is the alleged victim whom the teens’ aggravated battery charge is based on.

Prince said Lopez armed himself with an ax while the three teens initially approached LopezRamos and began speaking to him.

Lopez was the only person who was armed when the fight commenced, and David Harris felt concerned not just for himself but also for his younger brother, Prince’s filing said.

“Defendant was justified in using deadly force and had no duty

to retreat because such force was necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or his brother or to prevent the imminent commission of forcible felony,” Prince wrote, adding that Harris “overheard the alleged victim talking about a firearm thus causing the fear and prevented the defendant from any retreat.”

Prince also claimed the victims in the case, especially Lopez, had been drinking heavily at the time of the encounter, so much so that the men with Lopez-Ramos couldn’t positively identify David Harris as one of the assailants afterward.

In a separate request, Prince asked Feuer to separate David Harris’ case from Taggart’s, saying that the two men had offered conflicting statements about what happened. Feuer ruled all three men will stand trial separately and set a hearing on Prince’s request to throw out the charges for Dec. 18.

The request is the latest local test of a recent change to Florida’s controversial “stand your ground” law. The previous Castle Doctrine law, which allowed people to use deadly force when confronted with imminent threats in their homes or cars, was expanded by “stand your ground” in 2005 to allow people to use force in any place where they feel threatened, and a new provision to the law that Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed in June has given even more power to defendants.

Previously, it was the defense’s job to prove that a person had acted within his or her rights under the law in pretrial “stand your ground” hearings. With the change enacted this year, the burden of proof has shifted to prosecutors, who must prove a defendant is ineligible for protection under the “stand your ground” law in such hearings.

After Lopez-Ramos’ death, police searching for suspects made a public announcement asking anyone with information to call the CrimeStoppers hotline. Taggart called the tip line and later told Jupiter detectives that David Harris came to him about an hour after the attack, with blood on his knuckles and hands, and told him he had been “Guat hunting.”

Taggart initially made it seem like he wasn’t at the scene but admitted he was there after a detective told him she didn’t believe him. He later admitted he accompanied the Harris brothers and others to the yard where Lopez-Ramos, Lopez and others were.

After police arrested David Harris, he also used the “Guat hunting” slur and said he and the others had decided beforehand to target the group LopezRamos was standing in. Harris told investigators he hit one of the other men in the head with a rock, eventually got his hands on the ax and “gripped the ax ‘like a baseball bat’ and hit the decedent in the head with it,” according to his arrest report.