Jury to decide if teen’s killing was hate crime
Accused says he was attacked; prosecutors say he targeted victim.
WEST PALM BEACH — With a single swing of an ax, David Harris said, he was able to buy his younger brother Jesse just enough time to get up and run away from an early April 18, 2015, melee with a group of men in the 300 block of Fourth Street in Jupiter.
The 22-year-old’s testimony in his own defense during the murder trial were the last words jurors heard before closing arguments and an hour of deliberations without a verdict Monday in the death of 18-year-old Guatemalan teen Onesimo Marcelino Lopez-Ramos, who prosecutors claim was the victim of a hate crime sparked by the decision from Harris and his friends to go “Guat hunting.”
Harris spent his time on the witness stand Monday echoing the same self-defense claims his attorney made when he tried unsuccessfully to get the charges thrown out before trial. He repeatedly told Assistant State Attorney Jill Richstone to do her “homework” as the two sparred over his statements to Jupiter Police after Lopez-Ramos’ death.
Defense attorney Franklin Prince told jurors at the start of Harris’ trial a week ago and again with his final words Monday that it was Harris’ friend, Austin Taggart, who killed Lopez-Ramos by hitting him in the head repeatedly with a rock during a fight that included
a piece of rebar, a metal pipe and the ax brought in by one of Lopez-Ramos’ relatives.
Though Harris was able to get his hands on the ax and saw Lopez-Ramos “fall down” after he hit him with it once, he said he didn’t know the teen had died until the next day. Less than a week later, after he was arrested on an unrelated charge, Harris confessed to killing Lopez-Ra- mos. He has since recanted.
“Did you kill Onesimo?” Prince asked Harris Monday.
“To be honest, I thought I did,” Harris said. “And the way the Jupiter Police Department was making it seem like I did, and using the love of my brother against me, I said I did because I didn’t want him to be charged with it.”
“Did you kill Onesimo, David?” Prince asked again.
“No sir, I did not,” Harris replied.
The responses were among his last before the start of a confrontational exchange with Richstone. Harris several times refused the prosecutors’ request to look up parts of his prior statements to police and in a court hearing earlier this year.
“You’re the one who is trying to prosecute me and give me a life sentence, you look it up,” he told her at one point.
Richstone refused to back down, pressing Harris on whether he knew of Taggart’s desire to go “Guat hunting.” The phrase is a derogatory term used to describe the practice of beating and robbing undocumented work- ers from Central and South America with the belief that they are more likely to carry cash and their status makes them less likely to report the crime to police.
Taggart, according to the testimony of other friends who were with him and the Harris brothers that night, had beat up a man believed to be from Mexico earlier that evening as the rest of the group walked by.
Why, Richstone asked Harris, would he continue hang- ing out with Taggart if he had no plans to participate in the same kind of behavior.
Taggart was his own per- son, Harris said, adding: “I’m not his dad.”
“Do you think Guatema- lans are ‘easy targets?’ ” Richstone later asked.
“I think you can be an easy target. Mr. Prince could be an easy target. The jurors can be easy targets. Anybody can be an easy target,” Harris responded.
He again denied targeting Lopez-Ramos and his rela- tives, a point Prince reiterated in closing arguments when he said that if the group wanted to rob a Hispanic man, they could have picked one of the many restaurant workers who were probably making their way home after midnight that night instead of targeting the men who were at their home.
Though Harris said that Lopez-Ramos’ older relative, Elmer, started the fight with them as they walked by the house where he, Onesimo and the other men were gathered, Richstone and Assistant State Attorney Marci Rex told jurors at the end of the trial that the fact most of the alleged victims’ wounds were on their backs was proof that Taggart and the Harris brothers attacked the men from behind.
Lopez-Ramos’ head wounds were so severe that Palm Beach County Medical Examiner Dr. Michael Bell, who testified during the weeklong trial, said he’d only seen such injuries in cases of car accidents or people who had fallen from buildings.
“Let that register with you, and think about how much power and how much hate he had to have to reach back and hit him so hard that it fractured clear through his skull,” Assistant State Attorney Marci Rex told jurors in her closing arguments.
Circuit Judge Samantha Schosberg Feuer sent jurors home late Monday with instructions to return and continue deliberations today. In March, Feuer rejected Harris’ quest to have her declare him immune from prosecution under what is commonly known as Florida’s “stand your ground” law.
Harris’ younger brother, Jesse, and Taggart are both still awaiting trial on first-degree murder charges. All three face life in prison if convicted as charged.
‘Think about how much power and how much hate he had to have to reach back and hit him so hard that it fractured clear through his skull.’ Marci Rex
Assistant State Attorney