First rule of ‘Stand Your Ground’ hearing: Don’t say ‘fight club’
Judge sets ground rules Tuesday for Delucca Rolle trial
Broward County Judge Jill K. Levy doesn’t mind if lawyers in the upcoming Delucca Rolle “Stand Your Ground” hearing talk about a fight club in the Tamarac Town Square parking lot— as long as they don’t call it that.
“Those words are more prejudicial than probative,”
Levy said. “You can talk about fights, but you cannot talk about an organized fight club.”
But it was a fight club, says defense attorney Eric Schwartzreich. Large groups of teenagers gathered after school to get into and bet on organized brawls that often got out of hand, he said. Deputies had been called to the scene more than 80 times from August 2018 through April 2019, he said.
It was against this backdrop, defense lawyers say, that deputies Gregory LaCerra and Christopher Krickovich arrested J.P. Taravella High School student Rolle on April 18, 2019 — a takedown that was recorded on cell phone and bodycam video, dissected by prosecutors, police reform advocates and the media, and ultimately resulted in misdemeanor criminal charges against the deputies.
Later thisweek, LaCerra and Krickovich will go in front of Levy to ask her to dismiss the charges under the state’s “Stand Your Ground” law. The hearing is expected to last several days and is likely to feature testimony from Rolle, students, business owners from the shopping plaza and other deputies.
At a hearingTuesday, the judge drew lines detailing what kind of testimony she would allow and what would be considered out of bounds.
Experts on the use of force will not be permitted to testify, she said, because they could not shed lighton whether LaCerra or Krickovich were reasonably in fear that they or others were in imminent danger, a conclusion that would be required for the judge to dismiss the case.
Her ban on the words “fight club” appeared to be good enough for Schwartzreich, who plans to portray the parking area as a scene of repeated mayhem. “Thiswas a pattern of terror at the Town Square Plaza,” he said. “These are
things our aware of.”
Prosecutors Chris Killoran and JustinMcCormack argued against admitting evidence of prior fights because no evidence has emerged that Rolle participated in them. clients were
Rolle,15 at the time of the incident, had leaned over to pick up a cell phone that dropped fromthe pocket of a friend being arrested for trespassing. One deputy pushed Rolle back and shot a blast of pepper spray into Rolle’s face, then took him to the ground. The other appeared to punchRolle on the side of the face and slammed his head onto the asphalt repeatedly.
Outrage over the incident spread quickly, and the deputies were hit with charges of battery and falsifying records. Krickovich has since been fired and LaCerra placed on restricted duty at the Broward Sheriff’s Office.
The Stand Your Ground hearing is set to begin Friday morning.