Court overturns conviction of North Miami cop who shot at unarmed autistic man holding toy
A Florida appeals court has overturned the conviction of a former North Miami police officer who was convicted for shooting at an autistic man holding a silver toy truck, a case that drew national headlines.
The Third District Court of Appeals on Wednesday overturned the misdemeanor culpable negligence conviction for Jonathon Aledda, who claimed he believed the man was holding a firearm and holding another man hostage during a standoff six years ago. The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office must now decide if it will re-try Aledda, who was fired from the police department after the shooting.
The court’s decision — made because jurors were not allowed to hear additional testimony about Aledda’s police training — was met with dismay by justice reformers who say it will make prosecuting bad cops even more challenging. But South Florida police unions hailed the opinion.
“It should have never gotten this far to begin with,” said Steadman Stahl, president of the South Florida Police Benevolent Association. “We stand by Officer Aledda for a very tough decision that he had to make in seconds.”
It was in July 2016 that Aledda fired three times at Arnaldo Rios Soto, but hit and wounded Charles Kinsey, an unarmed behavioral therapist who was on the ground with his hands in the air, begging police not to shoot. Video of the incident went viral at a time when the nation was grappling with high-profile cases of death caused by police officers.
At his trial in June 2019, Aledda testified that he believed Soto had a gun and was holding Kinsey hostage in the middle of a North Miami street. A motorist had called 911 to report a man she believed might be holding a gun to his head.
Prosecutors argued that Aledda fired in haste, ignoring a radio dispatch from another cop who had determined the toy was no weapon. The jury acquitted him of two felony counts of attempted manslaughter but convicted on the misdemeanor. A Miami judge sentenced him to probation, and granted him a “withhold of adjudication,” meaning no conviction appeared on his record. The appeals court, however, ruled that the conviction was tainted because the court refused to allow Aledda’s SWAT commander to testify about the special training he’d received on dealing with hostage rescues. The SWAT commander was not considered an “expert,” however, and the North Miami hostage situation was not being handled by the SWAT unit.
Still, in Aledda’s case, the court ruled, “the training undertaken by the professional would be relevant for the jury to consider in determining how and why the professional assessed and responded to the situation,” and whether his “response was objectively reasonable.”
In seeking to not allow the SWAT commander’s testimony, prosecutors had cited the case of former Miami police officer William Lozano, who was convicted of manslaughter for the 1989 shooting that left two men dead. An appeals court overturned the conviction, saying the state wrongfully introduced manuals that showed he’s violated departmental policies. But in Aledda’s case, the court ruled, the testimony about Aledda’s SWAT training was key.
“He offered the testimony to show how he was trained to react to the precise situation with which he was confronted. Thus, the introduction of [the commander’s] testimony regarding Aledda’s training would assist — rather than confuse — the jury in determining whether Aledda’s response to the circumstances he encountered was criminally negligent.”
News of the reversal drew sharply different reactions.
Douglas Hartman, the police union-appointed attorney who defended Aledda at trial, said his client was “overjoyed.”
“We knew we were right in our defense of our case,” Hartman said. “He feels like he’s been vindicated.”
But Kinsey’s attorney, Hilton Napoleon, said the ruling will add to significant existing challenges of criminally charging police officers when they break the law.
“I will say their ruling affords police officers greater latitude than common defendants ... they’re creating a double standard between police officers and regular defendants,” Napoleon said. The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office did not immediately comment on the decision. Wednesday’s ruling could have a ripple effect, however, on a number of pending criminal cases against police officers.
At least nine officers from three different police agencies in Miami-Dade county are awaiting trial for rough arrests. The track record for the State Attorney’s Office, however, in recent cases has been mixed — in three cases, officers have been acquitted.