From [HERE] A white man who shot dead an unarmed black teenager in a car returned to court on Monday for a new trial, seven months after a mostly white jury failed to reach a verdict on a charge of first-degree murder. The jury was composed of 11 white people. 

Michael Dunn, 47, vice president of Dunn & Dunn Data Systems in Vero Beach, claimed he was acting in self-defence when he fired 10 shots at an SUV containing Jordan Davis, 17, and three of his friends at a Jacksonville petrol station in November 2012.

Although the jury at Dunn’s February trial convicted him of three counts of attempted murder, for which he has yet to be sentenced, they could not agree on the murder charge despite more than 30 hours of deliberations. The minimum mandatory sentence will be 60 years, which, for a 47-year-old man, is a life sentence. [MORE]

Jury selection is expected to last two to three days. Sixteen people will be chosen, 12 jurors and four alternates. A total of 490 potential jurors reported for jury service Monday, and the pool will support all cases picking juries for trial this week. 

Davis’s family called it an “injustice” that they hope to see corrected at Dunn’s retrial, which began with jury selection Monday morning at Jacksonville’s Duval County courthouse with jury selection. The same prosecution team from the February mistrial, led by state attorney Angela Corey, will present a case playing into themes of race and Florida’s self-defence and gun control laws. 

Jordan Russell Davis, 17, and several other teenagers were sitting in a sport utility vehicle in the parking lot when Dunn pulled up next to them in a car and asked them to turn down their music, [Jacksonville sheriff's Lt. Rob] Schoonover said. Jordan and Dunn exchanged words, and Dunn pulled a gun and shot eight or nine times, striking Jordan twice, Schoonover said. Jordan was sitting in the back seat. No one else was hurt. [MORE]

Police found no weapon in the teenagers’ SUV, and prosecutor Erin Wolfson portrayed Dunn as a loose cannon who “lost it because he was disrespected by a mouthy teenager”. Forensic evidence showed that Dunn continued firing his 9mm handgun at the back of the SUV even it was speeding away. 

After the shooting, Dunn and Rouer fled the scene but witnesses took his vehicle’s tag number and he was arrested the following morning at his home in Satellite Beach, Florida, 175 miles away. According to his father Ron Davis, the teenager died in the arms of his friend in the car.

Trial judge Russell Healey denied a motion from Dunn’s new defence lawyer, Waffa Hanania, to move the trial away from Jacksonville because of concerns that it would be impossible to seat an impartial jury. But Healey said he would reconsider if jury selection, which is expected to last several days, proved impossible.

The trial will hear testimony from dozens of witnesses and could last several weeks. At its conclusion, Dunn will be sentenced for the February convictions. He faces up to 20 years each for the attempted second-degree murders of Davis’s friends, and an additional 15 years for firing into a vehicle.