The judge denied a request for a new trial from William Ben Darby, the Huntsville police officer convicted of murder for shooting and killing Jeff Parker in 2018.
In a motion filed Thursday evening, Darby’s attorneys argued that the jury’s guilty verdict was “contrary to law and evidence” and that the judge’s decision to sentence Darby to 25 years in prison was “unnecessarily excessive.”
“The evidence produced at trial is insufficient to support a finding of defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” defense attorneys Robert Tuten and Nick Lough wrote.
They asked Madison County Circuit Judge Dona Pate to set a hearing on their motion. She denied the request early Friday morning.
A Madison County jury earlier this year found Darby guilty of murder for shooting and killing Parker, a man threatening suicide.
When the first two officers arrived at Parker’s west Huntsville home on the afternoon of April 3, 2018, they found him sitting on a couch and holding what later turned out to be a flare gun to his own head.
The jury watched body camera footage that showed Darby, the third to arrive on the scene, move past the two senior officers and shoot Parker in the face with a shotgun 11 seconds after entering the home.
In their motion for a new trial, the defense attorneys argued that the judge should not have allowed Genisha Pegues, the first officer on the scene, to tell the jury that she did not believe she was in danger that day.
Pegues resigned from the Huntsville police department just before she testified against Darby at trial. She told the jury that she was trying to de-escalate the situation and get Parker help before Darby arrived.
“The jury should have only considered the Defendant’s objective reasonableness in realizing that Officer Pegues was in fact in imminent danger in confronting a person with a gun who refused to drop the weapon,” the motion for a new trial says.
At trial, Darby testified that he that he shot Parker in defense of himself and the other officers because he feared Parker might shoot them. Darby told the jury that he had to take over the situation from Pegues, a senior officer, because he believed she was putting herself in danger by talking to Parker.
In their motion for a new trial, Darby’s defense attorneys wrote that the judge should not have excluded from the trial evidence that Pegues violated police department policy and that she and Justin Beckles, the second officer on the scene, were ordered to attend retraining.
“The Trial Court erred by violating the Defendant’s constitutional right to present a defense by excluding evidence that the Defendant followed established procedures and protocol on the scene of the shooting,” the attorneys wrote in their motion.
The defense also argued Darby’s constitutional right to a public trial was violated. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, spectators weren’t allowed in the courtroom. Members of the public and news media were allowed to watch live video feeds of the trial in separate areas of the courthouse. But, at some points, the video feed was inaudible or briefly turned off.
Darby is serving his 25-year sentence in an Alabama state prison.
The shooting divided local officials, as police and city leaders argued that Darby acted within policy, while county prosecutors saw grounds for a murder charge.
Mayor Tommy Battle and Police Chief Mark McMurray even questioned the guilty verdict after the trial. But Madison County District Attorney Rob Broussard, speaking after the verdict, said the evidence “was off the charts. He was not justified in any way.”
Darby remained on the city payroll for more than two months after his conviction — despite being stripped of his law enforcement certification — until he resigned in late July.
The City Council used $125,000 in public money to fund Darby’s criminal defense. In 2018, when approving the first round of spending, the council resolution said Darby’s shooting was “within the line and scope of his duty.” Council members told AL.com at the time that they voted without seeing the bodycam footage.
Judge Pate last month released the footage after AL.com filed a public records request.
The footage shows Darby sprinting to the house and shouting at Pegues to “point your fu**ing gun at him.” Darby shot and killed Parker less than a minute after arriving.
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