News from Day 2 of pre-trial for former FWPD officer Aaron Dean
By Jason Allen
FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) - For several days in October 2019, nearly every local news broadcast in North Texas included reporting on the shooting death of Atatiana Jefferson.
For two days this week in a courtroom in Fort Worth, defense attorneys for the former police officer charged with Jefferson's murder have replayed as many of those reports as they can find. Wednesday morning, they'll do it again.
Aaron Dean has been in court each day as hour after hour of video about the case is played. His attorneys hope it will lead to his trial being moved out of Fort Worth. It's currently scheduled to begin in less than two weeks.
Dean's legal team has argued in motions that incorrect information in early reports about the type of call Dean believed he was responding to is critical to his case.
While some early media reports reference that he was checking on Jefferson's welfare, reports within the next few days made it clear he had been told he was going to check an open structure call, which could be treated like a burglary in progress. Dean shot Jefferson through the window of the home she was in, when he saw her inside holding a gun.
Lee Merritt who is representing Jefferson's family members in a civil lawsuit against the city over the death, was at the hearing Tuesday. He was sworn in as a potential witness, and not allowed to sit in the courtroom for the proceedings.
He didn't believe that the volume alone of media coverage would be enough to justify moving the trial.
"It has to be a very specific set of circumstance that causes a change, which means that misinformation has been released to the public and is so ingrained you can't un-ring that bell," he said.
There was also brief testimony Tuesday from a legal assistant for the defense team, regarding the condition of Dean's attorney Jim Lane. They have asked to delay the trial from starting this month, because Lane has been in poor health and unable to prepare for the case.
Rebecca Jerome testified Lane stopped coming to work regularly in mid-March. When he did return on a few brief occasions, she said he would only be there for an hour or so, sometimes unable to get out of the car, and was not doing any case work.
