Breonna Green, 4 feet 6 inches tall, stood before the jury. Her attorney raised her right arm until it was perpendicular to her body. It rested 3 feet 10 inches above the floor — nearly a foot lower than the height of the bullet that pierced Lashonda Temple’s chest three years ago in a deadly Mid-City melee.
A coroner testified that the single bullet flew through 22-year-old Temple from above, not below. Its trajectory made it impossible for someone as short as Green to fire the shot in a face-to-face confrontation as a New Orleans police officer had alleged, said defense attorney John Fuller.
The officer's testimony also contradicted another witness, who claimed Green shot Temple from inside a vehicle. It was one of many inconsistencies that Fuller shared with a jury Wednesday night in Orleans Parish Criminal District Court before he asked its members to acquit his client of second-degree murder.
After four hours of deliberation, the jury rendered its not-guilty verdict, acquitting Green of the murder charge and obstruction of justice in the June 3, 2020 shooting.
The verdict, delivered just 45 minutes shy of midnight, was the "best birthday present of Green's life," Fuller said. She turned 29 on Thursday.
"Today she wakes up a year older and free of a dark cloud of uncertainty," he said. "We're grateful to the jury and prayerful for the victim's family."
‘The benefit of every doubt’
Green’s trial came during a month that saw four women slain in shootings across New Orleans, rattling residents and sparking a police promise to swiftly apprehend people who target women.
According to prosecutors, in 2020, Green beckoned Temple and two other women to a Poydras Street apartment's parking lot, then fired the shot that killed Temple.
Surveillance video at the complex captured Green in the moments after, steadily walking down a flight of stairs and later, in tears.
Multiple people testified during the three-day trial that Green fired the fatal shot and then fled with the gun.
And according to Assistant District Attorney Forrest Ladd, the video recording showed “someone who made a decision, and who is now realizing the consequences of that decision.”
But Fuller argued otherwise. In addition to arguing that testimony conflicted, he said that Temple and the other women were the aggressors that night.
They sprayed mace into Green’s eyes, he said, and the tears captured on video were shed because Green was in pain.
“You have to give the defendant...the benefit of every doubt, not one or two,” Fuller said.
Temple grew up in Lafayette and was a junior at Southern University at New Orleans at the time she died.
“She was the life of every party and was truly loved by many,” according to her obituary.
Attempts to reach the family of the victim were not successful.
