The client was hanging out with a group of friends at the Original Hotdog Factory in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh. Unfortunately, the defendant’s group of friends got into an argument with another group of highly intoxicated men.

One of the intoxicated men was a popular, football player for a local university.

The verbal argument turned into an all-out melee. The entire fight and the moments leading up to it were recorded on several surveillance cameras in the area. The football player punched a young woman in the face, then turned and began to flee. The defendant, who was employed as a security guard at the time, attempted to protect his friends. He pulled out his properly licensed firearm, for which he had a valid Pennsylvania conceal carry permit, and fired two rounds. This all happened within a few seconds.

In the defendant’s police interrogation video he claimed that he fired two rounds into the air as a warning. But, one of the rounds hit the victim in the upper back as he was running from the scene. He died from the gunshot.

With Attorney Sontz’s advice, the defendant proceeded to a non-jury trial. After a very emotional trial, the judge returned a verdict of NOT GUILTY on 1st degree MURDER and 3rd degree MURDER, but found the defendant guilty of voluntary manslaughter under a theory of imperfect self-defense. The judge credited the defense’s evidence that the defendant honestly believed that he was acting in self-defense, but his belief that he needed to use deadly force was unreasonable under the circumstances. Essentially, the judge concluded that the defendant had brought a gun to a fistfight.