Judge denies change of venue for police officer charged with Gunn murder

Montgomery County Circuit Judge Greg Griffin denied a motion to change the venue for the trial of Aaron Cody Smith, the Montgomery police officer charged with the murder of a civilian, on Tuesday. Mickey McDermott, Smith’s attorney, said the defense plans to appeal the decision.

“We respectfully disagree with the judge’s decision and intend to appeal the matter to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals. We continue to work to vindicate Officer Smith,” McDermott said.

A tentative trial date for Smith was also set for October. No specific date has been released yet, but McDermott said it would be the last week of October.

Smith's defense initially motioned for a change of venue in December of 2016 before three judges' recusals slowed the case.

"Notwithstanding the obvious local, state, and national media coverage that this matter has attracted, unfortunately this cause has been enmeshed with racial undertones by citizens and political figures within the Montgomery County community," the December motion reads.

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The Montgomery County District Attorney's Office opposed the effort to move the case out of Montgomery in February by arguing, among other things, that it will have been more than a year since the shooting when the case goes to trial and Montgomery has a population large enough to provide an unbiased jury. The prosecutors' motion also states, "The defendant has failed to meet the extremely heavy burden of proving presumptive prejudice from pretrial publicity."

On Tuesday, McDermott said he felt the “Justice for Greg Gunn” yard signs and social media posts will make it difficult to find unbiased jurors.

“The coverage, we believe, has seriously interfered with potential jurors and we believe we'll have a hard time finding a jury that does not already know the facts of the case or has already made up their minds,” McDermott said.

Smith, a white officer, was charged with murder on March 2, 2016, for the Feb. 25, 2016, shooting of Greg Gunn, an unarmed African-American who was walking home from a neighborhood card game at around 3 a.m. Smith, 23 years old at the time, was alone and stopped Gunn to frisk him. MPD later said there were several reports of burglaries in the area in the weeks prior. The stop-and-frisk turned into a chase and a struggle and ended with Gunn getting shot multiple times outside his next door neighbor’s house after Smith tased Gunn and beat him with a metal baton.

There is no body cam or dash cam footage of the incident. State Bureau of Investigation agent Jason DiNunzio testified at Smith's preliminary hearing that Smith said Gunn picked up a painter's stick before Smith shot Gunn. DiNunzio said a stick was found but Gunn's fingerprints were not found on the stick. DiNunzio also said Smith did not have any charges against Gunn when Smith tased Gunn the first of three times, tasings Smith said had "little to no effect."

“(Gunn) was still not charged with anything and had committed no crimes,” DiNunzio said at the March 2016 hearing. “When we asked officer Smith why he used his taser, he said it was because he didn’t want to shoot (Gunn) in the back.”

Smith was indicted by a grand jury in November.