By Hannah Winston
The Palm Beach Post
PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — Former Palm Beach Gardens police Officer Nouman Raja’s “stand your ground” appeal in the fatal shooting of Corey Jones was denied by Florida’s 4th District Court of Appeal on Thursday, according to court records.
Raja, charged with manslaughter by culpable negligence and attempted murder with a firearm, and his attorneys, Richard Lubin, Scott Richardson and Ralph King III, took the case to the 4th DCA after Circuit Judge Samantha Schosberg Feuer denied Raja’s request for “stand your ground” immunity in June.
The one page document from the 4th DCA denying Raja’s request did not provide further insight into the decision.
To be granted the “stand your ground” immunity, defendants must believe they are in imminent danger, be in a place they have the right to be and are not taking part in a criminal act, according to Florida law.
Raja’s attorneys argued he acted in self-defense when he shot Jones, a drummer for several churches and a reggae band, near the off-ramp of Interstate-95 in Palm Beach Gardens on Oct. 18, 2015, during the early morning hours. Raja, who was not in a police uniform and drove an unmarked van the wrong way up the off-ramp, said Jones came at him with a gun.
Jones, 31, was on the phone with roadside assistance after his car broke down on the off-ramp when Raja approached him. Jones did have a gun, but it was found yards away from where his body came to a final rest after the shooting.
Chief Assistant State Attorney Adrienne Ellis and Brian Fernandes pointed out several inconsistencies in Raja’s story. Raja said he identified himself as a police officer but an audio recording from the morning of the shooting did not capture him saying that. Instead, the recording is of Raja asking Jones if he was “good” and Jones replying he was before Raja shot him, according to investigators.
In Fernandes’ closing arguments, he wrote Raja “acted recklessly as a ‘person,’ as an officer and as any moral human being.”
Jones’ family, who were at the hearings, said during a news conference at that time that if anyone had the right to argue “stand your ground,” it would have been Corey Jones, not Raja.
Feuer issued her 27-page ruling in June and said Raja “acted unreasonably and not as a prudent person under the circumstances and the law.”
“The manner in which Defendant approached Jones — in the middle of the night, driving the wrong way up the ramp, in a white unmarked van, parking head-on diagonal to Jones’s vehicle just feet away, jumping out of his vehicle, in plain clothes, with his firearm drawn with no indication he was a police officer — would not afford an ordinary citizen Stand Your Ground immunity,” she wrote.
Raja has been out on $250,000 bond and under house arrest since he was indicted by a grand jury and arrested in June 2016. Raja is expected back in court Aug. 31 for a status check before Circuit Judge Joseph Marx.