Law&Crime Sidebar - Ex-NFL Player on Trial for Murder: Travis Rudolph’s Fight for Freedom

Episode Date: June 7, 2023

Ex-NFL player Travis Rudolph faced trial for murder and attempted murder after a tense confrontation turned into a deadly shooting. The former Florida State University wide receiver was found not guilty after weeks of intense testimony from witnesses involved in the gun fight. The Law&Crime Network’s Angenette Levy recaps the trial with Mark O'Mara, George Zimmerman’s former attorney.LAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergWriting & Video Editing - Michael DeiningerGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa Bein & Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaDevil In The DormThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. views shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that

will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. State of Florida versus Travis Rudolph. Defendant, verdict. We the jury find as follows. As to count one, we find the defendant, not guilty. Former NFL player Travis Rudolph acquitted on all counts in the death of one man and the shooting of another during a fight at his home in Florida. We look at seven key moments from Rudolph's trial. Welcome to Law and Crime's Sidebar podcast. I'm Anjanette Levy. Travis Rudolph says he was acting in self-defense when he fired at a group of men leaving his home 39 times back in April of 2021.

One, those four men were leaving his home in a vehicle following a fight. It all started after Travis Rudolph and his now ex-girlfriend Dominique Jones had a fight at his house in West Palm Beach. Jones said it got physical and Rudolph told her to leave. Jones texted her brother and one of his friends telling them to shoot him up. Four men showed up, including Jones's brother, Kishon Jones, Tyler Robinson, Christopher Lowe, and Sebastian John Jacks. A fist fight broke out between the four and Rudolf. Rudolph's brother Daryl was also involved. As those four men left, Travis Rudolph fired at a vehicle carrying the men 39 times after he said he saw a gun pointed out of the window.

Sebastian Jean-Jacques was killed. Tyler Robinson was hit and wounded but survived. Joining me to discuss these big moments in the Travis Rudolph trial is Mark O'Mara. He is a famed criminal defense attorney from Orlando, Florida. And if his name and face sounded, look familiar to you, that's because he represented George Zimmerman back in 2012, won an acquittal for him in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. Mark, welcome to Sidebar. Thanks for coming on. Great to be here. Good seeing you again. Yeah, good to see you. We've met before back in 2015, but that's a story for another time.

Let's talk right now about these big moments in the Travis Rudolph trial. You know, the incident that really set off these chain, this chain of events was this argument. that Travis Rudolph had with his girlfriend, Dominique Jones. This was this big argument where he told her to leave the house, and she texted her brother and some other people and said she wanted them to shoot Rudolph. Four men, including Jones' brother, Kishan Jones, showed up and punches were thrown.

There were fights between Travis and his brother, of course. And Dominique Jones testified for the state. Then it was Rudolph's attorney's turn to cross-examine her. Have you snooped around in his phone on prior occasions with his password? No, because I just had surgery, so I haven't seen him, and, like, I haven't seen him in a while. So you were snooping around because you were... I wouldn't use the word snoop. Overruled.

You were snooping around because you were concerned about him seeing other women down in Miami. Isn't that the bottom line? The bottom line is he was my boyfriend at the time. I haven't seen him in a month, and I was curious. That's the bottom line. Okay. You didn't want to lose him, right? Of course not.

And when Travis said that he found Kyla's body more attractive than yours, you became infuriated. Right? No. You didn't? No. You weren't upset that he found Kyla more attractive than you? No.

When you saw the text from Kyla, you told the jury yesterday it was time for me to go. You remember that? Correct. And when you saw the text from Kyla, Travis was still outside, right? He was out with his brother. You were looking through his phone when he was outside. Correct. So you waited for Travis to come back into the house to confront him, did you not?

I more so didn't confront him. I just went into the room to grab my things. So you didn't walk right out the door, did you? I went to go grab my things and he's seen his phone on the couch. the couch so he kind of put two and two together you waited for him to come back in so that you can confront him isn't that was happening i didn't confront him he kind of confronted me about the situation because he's seen his phone was open you wanted to hurt him and that's why you stayed in the house so that you could confront him and then destroy his property did you not no i wanted

to grab my things and i wanted to leave well you immediately went off on him didn't you no I was hurt. I was not angry. You remember that? Yes. You were actually very angry. Were you not? I was more so hurt than angry. But you were all so angry, weren't you? I was more so hurt than angry. So Mark, how do you think that Dominique Jones held up on the stand? She's basically texting these people and saying, he did this to me, shoot him up. I think she did fair. I think the defense did a very good job because remember what this whole case has to be about is Rudolph's perspective of what was going on. So the fact that, you know, she does sort of set this in motion. She's the one who says shoot their blank up or his blank up. You know, that's sort of the previous event, right? That's the

cause of all of this. And then when they show up, Rudolph reacts as most of us would have when somebody breaks into your house, it comes to your house, and it reacted to protect himself. And I thought the defense did a very good job, sort of showing this all happened because of her and but for her bringing in the posse, so to speak, none of this would have happened. In Florida, you know, we've seen this in other cases, has a very strong stand-your-ground law, self-defense law. So that's going to play heavily into this case. Big time. I mean, this whole case is truly a traditional self-defense. Now, remember again, the nuance between Florida, stand-your-ground and others basically means if you're not, if you're not, you know,

you're where you're allowed to be, and Rudolph certainly was in his own home, then you don't have to back away. You don't have to retreat before using deadly force. But it hardly matters when you're in your own home, because that sort of brings us over to the castle doctrine, which means at the front door of your residence, of your home, of your castle, you're allowed to defend yourself. So while stand your ground gives Mr. Rudolph some additional benefits under the statute, this is truly traditional self-defense. Can you protect yourself in your home, from the threat, or at least the perceived threat of great bodily injury. One of the big points of contention in this case is whether or not the posse, the group of four,

went to the house of Travis Rudolph with a gun. Two of the four men had told the lead detective in this case, Emily Vanderland, that none of them had a gun, but a canine actually located one tossed away. Here's Travis Rudolph's attorney, grilling the detective about her work. Why would you do that in a homicide case, talk to someone and not record what they have to say? What logical reason would any human being do that to another human being? Well, we don't just constantly record ourselves. I mean, I suppose with body cams now, that's not exactly a true statement. But at the time, we didn't have body cams.

And we don't just turn the recorder on and record every single second of every single thing. I didn't take a statement that was not recorded. I spoke to her is what I'm saying. And it was not recorded. I didn't ask you that. My question, you made the statement. You're privileged to do that. Yes. Then I'm asking you, why in the world would you ever do that? That's all I'm asking you. I'm not asking what you did in this case. I'm asking what you do. Why would you do that?

Sustain. Mark, I'm interested in how you believe the lead detective did on the stand because she kind of chuckled a little bit. That's allowed in court. Things happen. But she just kind of took their word for it. It sounded like that none of them brought a gun. Yeah, and that's part of the problem. I mean, look, we as good defense counsel always look and say, what could have been done better, what could have been done differently. This investigation was fair, maybe okay. This was not a great investigation by law enforcement, because you're right.

What they sort of did was, okay, you guys showed up, you said he had no guns, let's blame him and charge him with a crime. But the harsh reality is what Rudolph said was that there was the threat of guns or that they had guns. They lie about it. Lo and behold, K-9 finds one. Then there was also some forensic evidence of maybe the decedent could have had a gun in his hand when he was shot. So I think all of that evidence is going to work well in the defense favor for a couple of reasons.

One, cops didn't do a great job. Two, victims or posse, as we call them, were lying, are willing to minimize their own involvement in it. And at a certain point, the jury is going to say we can't believe them on that. We can't believe them on anything. Well, the next clip we're going to look at involves one of the four men from that evening. is Tyler Robinson. And he was at the house that night, of course. And he admits that he actually took a gun to Travis Rudolph's home, but says he never pulled it. A canine later located a gun, as I mentioned earlier. He testified about being in the car when Travis Rudolph fired those 39

shots at the vehicle. Let's listen. I'm still laying on the floor at this point, just trying not to get hit with any bullets. And then when the car finally, um, This isn't something I can see, but I'm aware the cars, and you can feel when you're in a car and it's moving, regardless if you can see or not. So I feel the car moving, and I guess we turned around to leave, but then we just stopped. Or it seemed like we just stopped. It seemed like the car stopped moving. So I feel myself get shot. In my back.

Is this the second shot? Yeah, it is. I got, after I felt another shot in my back, I kind of was, and the car wasn't moving, so I'm under the assumption that if I'm getting shot or so I believe I am, and that's what I feel, my brothers are probably getting shot too so i'm thinking everyone in the car probably died because we're not moving and no one's talking so i just assumed everyone was dead what'd you do

then um i just got out the car you opened the door and ran out yeah basically i just i didn't like I didn't want to die sitting in the car, so I just got, I don't know, I don't, I just got out. Mr. Robinson, I know emotional you're probably going through a lot right here. Are you pulling your firearm? Do you pull your firearm at any point during what you just described? No, ma'am. I kind of forgot I had my gun in my pocket. I want to protect my brothers.

So how did he do on direct, Mark? I hate to overuse the term. I think he did fair. I don't think he did great. Again, the concern is, here's this idea. The posse is coming at the request of the girlfriend, shoot his blank up, shooting with weapons, with guns. And then they do bring a gun, but the argument is,

OK, I brought it to the car, but didn't bring it in. A little bit difficult to believe, particularly when you have Rudolph's testimony that he thought that there was a gun. So they did fair. Again, a jury's got to look at this and say, if they're lying about one thing, can we believe them about much? And that's something that jury's going to have to wrestle with very much with this witness. 39 shots. I mean, a lot of people would say, hey, that's massive overkill. But how does that play into this? I think we need to talk about that for a moment.

because they're saying he had a semi-automatic weapon, 39 shots. They're going away in the vehicle. You know, Rudolph thinks he sees a gun pointed at him. So is 39 shots too much? That's going to hurt. A number of the things are going to hurt his argument of self-defense. Because remember, the essence of self-defense

is reasonable fear of imminent, right now, great bodily injury. So when you're driving away, this argument of great body injury has sort of gone away. they're leaving. The threat, even momentarily, has subsided in effect from the prosecution's case because they're leaving. The argument that the defense has got to sort of wrestle with and get across to this jury is, you know, with everything that was going on, the guns in the area, him being in his own home, the idea that he shot a gun once is justifiable because he was truly in fear of eminent great bodily injury. Then if you get past justification of that first shot,

you probably will be given a little bit of leeway on the rest. But I will tell you, the way it's going to come across to the prosecution, this guy's just wasting his entire magazine on people fleeing from the scene. And that is not self-defense. Let's now look at Travis Rudolph's attorney's grill Tyler Robinson on cross-examination. He is questioned about things that he only recently revealed about that text that Dominique Jones sent. it really brought the posse or the group to Travis Rudolph's home that night. Let's look. You're asked by the prosecution on November 8th, 2021. Again, you're asked that Dominique

texted you and Kashan saying shoot his shut up. Is that correct? And you said, I don't remember, right? Correct. It wasn't until Friday of last week was the first time two years after this happened was the first time you ever said you that's what she texted you right um correct it's in black and white you saw a copy of it the prosecution the police somebody told you here it is they got it now um i agree because you knew dominica erased her phone she was trying to hide evidence right she told you that um no sir still talk to her every day no sir not every day still texting our messages

you love her and you got her and you'll do anything for her those kind of messages like we saw um of less it's less often that we speak or I've spoken so no sir I don't we don't relay those messages quite as often but you still love her right Correct. Do anything for her? Um, circumstantially. Okay. Would you go to defend her on her again?

No, sir. You asked if Chris Lowe was at your house that evening by the prosecution, he said, I don't remember. Remember saying that? I agree. And you asked if Sebastian showed up, SEPA from Chris, and you said you don't remember. I agree. You called that.

You called Sebastian and Chris and said come on over. We need to go do whatever your words you want to use. We don't know. Let me ask you. Did you call those two guys? Yes. All right. And the phone calls you had, to your knowledge, none of those are recorded, right? I'm not sure. No one ever told you that, hey, they have an actual recording of your voice, did they? I don't know. I'm not sure. You guys use FaceTime a lot, right? We have iPhones, so yes. You know FaceTime's not recorded. That's easy to search, right?

I'm not aware of that, sir. I don't know. Oh, okay. You don't know that? I don't work for a cell phone company, sir. I don't, that's not information. That's important to me. Okay.

You asked if you spoke on the phone to Dominique and he said you don't remember back on November 8th of 2021, correct? Substained. You asked if your brother was home that day and he said you didn't remember. Remember saying that? I agree. Different than what you told us here last week, right? I agree. So Mark, we have Tyler Robinson under cross-examination, basically admitting yeah, there are things I only revealed for the first time last week.

So I think it was Mark Twain who said, you don't have to have a good memory if you don't lie, right? So you just keep telling the truth and just ask me a question and I can answer it because it's the truth. And the opposite is if you're making stuff up, if you're leaving stuff out, if you're crafting it the way you want to, it's very easy to get caught, right?

And you start adding to it. And that's exactly what happened with this witness. He added to it recently. And he was able to be cross-examination very well. There's one of those things we're using closing argument. You know, if you have a piece of bowl of stew when you're eating it and you get a piece of rancid meat, what do you do? Eat around it? No, you throw out the whole stew, right?

Well, the same thing. They're going to argue he cannot be believed at all. So take all of his testimony and throw it in the trash and see if the state has proved their case without that. And that's a good argument from the defense and we're going to see that. going to see that, I think, coming up. I thought it was interesting, too, that he basically admits that he loves her, or he did love her. He has these, like, feelings for her. He was going there to defend her honor.

Yeah, you know, and again, it's human nature. You want to, and I'm sure that these guys were reacting to what she said, come over. He pushed me against a wall or whatever she was saying he did. Come over and shoot his blank up. Yeah, and quite honestly, I would act a certain way for my loved one or my friend or my sister and you'd get over there and protect her honor. So I understand how it happened. The problem with it is that it comes right into force with law that says you cannot go to somebody else's house and threaten great bodily injury, which certainly seemed to be what they were doing. Look, take the guns out of it.

you beat somebody up. That's great bodily injury. You know, Trayvon Martin didn't have a weapon, yet that self-defense survived the attack from the prosecution because just because of the injuries that were inflicted on Zimmerman. So, you know, the whole thing about this is what they were doing, they caused it, they went to a man's castle, and he's allowed to react. One thing that's interesting about this case, Mark, is the fact that we have family members. of Travis Rudolph's involved in this whole incident, including Travis Rudolph's mother. She took the stand in his defense. And of course, you know, Dominique Jones was dating Travis Rudolph. So she had interaction with her. So let's listen to a little bit of Travis Rudolph's

mother testify in her son's defense. Do you remember what time you left your home that day on April 7th? Well, we usually have Bible study at 7. So I probably got in my sister's house, maybe about a quarter to seven. Okay, and that's PM, obviously. Correct. And when you get there, what do you do? When I get to my sister house, we had Bible study, and merely after Bible study, we was watching the movie,

and then I got a call for Dominique. She was very hostile and irate, and she said, Mom, you've got to come get your son, Travis, because I'm going to have my, I'm going to have my brothers and his friends to come fuck him up and kill him. But I didn't think that she was going to put a hit on them.

The phone dropped or she hung up the phone so I had text her. Let me slow you down. When you get that call from her, do you have any idea what was going on? No, because she was screaming and holling and I couldn't really understand her, but that's when I text her.

Okay. Did you try calling her back? No, I didn't call her. I just texted her. What did you text her? I said, Dominie, I don't know what's going on with you're in Travis. I said, but you both are grown. I say, if you all not getting along, you need to move on. I say, I love you like my own daughter. I don't teach my son to be disrespectful.

I say, I will talk to Travis, and I will let you calm down, and I will call you later. And then she texts me back and say, he has the wrong one. That's all I'm going to say. He has the wrong one. Yes. Mark, how did she do? I thought she did very well. She did very well as a mom, right?

I mean, look, we look at the court system that we're all used to and say, okay, this is the way this witness acted. But she came across as a mom, you know, happy for her son who was somewhat successful as a football player, you know, dating this woman who she was happy with for the most part. And then this crazy tragedy happens. And I thought she was very believable. And again, juries, we want to believe moms. We love moms, and we will listen to them. And that's a very strong predisposition that I thought the defense played very well with this jury.

And Linda Rudolph, you know, had interaction with Dominique Jones. So I thought that was very important, too, that she was a part of this. So she certainly can testify to the dynamic at the time. And I thought, again, she did a great job with that as well, sort of bringing out what was going on, all of the emotions, everything that was happening between those two, then what happened when the other men came over. Yeah, I thought again, you know, if the jury is going to listen to one person and say we believe that person is telling the truth, it's going to be a mom. And it's going to be a mom who, like you say, interacts with everybody and was present at the very time it happened. Our next family member who testified for Travis Rudolph was his brother, Daryl. He was there that night, and he was a part of this whole altercation.

Let's listen to what Daryl said. Did you ever talk to her or actually have an actual conversation on a telephone with Dominique after this happened? Oh, I don't really remember. When you were texting her, did you ever explicitly tell her that you had guns pointed at you and your brother shot a number of times at them? Did you ever tell her that? because I thought it was separate spinners her. I mean, like, if you put two and two together with her saying, hey, my brother's going to come fuck you up,

and then you got guys coming over with guns, yelling, screaming, and saying, you and Travis going to die today, and then when you actually see guns pointing at you, I mean, you would think that it would be common sense that Dominique she should notice. It's common sense. If you put two and two together,

you would think, like, she basically orchestrated this whole thing. The fact why y'all are in this seat, and I'm sitting in this seat, and why everybody right here in court right now, you know, you would think. stop hold on there yeah one second the narrative objection is sustained all right so you believe dominie set the whole thing up yes sir she orchestrated the whole thing so i feel she should know hold on you get everything so you are very upset with her yes sir

still upset with her yes sir mark a lot of people might argue well darrell's biased it's his brother He doesn't want his brother, Travis, going to prison. But he was indeed a part of what happened that evening. So was he credible? I think he was. You know, again, you want to listen to who was there and what they say. And there was not, although there was good cross-examination, I don't think it really attacked his credibility very much.

I thought he came across, sure, he's going to protect his brother to a certain extent. And he's going to shade things in favor and maybe evidence that. level of fear. But I think the jury's going to be able to work through what part of it was him being, again, sort of favored through his brother, but also told the truth. It's pretty rare that we see a case where someone claims self-defense and they don't take the stand. You've experienced that. I want to talk about that in just a minute. But Travis Rudolph was really the main witness that the jury likely wanted to hear from in this case because is he's the guy that fired the 39 shots.

He's the one who had the fight with Dominique Jones. The jury got to hear from him. Listen. Is at this point any guns? No, not at this point. The fight that was going on, was it one-on-one? No. How else about that?

It was a bunch of back and forth. Sometimes it'd be two-on-one. Sometimes it's three-on-one. Four-on-one. You know what I'm saying? Between me and my brother. How were they fighting with you? They was like trying to hurt us really bad.

like trying to kill it. I took it as they was trying to kill us. They're kicking us, punching us. I got choked one time, everything. Okay. And were they saying anything to you during this, during this battle? Yes, they said, we're on demon time. They're all going to die out of there. And what did that mean to you, demon time? You know about that? Like, they basically, like, they don't, excuse my language to jurors, but they basically saying that I don't give a fuck by nothing. I'm coming to handle my business. Is that a new term, demon time?

Yes. There was no talking. I got punched, and now I'm getting jumped. And now me and my brother is fighting for our lives. They weren't there to find out your side of the story. No. They didn't care. No, they didn't. A lot of like the police, huh? Right.

Sustained. So, you're in a fight now. How long has it last, do you know, or does it just seem like a long time? It seemed like a long time. I remember I was like out of breath, especially, I got choked. So it seemed like a pretty long time to me. You're an NFL player. You can beat up three or four guys? Nah, I mean, them guys knew what they was doing. I felt like I couldn't get the upper hand, knowing my brother. So did you lose sight of your brother at times?

Yes. Tell us the best of your memory after the guys jumped on top of you. What do you remember after that? I remember, like I said, it was at one point in the driveway I was getting choked by Tyler, I believe. brother had came and like got him off off me say Tyler that's the guy without yeah the guy without the shirt know his name now obviously yes and then after that like I was trying to like distance myself and then I remember I went from like the bottom of the driveway to east it'll be east from looking from outside my house I went east and towards Mr. Estey's home or away from his home away it'll be away from Mr. Estey's home okay and uh I'm

I remember at some point I get near the palm tree with the bricks around it. What happens? During that time, it was just me, Tyler, and Sebastian. And they were kind of trying to, like, angle me in. And when they was trying to angle me in, Sebastian was saying, you f***ed with the wrong girl, you're going to die today. And then sometimes of times when he was saying that I seen Tyler, he pulled out a firearm from his right pocket.

Mark, I know in George Zimmerman's case, he opted not to testify, which I find really rare in these affirmative defense cases. You obviously felt you didn't need to put him up there. He didn't feel like he needed to get up on the stand. But I think it's really hard in a case like this when you don't put the defendant on the stand. So did Travis win the day for himself? Well, first of all, you're right. In an affirmative defense case like self-defense, you almost have to.

I mean, you know, true or false in law school, but you're witness on the stand. and self-defense? Absolutely. Because you have to, because it's that person, the defendant, who says, I was in fear, it was imminent, and I believe this was going to happen, my perception of the fear. So not having someone testify like we decided not to do in the Zimmerman case or other dynamics is very, very difficult and can really come back to burn you. So having said that, what I thought happened here with Mr. Rudolph was he did a good job because he did what he had to do, which was say, look, this is what happened. I'm home. These people come in, fist are flying, guns are about. I don't know what's going on, but I'm protecting not only myself

and my castle, but my family, who's also in danger at that point. So I thought it came across pretty compelling. And again, you almost have to have your client go up there and say, I'm the one who was in fear unless it can really be presumed by the circumstances. Well, like we had in Zimmerman, And we have five different statements where he said he was in fear. So that gave us an opportunity to avoid cross-examination of the client. Well, this is an interesting case for sure. Most of these are Mark O'Meara. Thank you so much for joining us.

This was wonderful, and we hope you'll come back. Great seeing you again. Be well. And that's it for this edition of Law and Crime Sidebar Podcast. You can download and listen to Sidebar on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your podcast. and, of course, you can always watch it on Law and Crimes YouTube channel. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy, and we will see you next time.