A white woman who fatally shot her Black neighbor through a locked door amid a neighborhood feud in Florida has been convicted by a jury of manslaughter.
The jury took less than three hours Friday to find 60-year-old Susan Lorincz guilty in the death of Ajike “AJ” Shantrell Owens, a 35-year-old single mother who was shot once in the right side of her chest with a .380-caliber handgun while standing outside Lorincz’s front door in June 2023. Owens’ death drew national attention and put a new spotlight on race, gun violence and Florida’s controversial “stand your ground” law.
The defense team offered no comment after the verdict, citing respect for the victim’s family. In a news conference outside the courthouse, Anthony Thomas, an attorney representing Owens’ family, called on Circuit Judge Robert Hodges to impose the maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.
I get that.
Manslaughter is treated differently in every jurisdiction in the US, but the level of Manslaughter that the offender was changed and convicted with is legally adjacent to a murder charge. It’s just that the prosecutor didn’t believe that they could prove - beyond a reasonable doubt - that the offender actually intended to kill the victim rather than, say, frightening them or, perhaps, injuring them. So they went for a charge that they knew they could prove in court.
Colloquially speaking, this person murdered the other, no doubt. But what could be proven in court, given the evidence, was a degree of manslaughter.