Former Tulsa Police Department Officer Shannon Kepler has escaped conviction three times in a row. This came after it was alleged that he shot and killed his daughter's black boyfriend in 2014. During his third trial on Friday in Oklahoma, Kepler asked the judge to dismiss the case. He claims that he cannot be judged in Oklahoma as he was on tribal land when the shooting occurred.
The murder
Shannon Kepler doesn't deny shooting the 19-year-old Jeremey Lake in August 2014. Lake was dating Kepler's daughter at the time. Kepler has, however, argued that he only shot Lake out of self-defense, according to the Star Tribune.
He claims that he felt threatened and that he believed that Lake had a weapon in his possession. However, investigators found no weapon on Lake or anywhere in the surrounding region.
The trials
Over the past year, there have been three mistrials in Kepler's case. In the first and second trials, the jury deadlocked 11-1 and 10-2 in favor of Kepler's guilt. After 12 hours of deliberation by the jury, the judge had declared them to be mistrials. In the most recent trial, just last month, the jurors deadlocked 6-6 following three hours of deliberation. On Friday, Shannon Kepler appealed to the judge, asking him to dismiss the trial, according to ABC News.
Kepler and his attorneys have argued that he cannot be tried in Oklahoma because he committed the crime while in American Indian territory.
Kepler is a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation, having received his citizenship identification card this Thursday. He argued that the state courts lacked the jurisdiction needed to convict him on Creek Nation land.
The former officer's attorneys also made reference to a decision that was made this past Tuesday by the 10th U.S. Circuit court of appeals.
The Court of Appeals had overturned the case of Patrick Dwayne Murphy. Murphy had been convicted of murder and had been sentenced to the death sentence when he claimed that he could not be convicted in Oklahoma because he had committed the crime in Creek Nation territory and he was a Creek Nation citizen. The Court of Appeals then declared that all cases linked to the Creek Nation should be decided upon by Congress and not by state courts.
Kepler has escaped conviction for the third time. His fourth trial has been scheduled for the 9th of October 2017. One can only hope that justice is served and that this case can finally be laid to rest.
