Murder trial for Texas police officer who killed 15-year-old Jordan Edwards to begin today
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The Texas police officer who killed unarmed teen Jordan Edwards is scheduled to go to trial today after a last ditch effort to have his trial halted a day before it was set to start.
—Judge rules police officer who killed teen Jordan Edwards can’t have trial moved—
Roy Oliver, the fired Balch Springs police officer who shot and killed 15-year-old Edwards as he sat in a car after leaving a party last year, will stand trial for murder.
Jurors will hear opening arguments this morning in a Dallas County courtroom, despite the emergency filing with the state’s 5th District Court of Appeals by his legal team to delay the trial, the Washington Post reports.
Oliver’s defense attorneys argue that the criminal charges stemming from the killing of Jordan Edwards are not valid because Oliver’s rights were violated.
On April 29, 2017 Oliver fired into a car containing Edwardsm, his brother and his friends, when the car attempted to leave a party. Originally, Police Chief Jonathan Haber claimed that the vehicle was reversing toward Oliver in a menacing manner, but that account was later proven to be untrue.
Oliver was indicted by a grand jury for the murder of Jordan Edwards. He was also indicted for four counts of aggravated assault for each of the teens in the car with Edwards.
Earlier this month, Oliver’s legal team tried to move his trial out of Dallas County, but a judge rejected that request as well.
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Oliver’s legal team argued that he would not get a fair trial because of “pervasive, prejudicial and inflammatory” news covering following Edwards murder.
Oliver’s team think the trial is moving too fast for the accused killer.
“There’s been a rush to trial on this case since the day these indictments were returned,” Gill argued during one of the pre-trial hearings.
