SCOTUS Asked to Resolve Bizarre Verdict in YouTube Prankster Shooting

A Virginia man who was acquitted of shooting a YouTube prankster in self-defense, but still ended up with a felony conviction for firing his gun, is hoping the Supreme Court will give him another chance to clear his name. The justices are scheduled to discuss Alan Colie's cert petition in conference today, nearly three years after a jury delivered its seemingly contradictory verdict.

Colie was working as a delivery driver at a northern Virginia mall in April 2023 when he was confronted by Tanner Cook, a YouTube prankster who made money by provoking and frightening strangers and posting their reactions online. Cook followed Colie as he tried to retreat from the confrontation, and Colie ultimately drew his lawfully carried pistol and fired a single shot, striking Cook in the chest.

Colie was charged with a number of offenses: aggravated malicious wounding, use of a firearm in the commission thereof, and malicious discharge of a firearm. A jury acquitted Colie of aggravated malicious wounding and use of a firearm in the commission of aggravated malicious wounding, but ended up convicting him on a charge of unlawful discharge of a firearm. 

As I wrote at the time, the conviction didn't make a lot of sense. 

While prosecutors claimed that Colie had no reasonable fear of injury, death, or great bodily harm from Cook’s aggression, the jury clearly saw things differently. But the jury’s decision to convict Colie on the count of discharging a firearm within a building is puzzling, given that they also believed the DoorDash driver was lawfully defending his life when he pulled the trigger.

As a result of the jury’s mixed decision Colie is still behind bars, though his attorney will get a chance to make the case that the sole charge he was convicted of should be thrown out a hearing next month. Poulliard maintains that the jury’s finding is “inconsistent with the law”, and I think he’s absolutely right. If Colie was justified in using deadly force to defend himself, then why he is still being punished for that use of force?

Colie's attorney maintains that the jury was confused by the self-defense instructions given by the judge, and erroneously believed that they could not apply a self-defense argument to a charge of unlawful discharge of a firearm. I think that's the most logical explanation, given that the jurors didn't convict Colie of any crime for actually shooting and injuring Cook, but courts in Virginia have denied Colie the relief he's sought on appeal. 

Now Colie is asking the Supreme Court to take up his case, and Colie v. Commonwealth of Virginia is scheduled for the justices to discuss in conference today. 

Colie's cert petition poses two questions for the Court to answer. 

First, whether the Commonwealth violated due process by "effectively stopping Mr. Colie’s jury from considering self-defense, when deliberating on the only remaining allegation against him: unlawful discharge of a firearm? (After acquitting Mr. Colie of all other criminal charges on the basis of bona fide self-defense?)"

The second question naturally follows the first: 

United States v. Powell, holds that a conviction shall not be disturbed merely because it is inconsistent with an acquittal on a related count, because the inconsistency may result from mistake, compromise, or lenity from the jury. However, Footnote 8 of that opinion reserved whether the same tolerance applies where two verdicts are not merely inconsistent but logically exclusive. Here, the jury acquitted Mr. Colie of every criminal allegation arising from his single act of firing his firearm, but for one: unlawful discharge of the firearm. But the jury’s numerous acquittals here are clearly explained by self-defense rather than mistake, compromise, or lenity. 

Does due process require vacatur of the sole conviction, consistent with Powell’s Footnote 8 exception, where the jury’s verdicts as a whole rationally convey that they found the act legally justified by self-defense, foreclosing lawful conviction?

Alan Colie was convicted on a felony charge of unlawful discharge, even though the jury found him not guilty of assaulting and wounding Cook. That just doesn't make any sense, and the theory that the jury was confused about whether self-defense was an affirmative defense to the charge of unlawful discharge of a firearm is sound. Whether that's enough to get SCOTUS to take an interest in the case, though, is an open question. 

So far, no justice has asked Virginia to respond to the cert petition, which isn't a good sign for Mr. Colie or his attorneys. I'm hoping that maybe the justices are unfamiliar with his case, and after they discuss the cert petition one or more of them will want to hear what the Commonwealth has to say before deciding whether to grant or deny cert. I can't say I'm particularly optimistic about that happening, though. 

Still, I hope at least one justice takes a closer look at what happened here. Colie tried to walk away from a confrontation he didn't start, only to have his tormentor follow him and continue the harassment. A jury acquitted him of the most serious charges stemming from his decision to defend himself, yet he still ended up with a felony conviction for pulling the trigger. That conviction comes with consequences that will follow him long after the incident itself has faded from the headlines, including the loss of his Second Amendment rights.

Maybe the jury was confused by the instructions. Maybe the jurors reached a compromise that made sense to them in the deliberation room but makes little sense anywhere else. Either way, Colie deserves more than a shrug from the courts and an explanation that inconsistent verdicts are just something defendants sometimes have to live with. 

The Supreme Court doesn't have to decide whether Colie acted in self-defense to recognize that his case raises a serious question about whether the jury was allowed to properly consider that defense. I don't know if the justices will decide to hear his case, much less side in his favor, but I do know that Colie shouldn't have to spend the rest of his life as a convicted felon because a jury may not have understood the law it was supposed to apply.

Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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