Supreme Court reverses appellate win of man sentenced to 50 years for Tacoma killing
The state Supreme Court has unanimously reinstated the convictions of a man who fired 48 shots at a Tacoma gas station in 2016.
The 9-0 opinion Thursday reverses a Washington State Court of Appeals decision last year to overturn Robert Grott’s convictions for second-degree murder and seven counts of first-degree assault.
Grott, now 33, argued at trial that he fired in self-defense at 23-year-old Julian “Jay” Thomas, who was killed.
The two had feuded about a missing gun, and Grott believed Thomas had shot into his home months before, according to court records. Grott was skateboarding when he happened upon Thomas Feb. 1, 2016 at the gas station in the 3600 block of Center Street.
“I’m sorry that the man had to lose his life in the process, but I didn’t want to lose mine, so I fired,” Grott said at his sentencing in 2017.
He argued on appeal that Superior Court Judge Bryan Chushcoff made an error by instructing the jury to decide whether Grott was the first aggressor. A three-judge panel of the state Court of Appeals found last year that Grott needed a new trial. The prosecution then petitioned the Supreme Court for review.
“The instruction informed the jury that Grott could not claim self-defense if the jury found ‘beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was the aggressor, and that defendant’s acts and conduct provoked or commenced the fight,’” Justice Mary Yu wrote in the Supreme Court’s opinion. “For the first time on appeal, Grott contended that this instruction was improperly given because it was not supported by the evidence presented at trial. The Court of Appeals agreed and reversed Grott’s convictions. We reverse the Court of Appeals.”
The state’s high court found that Grott wasn’t entitled to raise the issue for the first time on appeal, but the justices chose to take it up anyway.
“... the law regarding first aggressor instructions requires some clarification,” Yu wrote. “On the merits, we hold that the first aggressor instruction was properly given in this case and that Grott’s trial counsel was not ineffective for failing to object. We therefore remand to the Court of Appeals to address the other issues raised on appeal.”
The opinion was signed by retired Chief Justice Mary Fairhurst. Newly appointed Justice Raquel Montoya-Lewis did not participate.
Yu wrote that the Court of Appeals applied a:“rule that an alleged act of first aggression cannot be part of the charged conduct, reasoning that every shot Grott fired was ‘part of the actual charged incident to which self-defense is claimed ... .’”
Such broad rules are rarely appropriate when it comes to first-aggressor instructions, the Supreme Court decided.
“... Grott engaged in a course of aggressive conduct, firing 48 shots over the course of several minutes and pausing to reload multiple times,” Yu wrote. “We therefore must conduct a fact-specific inquiry ... to determine if the evidence was sufficient to support a first aggressor instruction.”
Yu went on to explain that “... the jury could reasonably infer that sometime after Grott began shooting, Thomas turned to face Grott and pulled out his own gun. The jury could therefore conclude that once Thomas pulled out his gun, Grott had a reasonable fear of imminent harm and continued shooting in self-defense, ultimately killing Thomas. But if Grott provoked the need to defend himself by firing the first shots, then self-defense was not legally available to him.”
Grott, who deployed to Afghanistan as a Marine and was honorably discharged in 2012, argued at trial that the shooting was consistent with his military training. He asked jurors to consider how post-traumatic stress disorder may have affected him that day.
