4.Opening Statement — Defense

MR. OWENS: Thank you.

May it please the Court.

MR. OWENS: State.

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning.

MR. OWENS: I appreciate you-all being here. I was introduced before. My name is James Owens, and I represent Sarah Boone, along with Tony Henderson and Kevin Beck.

Now, this is going to be a several-day trial. Obviously, today, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, we're not sure, but we're trying to make arrangements for witnesses to fly in, expert witnesses and whatnot, and we'll know more probably end of the day or maybe Monday so you can plan, but I know your focus is on this case because you took an oath to do so.

Ladies and gentlemen, there is no higher calling than to right a wrong. No higher calling than to right a wrong. And we're going to ask you at the end of the case to right this wrong and find Sarah Boone not guilty because she was justified in the force that she used to defend herself; that that force was reasonable under the circumstances that existed between Sarah Boone and Jorge Torres.

Sarah Boone and Jorge Torres were down and out, as you can be. Their life centered around alcohol. Both of them suffered from -- it used to be called alcoholism. Now it's called alcohol abuse syndrome. And so day-to-day, they struggled with the use of alcohol, if you can imagine that. It affected their jobs. It affected keeping employment. It affected even getting a job as codependent as you can be towards each other. And you're going to learn, with all that, was domestic violence. And that Jorge Torres physically abused Sarah Boone, and she suffered from the effects, the psychological effects, that one suffers from repeat violence from an intimate partner.

They were together over three years and there were several prior incidences of violence. We've got the photographs. There were incidences where police were called, who took photographs. So you're going to be able to see the evidence and believe -- we believe the Court will instruct you at the end, when you're considering self-defense, which we call justifiable use of non-deadly force or justifiable use of deadly force, that you can consider the prior acts, the history of violence, the prior difficulties that the parties had in considering her set of circumstances that she was faced with in making the decision to use reasonable force under the circumstances.

And the most important thing I can tell you here today is keep an open mind. There's two sides to every story. You're gonna hear the State's side, them attempting to paint her a certain way, as they've done here today in opening statement. And then you're going to hear another side, and you're going to have to weigh that, all the evidence, the credibility of the witnesses, the photographs, the videotapes, and come to a conclusion.

Now, let's talk about this day, February 23rd of 2020, the date of this event. This case has been pending for some time. Here we are October of 2024.

I think the evidence is going to show that they had purchased some wine the day before, that they hadn't finished all of that, so it was in the refrigerator. Many times that's how they start their day.

At some point you're going to see a video from Publix from where they lived. I believe it's Winter Park, but Publix was not too far from their apartment complex. And they took their car, they drove over there, and you're going to see a videotape from Publix of them both going in the store about noon and they come out with one of those larger bottles of the wine. And then, of course, there's a receipt. And the bottles were in the garbage can.

Of course, there obviously is an attraction between the two. And as everybody knows, couples can have great times where things click, everybody gets along, and then we can have episodes of disagreement. And how are things resolved, really, is what this is about. How are disagreements resolved? But Jorge was very jealous of Sarah, and you're going to hear the testimony about that, and that he cannot -- in certain Situations, he can be very charming, but when his level of intoxication gets to a certain level is when he gets sad, moody, and a lot of times, eventually it involved forcible sex with Sarah Boone or actual physical violence against her. They bought the wine. It's a simple life. They don't have much money, but they both like art. They did that for a while. They both like puzzles. They did that for a while. Well, about 5:00 or so, the wine bottle was gone and Jorge had said, I want to go get some cigarettes. So there's a convenience store right close by their apartment complex and Sarah thought he was just going to walk over there and get cigarettes and come back, but, no, what he did was he got her keys, he got her debit card, and he went over to the Publix and he got another bottle. And I think that was about 5:00, 5:30, something like that. And, again, there will be a Publix video showing him going in and going out and there will be a receipt for the purchase of that bottle and then there will be -- that bottle will be in the garbage can, along with the other bottle.

Well, when he comes in with the second bottle, Sarah -- Sarah knows, this is not good. She knows this means he's gonna get to another level of intoxication. So Sarah is concerned, so she attempts to placate him, keep him busy, keep him in a good mood. They drink that bottle and she drinks as well, and at some point they're intoxicated at a high level.

As some people do when they're drunk, they get silly and they decide to play a game of hide-and-seek. She goes upstairs -- their bedroom is upstairs -- to the shower and waits for a period of time, and he doesn't come to her. At some point she gets cold, she gets tired. She wants to go see, well, maybe -- maybe we got it mixed up. Where is he? So she goes downstairs. And they had gotten a suitcase down a week or so ago. It's an old suitcase that they were going to donate to Helping Hands or Goodwill or somebody and they were putting some items in there. And it's a broken-down suitcase. It's a large suitcase. They both weigh about 100 pounds, and they don't eat good, malnourished to a large degree. But the pull handle is broken off and they've attached a little paper clip that's got the rubber around it, and that's how they move it back and forth.

When she comes down the steps, she sees him getting in and settling in the suitcase, so she walks over there and, you know, they see each other, they smile and laugh, and she zips him up. And she zips him up and they laugh for a while and they carry on. She sits on the couch, and at some point he says, I can't breathe.

Now, his face is facing the zipper and she's got -- she's got two or three inches that she's opened it, and she doesn't know -- they're intoxicated. She doesn't know whether he's just saying that to try to get her to get him out or what, but he's a captive audience. Physically, they're the same size, but he -- he's much stronger than her. If they got ina fistfight, he would win 100 times out of 100, but she's got him now. He claims he can't get out. He has to sit and listen. It's a unique form of physical restraint, and so she lets him have it. Says things she shouldn't say. You'll see the video. It's about two minutes long. She videotapes it. She sits on the couch and turns her phone on and videotapes it for about two minutes.

There's another video that's approximately 11 minutes later. The first video, Jorge is -- the Suitcase is flipped upside down. The zipper is on the bottom. Eleven minutes later, Sarah has flipped it right side up, again, open for him to get out, and it's only 22 seconds. And you hear Jorge say "Sarah," and that's it.

Now, the key to the case is that 11 minutes and what happened during that 11 minutes, okay? That is the key to this case. Sarah Boone will take the stand. She will explain what happened. She will explain why it happened. The evidence will show that she was justified in the actions she took to prevent an attack from Jorge Torres, which the law acknowledges that every one of us has a right to invoke the right of self-defense.

You're going to hear from the medical examiner. She is going to tell you about some bruising on Jorge Torres. Of course, he was in the suitcase a while, deceased we believe, and that changes things a little bit, as the medical examiner will explain, but there's some bruising. Sarah is going to explain that to you; why that happened, what were the circumstances surrounding that, involving a bat. Her son comes and stays with them from time to time. He has his own room. They had several of his things there, and there's a bat downstairs, the same bat that Jorge Torres used. And there's a video where Jorge is threatening Sarah and he's swinging the bat at the TV about as hard as he can, and he does it about six or seven times. You'll see it. Sarah is recording it. And it's during an argument and he's trying to intimidate.

Sarah loved Jorge. You know, you're going to hear why women don't leave, why women don't leave. And you're gonna hear about Sarah Boone and her struggles, her mental health struggles.

Sarah had no intent to kill. The prosecutor mentioned she wanted him to die. Furthest from the truth. She loved the man. She hated the abuse. She couldn't leave him. She tried. She tried kicking him out six or seven times. He kept coming back. She changed the locks. He kept coming back. She didn't have the family. She didn't have the support. She was weak, vulnerable. You're gonna hear it all. You've got to take that all into account to try to understand what happened and the circumstances surrounding this tumultuous relationship.

Now, you're going to find that Sarah is not perfect. And, you know, she goes -- as many of us do when we drink too much, you sleep in. She slept in. 11:00, 12:00, 1:00, somewhere around there, she moseys downstairs looking for Jorge. She thought he was on the computer looking for a job. She looked outside. Maybe he's out smoking a cigarette. Then she sees the Suitcase.

She unzips it. She gets him out. He's purple. She tries her best to do some CPR. She freaks out. The only -- the only family she's got is her ex-husband, really. She relies on him. As the prosecutor said, a lot of times she'll flee to her ex-husband's house where her son is at, Lucas. It's the only thing she knows to do. She was kind of a sheltered daughter when she was younger. She's smart, but she's -- she's not worldly.

And she calls Brian, What do I do? He said, I'm coming over. Please, please come over. He's about five minutes away. And she calls him again within a couple of minutes; yeah, yeah, I'm on the way. He gets there, he walks in the foyer and sees his legs. He said, Call 911. She calls 911 within a minute or two.

Detective Rodriguez arrives. You know, they've got the bodycam now, so it's recorded, so you're going to hear Sarah talking, but Sarah is freaking out. Sarah is thinking, I'm somehow responsible.

Eventually she gives a statement to law enforcement. She gives one to Detective -- or Deputy Rodriguez. Of course, she's not the homicide investigator, she's just responding. She's the first responder. And, you know, they know what to do. They try to assess the situation, they start putting the tape out, and then they call for the homicide investigators to come, which takes a little time.

So she gets a statement from Sarah. Eventually the homicide detectives get a statement from Sarah in one of the unmarked squad cars, and it's recorded. You're going to hear that. And then the next day -- they take Sarah's phone. Sarah gives them the phone. Signs a consent to take the phone and take it to -- they have phone extraction people at the sheriff's department where they can take it, and they got all the data, all the phone calls, text messages, photographs, videos, all that, and they find these two videos. Sarah is not aware. She doesn't remember making the video, if you can imagine.

She gives them the phone. Of course, she makes no attempts to do anything other than, here's the phone. So they tell her, you're gonna get your phone back tomorrow. We'll bring it back to you tomorrow. Well, they end up having a conversation with the female detective, Homicide Detective Koepsell is her name, Chelsey Koepsell. And they end up -- Chelsey Koepsell is pregnant -- or Detective Koepsell is pregnant, so they end up, Hey, we're not going to bring you your phone, I'm not feeling good, can you come to the sheriff's office? Which Sarah Boone will tell you, that was what I was going -- that's what they told me I was going to the sheriff's department for. Well, instead, it was an interrogation and they were going to arrest her. They had made their mind up already and they were going to confront her and try to get her to confess based on the two videotapes. And so there's approximately a two-hour interrogation that was on the 25th in the afternoon. When she got there to get her phone, they said, Well, you've got to come up here, we need to talk to you. And they got her in the room, it's a small room, but it's being videotaped and audiotaped and it goes on for about two hours of them trying to get a confession to murder, and it doesn't happen. But Sarah lies. She's scared. She can tell they're trying to pin her on this, that this was some kind of intentional act, and it was not, so she lies.

She's not a lawyer. She doesn't know about self-defense. She doesn't understand she has a lawful right to defend herself. She doesn't understand that she's justified in using the force that she used. She doesn't -- I wasn't there to advise her, no lawyer was there, so she lied, and you're going to hear that.

So you're going to have to balance that versus her taking the stand and testifying before you. And we Simply ask that you look for the evidence of corroboration of her testimony. That's going to be later, probably next week. The judge will tell you and read an instruction on evaluating a witness' credibility and they'll talk about corroborative evidence, other evidence that's consistent with the testimony that Sarah Boone will give you. So you're going to have to weigh that in her testimony.

Now, self-defense, you know, we talked about it in jury selection. Usually a gun, some deadly weapon. The suitcase in this case was a physical restraint or a blocking of an attack, but it was unconventional. Self-defense, nonetheless.

Now, as I said, the struggles that occurred, many of them involved the police, so you're going to actually hear from some of the police officers. Maybe some bodycam camera footage. You're going to see some photographs that they took of the injuries to Sarah Boone. And some of the videos you may see of her in a very happy, joyful type of thing. Well, number one, she's intoxicated. Number two, she's safe, the police are there, so her attitude is not of one of distress.

You know, we're here today, it's a full, packed courtroom. Judge Kraynick is here, but you're the most important people because you've got to decide this case honestly, fairly, and according to the law. And we talked about the two biggest principles from the constitution that apply in this case and in every case in which a citizen, like Sarah Boone, is brought into a courtroom and accused of a crime. The first is, you, as a juror, must presume or believe that Sarah is innocent, and that belief stays with you throughout the entire trial. Because of that, she doesn't have to prove anything. That's why the State went first in jury selection. That's why the State went first today. That's why the State will go first putting on their case. They have the burden of proof, and it's the highest burden we recognize in any type of litigation in this country, proof beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt.

You are going to have doubts about this case, but the most important thing is not to rush to judgment, to keep an open mind, and understand there's two sides to this case. There's their side and there's our side. So you can't form any fixed opinions early on. That's hard to do. As Mr. Henderson said in opening -- or in jury selection, that's extremely hard to do.

Now, you're going to hear some testimony. There's been mention of experts. Battered women's experiences affect her perception of imminent danger. Battered women's experiences affect her perception of imminent danger. Victims of repeat violence may fear death in a Situation others would not.

After hearing both sides of this case, we're confident you're going to have a reasonable doubt, and we're going to ask you to follow the law and do justice in this case and find Sarah Boone not guilty because it's the right thing to do.

Thank you.