Opinion ID: 1607200
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Jackie Pope Murder

Text: Jackie Pope, a thirty-six-year-old deaf man who served as a watch out for John Doe, was shot to death because he gave a deposition about the New Year's Eve 1997 shooting of Miami police officer Ricky Taylor. Various witnesses testified that lots of people in the neighborhood were shooting their guns in celebration of the new year. Taylor was the passenger in a marked police vehicle that was patrolling the neighborhood. He was shot from a third floor balcony of an apartment building at 1370 Northwest 61st Street, which was one of the John Doe drug hole locations known as the dormitories. Officer Taylor had a penetrating wound to the left side of his head at the hairline, but survived the shooting. The crime scene technician recovered hundreds of casings from the scene. Charlie Brown, a member of John Doe, was identified as the individual who shot Officer Taylor. Brown pled guilty to the shooting and was sentenced to thirty years in prison. Jackie Pope was shot sixteen times after midnight on March 31, 1998, in the vicinity of 14th Avenue and 62nd Street. A firearms expert from the Miami-Dade Police Department testified that the casings from the scene and projectiles from the body indicated that Pope had been shot by two guns. The medical examiner testified that three of the gunshot wounds to Pope's torso were lethal because they did extensive damage to his organs, including his lungs, heart, spleen, liver, left kidney, and intestines. There was no stippling of the wounds that would indicate Pope was shot from a close range. Carlos Walker testified that he found out that Jackie Pope was a witness against Charlie Brown several weeks before Pope was shot. Smith showed Walker Pope's deposition, in which Pope stated that he saw Brown shooting from the third floor of the building when Officer Taylor was shot. Walker described Smith as being very angry about Pope's deposition. Tricia Geter testified that Smith told her that Brown had shot the police officer on New Year's Eve. She also said Smith told Brown to turn himself in because the police kept hitting the John Doe holes in search of Brown and it was hurting business. Smith promised to get an attorney for Brown. Anthony Fail testified that Smith discussed Brown's case with him and told him about a deposition in which Jackie Pope snitched on Brown. Fail testified that Smith offered him $25,000 to kill Pope. Charles Clark testified that he saw Pope shortly before he was shot. Clark also saw several of the John Doe hitmen in the same vicinity, including Eric Stokes, Jean Henry and Julius Stevens. Clark then saw Pope being summoned to the alley where the hitmen were sitting. A short time later he heard a series of shots from the alley. Later, Clark saw Pope's body in that same area. At the penalty phase of trial, Detective Alphonso testified that Julius Stevens had admitted that he and Eric Stokes shot Jackie Pope. Stevens had also stated that he shot Pope because Smith ordered him to shoot him because Pope had served as a witness on Charlie Brown's case.