Defense Lawyer Hit with Flying Purse, Grabbed by Victim’s Dad in Courtroom Outburst
Parents of a murder victim took out their anger on a Florida defense lawyer and the defendant after a mistrial was declared in the case on Thursday.
A judge in Bartow, Fla., declared a mistrial after an emergency medical technician testified about a dying declaration by victim Yvonne Bustamante, who was fatally burned during a robbery at an insurance office along with her pregnant sister-in-law, the Lake Wales News reports. Leon Davis Jr. is charged with the murder of the two women and with that of the sister-in-law’s baby boy, who died after being born prematurely the night of the attacks.
The Ledger reports what happened next. “Ebelia Rodriguez threw a purse at Davis on Thursday that ricocheted off defense lawyer Andrea Norgard and hit Davis with a glancing blow,” the story says. “Her husband, Richard Bustamante, then leaped two rows of benches and the court railing, grabbing Norgard’s upper arm and coming within a foot of Davis before court bailiffs restrained him.”
Norgard and her husband, co-defense lawyer Bob Norgard, won’t seek charges, but they will ask the court to bar the couple from future court proceedings, the Ledger says. Bob Norgard told the newspaper that the incident was “just mind-blowing.”
Circuit Judge J. Michael Hunter declared the mistrial because the emergency technician testified about Yvonne Bustamante’s state of mind when he described her dying declaration. According to the Lake Wales News, the EMT asked Bustamante who did this to her. “She raised up on the stretcher and emphatically stated ‘Leon Davis,’ without any doubt in her mind,” the EMT said.
