A St. Louis County jury today agreed that a 30-year-old woman acted in self-defense when in January 2020 she shot the daughter of the woman in whose house she'd been living.
Attorney Jerryl Christmas had previously said St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell’s case against Jonique Borroum was part of "a disturbing pattern of prosecution against Black women clearly in self-defense mode."
During the two-day trial, there was no question as to whether Borroum had shot Jasmine Morgan.
"This is a case about self-defense," Christmas said in his opening statement.
The Pagedale home where the shooting took place belonged to Morgan's mother, Tanya, but Christmas argued that Tanya was in the process of kicking her daughter out. Christmas said that when Morgan found out she was being told to leave, she told Borroum, "If I got to leave, you got to leave."
According to Borroum, Morgan kicked in her bedroom door and the two got in a shoving match. The 30-year-old said that Morgan was on top of her on the bed, choking her, when Borroum reached for a gun beneath the mattress and fired. The bullet struck Morgan in her face, causing nerve damage and requiring one of her teeth to be removed.
In court yesterday, both Morgan and Borroum took the stand.
Morgan testified that she'd come up to Borroum's room to have a conversation with her and that she never kicked in anyone's door.
But under cross examination by Christmas, Morgan was vague about what she'd come to talk to Borroum about.
"You were just having a casual conversation with Jonique…And then she just jumped up and hit you?" Christmas said.
Morgan said that her mother had never asked to leave the house in Pagedale, but also said she hadn't been back since January 2020.
When she testified, Borroum said that she fired the gun because she feared for her own life as well as for her daughter, who was also in the bedroom.
This summer, the charges against Borroum were upgraded to first-degree assault, a move Christmas said he thought was due in part to his speaking out about the case. Bell’s office said Christmas speaking to the media had nothing to do with how they handled the case.
The jury reached its verdict this morning after deliberating for about two hours.
We welcome tips and feedback. Email the author at [email protected]
or follow on Twitter at @RyanWKrull.
Subscribe to Riverfront Times newsletters.
Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed
