Justices Weigh Reinstating Conviction in Two-Year-Old’s Death
(INDIANAPOLIS) Prosecutors are trying to reinstate a teenager’s murder conviction in the death of a two-year-old boy.
Tyre Bradbury didn’t fire a shot, but prosecutors say he acquired the guns for a 2014 gang confrontation in a South Bend park. A stray bullet killed two-year-old John Swoveland Junior as he was playing in his front yard.
A divided Court of Appeals ordered a new trial last year the jury should have been able to consider reckless homicide instead of murder. That would have meant a maximum of 16 years. Instead, Bradbury was sentenced to 90 years, reduced to 60 on a first round of appeals.
In the end, a jury split the difference.
Jurors on Friday afternoon found Doroszko, 20, guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the 2019 shooting death of 19-year-old Traychon Taylor, finding that Doroszko did not commit murder but also rejecting his claim that he was justified in using deadly force to protect himself from a robbery while he was dealing marijuana.
The case is the latest to push the limits of Indianaâs self-defense law, which at face value denies self-defense rights to anyone committing even a low-level or nonviolent crime at the time of a confrontation.
If the jury had convicted Doroszko of murder, he would have faced up to 85 years in prison, based on the maximum 65-year term for murder and a sentencing enhancement of up to 20 years for using a gun to commit a crime.
SOUTH BEND â Thereâs no dispute over whether Kyle Doroszko shot and killed 19-year-old Traychon Taylor in April 2019.
Instead, Doroszkoâs murder trial will hinge on whether he acted in self-defense by opening fire when Taylor and his friends tried to rob him at gunpoint, and whether he was legally allowed to protect himself with deadly force even though he was selling marijuana.
Doroszkoâs trial opened this week in a case that could test Indianaâs self-defense law, which at face value denies people the right to use force to protect themselves while engaged in even nonviolent or low-level crimes.