Louisiana’s Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments about whether the man who fatally shot a former NFL player during a 2016 road rage incident can be tried again as murder. His conviction on a lesser crime was overturned.
In the first instance, authorities in Jefferson Parish in New Orleans charged Ronald Gasser of second-degree murder for the shooting death of Joe McKnight. McKnight was a high school football star at Louisiana’s John Curtis Christian School. He went on to play three seasons with the New York Jets, and one with Kansas City Chiefs.
Instead of convicted Gasser for murder, the jury found Gasser guilty of manslaughter. However, this verdict was overturned later because it came from an unanimous jury.
According to the Jefferson Parish District Attorney’s Office, the non-unanimous verdict for manslaughter shouldn’t be considered an acquittal of the murder charge. Prosecutors wanted to give Gasser another chance for murder.
A Gretna state district judge ruled and a panel of state appellate judges agreedin an HTML2-1 ruling that Gasser’s second murder charge would be against his constitutional protection against double punishment.
The highest court of the state did not fix a date for arguments.
Witnesses at McKnight’s 2018 trial stated that McKnight was weaving between traffic at high speed just before the shooting. Prosecutors argued that Gasser escalated conflict by following McKnight down a route he wouldn’t ordinarily take.
McKnight was shot at by Gasser’s defense group.
