PANAMA CITY — The man who was convicted of allowing his dog to fatally maul a Callaway child is asking for new trial arguing that the evidence against him wasn’t strong enough to support a conviction, and the jury was wrong to convict him.
Edward Daniels, 21, was convicted of manslaughter in the death of Tyler Jett and acquitted of evidence tampering for washing blood from the dog’s face after the attack at the conclusion of his trial in August. About a week later his attorney, deputy public defender Kevin Carlisle, filed a motion to set aside the jury’s verdict and grant Daniels a new trial.
Carlisle’s motion argues the verdict was “contrary to the law and the weight of the evidence presented,” and disputing Judge James Fensom’s decision to allow the jury to see photographs from Tyler’s autopsy despite objections that they were graphic and would prejudice jurors against Daniels.
That Tyler died as a result of the attack was never disputed, so the photos served only to inflame jurors, and the doctor who performed the autopsy testified she didn’t need them to explain how he died, so they shouldn’t have been shown to the jury, Carlisle notes in his motion.
Carlisle’s motion notes that 15 witnesses testified for the state about their interactions with either Daniels, his dogs or both, but eight of them had interacted with only the dogs and not Daniels. Two more had experience with both the dogs and Daniels, but their exchanges were only to tell Daniels his dogs were loose.
The testimony of those 10 witnesses wasn’t enough to prove Daniels knew his dogs were dangerous or aggressive toward humans, Carlisle argues, and the trial testimony of four witnesses who said they warned Daniels his dogs were dangerous conflicted with statements they made before trial. Carlisle asks Fensom to determine the credibility of those witnesses and find it’s “more likely than not that their trial testimony was fabricated.”
No hearing has been scheduled on the motion. Carlisle has left the Public Defender’s Office, and chief assistant public defender Doug White will represent Daniels at his sentencing hearing Friday.
Fensom “will most likely make a ruling during the sentencing hearing,” White said.
If the verdict stands, Fensom could sentence Daniels to up 15 years in prison.