Stephen Monroe again declined a deal of 25 to 50 years in prison today for the murder of 16-year-old Noah Smith three years ago in Bunnell. Monroe faces life in prison if convicted. His trial starts Monday.
Monroe is the last of four defendants in the gunfight that resulted in Smith’s death as he stood on the stoop of his house in Bunnell and was struck by a bullet not intended for him. He was on probation for robbery at the time of his arrest.
The other three defendants have all pleaded out. Devandre Williams, who was also charged with the murder of 16-year-old Kemarion Hall four months after Smith’s killing, in the same Bunnell neighborhood, pleaded to 40 to 60 years and was sentenced to 55. Tyrese Patterson pleaded last July to 25 to 50 years and has yet to be sentenced. He is being held at the St. Johns County jail because he has agreed to testify for the prosecution in Williams’s trial, in exchange for possible leniency at his sentencing.
Williams, Patterson and Monroe were circling in a car together, taunting Terrell Sampson to come out and fight the night of the shootout in January 2022. Sampson did. Sampson fired the initial shots that later escalated into a shootout on South Anderson Street in Bunnell. He pleaded to 5 to 15 years and got 12.
Assistant State Attorney Mark Johnson, who has prosecuted the cases, offered Monroe the same that was offered Patterson: 25 to 50. He is turning 27 on Saturday, his third birthday at the Flagler County jail, where he’s been held since May 19, 2022.
His aunt spoke to Circuit Judge Dawn Nichols during a hearing today by zoom (“Are you his Auntie?” the judge asked her), as Monroe sat in front of the defendant’s table, next to his attorney, the pugilistic Terence Lenamon. Nichols had talked to Monroe before, to move him toward a deal. “I don’t know that it’s going to make a difference or go anywhere, because I’ve talked to him before,” the judge said, “and I had wanted to talk to his dad. I know that his attorney has talked to his dad, and I think his dad’s kind of just at a loss, disappointed.” She described Monroe as standing on train tracks, “playing chicken with the train, and the train is probably going to win.” She told his aunt that he will probably be sentenced to a life term. It would be mandatory: the judge would have no discretion.
“I Right, that’s true, because we don’t want to see that either, and he hasn’t seen his daughter in a while,” the aunt said. “We just been praying and hoping for the best.”
The judge spoke to the aunt, but she was really speaking to Monroe as she spoke of Monroe getting out while still young if he agreed to a deal. She wanted the deal not to be for a range, but for a certain amount. “I have a number in my head that I think is an appropriate number, but I’ve got to stay neutral. He’s got a good lawyer,” Nichols said. “If your nephew says, No, I want to go to trial, I’m going to play chicken with the train, he’s got that right. He’s got that right, and I’m not going to force anybody ever to enter a plea.”
The judge took a recess to allow Monroe to speak with his attorney. When she returned, Lenamon told her there’d been no resolution. So the attorneys moved on to arguing two motions ahead of Monday’s trial, which will be before a jury of 12, with two alternates.
Pre-trial motions are common. They’re also a window into the two sides’ strategies. Since none of the defendants in the Smith murder went to trial, Monroe’s will be the first time that all the details surrounding the circumstances of the killing will be publicly revealed, though what has been learned so far is substantial. Johnson, the prosecutor, attempted to summarize the context of the killing for Nichols. He succeeded mostly in bewildering her with the seeming complexity of the case–and, at heart, the stupidity of the series of events that led up to the shooting.
The judge herself used the word “stupid” several times to describe some of the behavior on social media videos, one of which, a 12-minute segment, will be admitted as evidence. The video shows Monroe’s trio taunting Sampson. Johnson also showed several photographs posted to social media by Monroe and his friends, showing them brandishing an assault weapon and two guns. The gun Monroe held was allegedly used in the shooting, and was identified through its distinctive magazine: it was clear, with the bullets visible inside. The gun had been sold–legally–to a friend of Monroe’s in Monroe’s presence, ironically by the son of a public defender in this circuit. The son will testify to the sale and to describe Monroe, who seemed more interested in the gun than the man buying the gun.
Monroe had also written a rap song referencing the shooting after the fact. The judge agreed to let that into evidence, against the defense’s objections. In an unrelated recent trial, that of Marcus Chamblin, who had shot dead a man in a car, the lyrics Chamblin wrote after the fact, metaphorically describing the killing, had played an important role in convincing the jury that he was guilty.
The evidence the prosecution ensured would be admissible made Monroe’s game of chicken that much more difficult to win. Nichols asked him to keep thinking about a deal, even as the hours to the trial count down. The trial begins with jury selection from a pool of 50 jurors Monday morning in Courtroom 401. It is expected to last through Thursday, at least, with 21 witnesses just for the prosecution.
