Former Palm Coast resident Keith Johansen, 43, who shot and killed his wife Brandi Celenza at their F-Section home in 2018, now claims a Stand Your Ground motion would have exonerated him and made trial unnecessary.
Four years ago this month a jury found Johansen guilty of murdering Brandi, 25, in their home on Felter Lane while Brandi’s young son was in another room, waiting to go to the county fair: his mother had promised him moments earlier. Her little boy told her he loved her. It was all on video. It was also probably the last words she heard from him. Johansen shot her soon after.
In a call to 911, also captured on indoor video, which sees him scurrying around the living room to hide drugs before authorities showed up–as his wife lay dying–he’d claimed Brandi had “accidentally” shot herself. Twice.
A man the prosecution showed to be an inveterate liar, Johansen then changed his story to claim that he shot her in self-defense. She had two bullets in her. He had none. Indoor video of the couple’s arguments showed Johansen threatening to kill his wife repeatedly, brandishing a gun in her face and mercilessly demeaning her. He was sentenced to life in prison. An appeals court upheld the conviction in 2023.
Johansen was back in Flagler County Circuit Court last week, arguing for “post-conviction relief”–that is, either to have his sentence overturned or reduced. His argument: his attorney should have made a Stand Your Ground defense. His failure to do so justifies a claim of ineffective representation at trial which, if upheld, could warrant further proceedings.
Florida’s Stand Your Ground law allows an individual not to retreat in the face of threats and to use deadly force in response. A Stand Your Ground motion must be made before trial. If granted, the charges against the defendant may be dropped.
Stand Your Ground was never mentioned during Johansen’s trial or before it, though his defense attorney, Gary Wood, argued self-defense, and that Brandi was delusional from doing too much meth. None of her behavior–captured on video the morning of the shooting or described by others who’d interacted with her in days prior–suggested anything of the sort. (Attorney Rosemary Peoples was also on the defense team.)
Johansen’s current defense attorney, Marc Joseph of Tampa, filed the motion for a lesser sentence in November, on 17 grounds. A judge denied tw of them and set an evidentiary hearing on the others, which was held last week. Johansen was brought in from Walton prison in De Funiak Springs. On Sept. 26, the court ordered the defense to file written arguments against the state’s objections to the Stand Your Ground claim.
Joseph filed those arguments on Wednesday. The dispute now hinges on the interpretation of precedent, with the prosecution–led by Assistant State Attorney Jason Lewis–arguing that a 2022 decision by the First District Court of Appeal backs up the state’s position that “failure to file a Stand Your Ground motion cannot constitute ineffective assistance because the jury rejected self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt.” A second case suggests that “any error at a Stand Your Ground hearing is necessarily cured by a subsequent jury verdict.”
The defense is rejecting both arguments. The issue isn’t merely the failure to file a Stand Your Ground motion, but “whether there is a reasonable probability that the motion would have succeeded–not whether a jury’s later verdict negates the issue.” Joseph added: “The fact that a jury ultimately rejected self-defense does not eliminate the possibility that the trial judge-under a lesser standard–could have granted immunity.”
But Joseph then makes a claim unsupported by the trial record: “Here, the evidence established that Mr. Johansen’s wife pointed a firearm at him in their bedroom immediately before the shooting.”
There was no such evidence. There was no video taken in that room at the time–the same room where Johansen had threatened his wife repeatedly, on camera. There was only Johansen’s allegation that Brandi had pointed a firearm at him, and Wood, his defense attorney, repeating that allegation.
A ruling in Johansen’s favor would be extraordinary as it would upend all proceedings to date, including his conviction and sentence. Circuit Judge Dawn Nichols’s ruling is expected in coming days. She is the third judge to preside over the case. Circuit Judge Treence Perkins, now retired, presided over pre-trial hearings. Circuit Judge Chris France presided over the trial.
Shark says
Too Bad !!!!!