In Murder Trial’s Openings, Stephen Monroe’s Attorney Argues Self-Defense in Shooting that Killed Noah Smith, 16

Self-defense.

That’s why Stephen Monroe fired the .40-caliber gun in a fusillade that ended up taking the life of 16-year-old Noah Smith  on South Anderson Street in Bunnell the night of Jan. 12, 2022.

Self-defense, even though moments before the shooting, Monroe and his friends—Devandre Williams and Tyrese Patterson–who all three were riding in a Kia, had circled the neighborhood several times and at one point told people near Smith, and maybe told Smith himself, to take cover.




Self-defense, even though Monroe had written and disseminated a rap song taunting and ridiculing the brother of the man he’d been shooting at over some petty feud, even though he’d taunted and ridiculed Terrell Sampson moments earlier and Sampson took the bait, initiating the shooting at Monroe and his friends.

Self-defense, even though after Sampson initially fired a volley at the Kia, Williams (who was driving) Monroe and Patterson circled the block for two minutes —“two minutes to think and reflect about how they were going to respond to what just happened,” in the words of Assistant State Attorney Mark Johnson–before they decided to drive back within range and open fire. Tyrese Patterson fired in Sampson’s direction, too. 

Self-defense: That’s what Terence Lenamon, Monroe’s attorney, argued to a jury of 11 women and three men this afternoon in Monroe’s trial on a first-degree murder charge, even though, had Monroe and his friends been afraid, they could have driven back to Palm Coast’s R Section, where they came from, where Monroe lived and where he was letting the other two crash for a while.

According to Lenamon, Monroe was a heavy pot user, and that night all he was interested in was to go to Bunnell and get some weed. Monroe, Lenamon told the jury, was a rapper and a jeweler, working for an internet business. He didn’t know the Sampson brothers. He just wanted to score some weed. Lenamon’s defense doesn’t dispute that Monroe owned the .40-caliber gun, that he fired it, or that he would have fired it more than once had it not jammed. But “on the night of this event my client wasn’t going to look for anybody. He was looking for pot,” Lenamon told the jury.




Somehow, after circling the neighborhood, after Sampson fired the initial volley, after Monroe and his friends fled from the voley, the trio returned, even though he was afraid, and fired their guns.

Devandre Williams pleaded and is serving 55 years in prison. (He also pleaded to the murder of 16-year-old Kemarion Hall four months after Smith’s killing, in the same Bunnell neighborhood.) Sampson, who fired the initial shots, pleaded and is serving 12 years. Tyrese Patterson pleaded to 25 to 50 years. He has yet to be sentenced. He could be a witness for the state in Monroe’s trial.

Monroe, now 26, is the last of the four defendants in that shootout, and the only one who opted for trial. He was offered, 25 to 50 years, leaving it to the judge to decide what he would serve. He declined. He faces life in prison without parole if convicted of first-degree murder, and possibly life in prison even if convicted on a lesser charge of second degree murder. (The jury is likely to have that option.)

The facts of the case are no different than they were for the other three defendants. Johnson outlined them for the jury this afternoon, after some six hours of jury selection from a pool of 60. (The result was an all-white jury.)




Ed Sampson, also known as Ed Boy (they all had nicknames), had been in a relationship with the owner of the black Kia. The relationship went sour. The woman then allowed Patterson and his friends to use her car, but warned them that they could run into Ed Boy, and he’d be mad. Patterson (also known as “Pooh”) and his girlfriend did, and Ed Boy was mad. He and his friend ran them off the road then brandished a gun at them. They called the cops, but refused to press charges. They were afraid. That was two days before the shooting.

Patterson and Ed Boy then argued on Instagram, going “from petty insults to veiled threats,” Johnston told the jury, with Patterson making all sorts of references, including to Ed Boy’s brother, Terrell Sampson. The something happened–the prosecution is not sure what–that made Ed Boy run. That was on Jan. 11. Monroe turned that into his rap song.

The next day, five hours before the shooting, the Kia trio–Monroe (known as “Kree”, Patterson and Williams, or “Dre”)–drove down to Bunnell, “and they began to challenge Ed Sampson to an altercation, they were mocking him, making fun of him for running,” Johnson told the jury. “You’ll hear them bragging about sending their location to him in order for him to meet with them for this altercation.” It’s a 12-minute video the jury will see in coming days. It shows the trio waving firearms, pointing them at the camera in a threatening manner. It features both handguns fired from the Kia (though the defense is not disputing anything about the guns themselves, only the motives for their use). 

Ed Boy never meets up with them. But his brother Terrell does. Terrell Patterson had been on the street, chatting it up with Noah Smith. Noah had just returned with friends from a basketball game at Flagler Palm Coast High School. He’d stopped at Wendy’s. Wendy’s hadn’t given him napkins with his dinner. Noah went inside to get some. Just then the shooting began. For some reason Smith went back outside.




Lenamon in his opening argument made an audacious challenge to the jury: “At some point, the question you’re going to have to ask yourself, is he going in there for napkins or going in there for a gun?” No gun was found near him outside, which answers Lenamon’s question. But he’d thrown it out there, casting a shadow on the very words he uttered next: “Noah Smith was an innocent body. In this case, no one was trying to shoot Noah Smith, and he certainly didn’t deserve to be shot.” It’s unlikely members of the jury missed the subtle victim-blaming even after the disclaimer.

What is known “from a forensic point of view,” Lenamon told the jury, is that it was never determined whose bullet from what gun struck and killed Noah Smith. That bullet was never recovered.

That’s true. It’s also irrelevant.

During jury selection, Assistant State Attorney Jason Lewis, who is assisting Johnson in the trial, gave the jury pool a theoretical story. He had them imagine that he and his colleague Jennifer decide one day to grab baseball bats and go beat up Johnson. Lewis is lousy at baseball, so his bat doesn’t land on Johnson. But Jennifer’s does. Lewis asked the jurors if he was any less responsible for the crime, for Johnson’s injuries.

Lenamon immediately objected. He didn’t say why, but it was clear: his defense would rely in an important respect on the fact that no bullet can be attributed to Monroe.

There was a sidebar between the attorneys and Circuit Judge Dawn Nichols. Then, apparently at Lewis’s request, the judge read the sort of legal instructions that settle these kinds of objections. She read the law’s very language that explicitly states that the responsibility for the criminal act is the same for those perpetrating the act, whether they are more lethal or not. He also had the judge read the law of “transferred intent.” The jury learned, in more neutral language (there were no names) that if a bullet is intended for Sampson but hits Smith instead, it’s still murder.

Lewis doesn’t usually lose that kind of challenge. Lenamon’s objection was overruled. That part of his defense that makes so much of the possibility that Monroe didn’t fire the fatal shot was rendered irrelevant, even though Lenamon argued it to the jury anyway, banking on short attention spans. Lewis won’t let the jury forget.

The prosecution puts on its first of 21 witnesses at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday in Courtroom 401 at the Flagler County courthouse.