COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina Court of Appeals has overturned the conviction of man who prosecutors said killed a fellow high school student in the parking lot of a Lexington fast food restaurant back in 2014.
The court released their unanimous decision in favor of Kierin Dennis Wednesday. Dennis had been convicted of murder in 2019 for stabbing to death 17-year-old Da’von Capers at the Cook Out restaurant in Lexington on February 17, 2014. Dennis was 18 when the killing took place.
Dennis was sentenced to 30 years in prison. A previous trial, held in 2016, ended in a hung jury and a mistrial was declared.
The appeals court ruled that Dennis deserved an immunity hearing prior to the start of his second trial. The hearing would have been to determine if he was acting in self-defense under the state's Protection of Persons and Protection Act, sometimes referred to as South Carolina's "stand your ground" law. Dennis' legal team claimed that Capers was in the process of leaning into Dennis' car when the fatal assault took place.
A hearing before his first trial concluded that Dennis didn't meet the requirements for the act and rejected his attempts to use the defense for this trial. But when the first case ended in mistrial, he and his lawyers argued he deserved a second immunity hearing before the start of his second trial to try and argue again for his claim.
His lawyers said that was necessary because they had found new evidence, including new eyewitnesses and a pathologist, who could bolster his claim for self-defense. But the judge denied that motion for that hearing, but said Dennis could bring up the new evidence in his trial.
But the appeals court said the lower court should have allowed a new hearing because a mistrial essentially "restarts" the legal process. They also felt the court should have acted as a "finder of fact" for Dennis' claims of immunity at the hearing rather than deferring that judgment to a jury during the trial.
The appeals court ruled Dennis now deserves a new immunity hearing. But whether there will be a new trial must still be decided. In a statement, the South Carolina Attorney General's Office said, "we are currently reviewing the case to determine what, if any, additional action will be taken on the appeal level."
Dennis is currently at Evans Correctional Institution in Bennettsville, South Carolina.
The stabbing took place following a basketball game between Dutch Fork High School and Lexington High School. The basketball game between the two rival schools in Lexington was a rematch from a game the schools played at Dutch Fork two weeks earlier. Dutch Fork won both games. The game at Dutch Fork was contentious, leading Lexington County officials to add additional security at the game at Lexington High School.
