Maricopa County Attorney explains law behind Tempe road rage shooter not being indicted

PHOENIX — Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell called a Tempe road rage incident that left a man dead a needless tragedy despite the shooter not being indicted by a grand jury on Monday.

Mitchell joined KTAR 92.3 FM’s Outspoken with Bruce and Gaydos on Tuesday to explain the law behind 46-year-old Dustin Jackson not being indicted for the deadly road rage shooting that happened on July 1.

“You didn’t have, honestly, two adults in the room with these two individuals,” Mitchell said. “(Both made) bad decision, and we went ahead and charged the individual who did the shooting. The grand jury disagreed.”

Mitchell explained that video she’s seen of the incident showed back and forth between the two drivers, Jackson and 29-year-old Steven Bevan, when turning left onto a street.

She added that Bevan was driving aggressively to get in front of Jackson’s car before breaking checking him, causing him to stop. The county attorney said that was when Bevan allegedly got out of his car and walked towards Jackson’s car screaming. Jackson proceeded to open his door, Bevan then touched the door, which is when Jackson reportedly shot him.

Bevan was transported to the hospital with life-threatening injuries and later pronounced dead.

There were children in both vehicles at the time of the shooting, and Bevan’s son even took one of the videos that Mitchell watched of the incident.

What is the law behind the Tempe road rage shooter not being indicted?

According to Mitchell, the law states that if a reasonable person believes the use of deadly force is immediately necessary to protect themselves or someone else against another person’s deadly force, then they’re justified in doing that under the law.

“But it’s also very difficult from a prosecution standpoint because what the law also says is if the defendant raises a claim of self-defense, then the prosecution has to disprove that beyond a reasonable doubt. And so that’s a very high burden,” Mitchell said. “But then we look at a grand jury, all they’re there to do is to see if there’s probably cause, much lower standard. And the grand jury unanimously said not to indict here.”

Mitchell said that the shooting, even though Jackson was not indicted, is still life-changing behavior  — citing a case from the previous week where a different road rage shooter in south Phoenix was sentenced to life in prison.

“And even if we look at this case and nothing else happens criminally with it, this person’s still in for a very long lawsuit for a lot money,” Mitchell said regarding the possibility of a civil lawsuit.

The county attorney said that far too often her office is seeing cases of people shooting or pointing a gun at someone during a road rage incident. Mitchell reminded Arizonans that even pointing a gun at someone and not shooting is a crime.

“It’s aggravated assault and it comes with a mandatory prison sentence of five to 15 years,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell emphasized that there are other options besides shooting someone when a road rage incident occurs.

“I get the fear of somebody very angry coming up to my car, but you’re in your car. You can lock the door, you can drive away, there are a lot of other options, but what we have now is a dead dad,” Mitchell said. “If you get into a situation like that the best thing you can do is pull over, pull into a public spot, do not engage (because) you never know who’s going to have a gun (and) shoot. It’s not worth it.”

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