HILLSBORO, Ohio — The trial of a former Highland County Sheriff's Deputy is underway, one year after the Ohio Attorney General's Office charged him with reckless homicide for the shooting death of a Hillsboro man.
Jonathan Malone, who was a road supervisor at the time, sat between his two attorneys in the Highland County Common Pleas Court on Monday, just feet away from the jury of seven women and five men tasked with determining whether his actions recklessly caused the death of 58-year-old Richard Poulin.
Police allege on July 17, 2022, Poulin refused to stop after deputies tried to pull him over for a traffic violation at around 2 a.m., the Ohio Attorney General's Bureau of Criminal Investigation said. At one point, deputies said they used stop sticks in an attempt to stop Poulin's vehicle.
Eventually, he was shot and killed near 5760 U.S. 62 in Hillsoboro.
Previously, only Malone's attorney provided additional information on the shooting while BCI and Highland County law enforcement remained tight lipped. That is until Special Prosecutor Chris Kinsler addressed the jury in opening statements.
Kinsler said following a roughly 13-minute pursuit and multiple attempts to immobilize Poulin's pickup truck with stop sticks, the chase finally ended when Poulin's tires were shredded off the rims. But Poulin continued to ignore orders to get out of his car, even turning up his radio and rolling up the windows, Kinsler said.
Malone, along with other deputies, approached the car with his gun drawn. After one deputy failed to break the passenger side window with the butt of his gun, Malone walked over to the driver side window and began hitting it with his baton, Kinsler said.
The baton was in his right hand and the gun in his left hand, Kinsler said, but as he hit the vehicle with the baton a second time, his gun went off and a bullet hit Poulin in the neck.
Kinsler acknowledged Poulin was violating the law leading up to and at the time of the shooting.
”Let me be clear, Mr. Poulin is violating the law. He’s violating traffic laws and he’s failing to comply with an order of a police officer," he said.
Kinsler stressed he isn't arguing Malone intended to kill Poulin, rather his case comes down to this: was it reckless of Malone to hold his gun in his non-dominant hand while exerting force on the baton with his right hand, ultimately causing the gun to fire?
"The defendant's conduct and the way he handled the situation was reckless and it led to the death of Richard Poulin. Richard Poulin didn't need to die. Richard Poulin was not armed. None of the officers perceived a threat sufficient that they felt the need to use deadly force in self defense," Kinsler said to the jury.
Kinsler told jurors Malone should have held his gun in his dominant right hand, not the baton. Highland County Sheriff’s deputies train annually to use both hands during target practice but are only required to fire 4 to 5 rounds at a target with their non-dominant hand.
In his opening statement, Malone's lead defense attorney Joshua Engel told jurors while Poulin's death was a tragedy, the former deputy did not act recklessly. Malone followed his years of training and protocol and was not the one who created a dangerous situation that night, Engel said.
First to testify on the stand was Highland County Sheriff's Deputy Steven Alexander, who helped respond to the the pursuit that night.
Alexander said Poulin was driving erratically and posing a threat to his fellow officers and the community. He stressed that to both Kinsler and Engel during questioning.
"So you knew you were going to have to remove him from the vehicle, probably?" Engel asked, to which Alexander replied "yes."
"And you knew when you approached the vehicle he might be armed," Engel asked.
"There was a possibility, yes," Alexander replied.
The deputy said he was just feet away from Malone when he heard a loud pop.
"It was like nothing I had ever heard before," he said. “Sgt. Malone had told me that he had no idea what had happened - that he had not pulled the trigger."
Alexander also revealed his department does not have any cruiser cameras, nor body-worn cameras.
The jury heard testimony from two other deputies who worked alongside Malone that night. After court adjourned for the day, Kinsler told the judge he planned to call three more witnessed to the stand including a defense expert in police training.
Engel said Malone will also be taking the stand in his own defense.
Malone has pleaded not guilty. If convicted of reckless homicide, he could be sentenced to three years in prison and would be prohibited from carrying a gun.
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