Judge denies Stand Your Ground motion in Couture slaying

James Matthew Menard. Collier County Sheriff's Office

NAPLES — The suspect in the shooting death of Gulf Coast High student Jake Couture remains on a path toward trial after failing to gain immunity under the state’s Stand Your Ground law on Wednesday.

James Menard, 24, faces a maximum life sentence in prison if convicted of second-degree murder in the New Year’s Day shooting that killed Couture, 17, and injured two of his friends at a North Naples apartment complex.

After more than two hours of witness testimony, acting Collier Circuit Judge Michael Provost denied Menard’s motion. He also rejected the theory that Menard acted in self-defense, a bad sign for the defendant as he approaches trial.

“I think in this particular case, the evidence suggests the defendant was the aggressor,” Provost concluded.

With few facts of the case in dispute, Menard will still seek to convince a jury he was defending himself, his attorney, Tim Moffitt, told reporters after the decision.

“It’s a self-defense case,” he said. “I’ve said that from the very beginning.”

The shooting erupted in the Brittany Bay Apartments parking lot following a sudden meeting of two groups of young men, one with Menard and the other including Couture.

Couture, Michael Fleitas, Brandon Standifer and Brandon Morales were returning to Morales’ apartment after a run to a convenience store when they discovered Menard’s group standing near the door. Menard was accompanied by friends Phillip Markle and Jacob Markham. His roommate, Carlos Jesus Nazco, stood at a distance, near the truck in which the group had arrived.

Witness statements included in court documents but excluded from the courtroom suggest Menard’s group arrived seeking retaliation over an alleged robbery of Markle and Markham at Brittany Bay earlier in the day.

When the two groups met, Standifer confronted Menard as Couture and his friends stood by the entryway to Morales’ apartment. Standifer shoved Menard, causing him to fall backward. The suspect pulled a gun and fired several times, striking Standifer in the chest, Fleitas in the buttocks and Couture in the back.

Florida’s 2005 Stand Your Ground generally permits the use of lethal force when a defendant has a “reasonable fear” of death or serious injury and is allowed to be at the location of the incident.

The statute is applied as a protection from prosecution, and it places the burden of proof upon the defendant.

Moffitt argued that his client was spooked by a toy gun held by Morales, and that he responded with force upon Standifer’s aggression.

His first witness, Nazco, said he saw Morales retrieve the gun from the apartment after Standifer instructed him to “get the fire.”

“It looked like a big gun,” Nazco said. “It looked like an Uzi-type thing.”

Dallas Hubbard, 18, a neighbor of Morales, said she saw the teenager waving the gun and “acting like a retard.” But Morales wasn’t standing as close to Menard as Standifer, she said, and he wasn’t being obvious.

“So I think I was the only one who saw it,” Hubbard told Provost.

Prosecutor Mara Marzano challenged several of Moffit’s assertions, among them that Menard had the right to be inside Brittany Bay, a gated community where no one in Menard’s group resided.

Nazco had claimed that his sister, a resident, had given him blanket permission to enter the complex at will. Yet he also admitted that on the night of the shooting, the group entered Brittany Bay by driving through an open exit gate after a car passed through, and he said his sister didn’t know he was there.

Marzano also noted that Couture’s group repeatedly told Menard to leave the complex.

“He was not invited there, he was not a guest there, he came with a weapon,” she told Provost. “He entered in a non-lawful way. He is not entitled to the immunity of the (statute).”

Family members of Couture, Menard and other participants in the incident filled the courtroom for the hearing. All declined comment.

Menard will return to court on Jan. 7 for a procedural appearance. He also faces two counts of attempted second-degree murder and a count of armed trespass.

Collier Circuit Judge Franklin Baker is handling the case.