ORLANDO, Fla. — A new motion filed by Markeith Loyd’s attorney suggests that Orlando police ignored evidence that Lt. Deborah Clayton first fired at Loyd when she confronted him in the parking lot of a Walmart in 2017.
Loyd is accused of shooting and killing Clayton that day.
The attorney says that police failed to take a look into Clayton’s actions, which could have been against policy.
Loyd’s team claims this is possible because the Orlando Police Department had a “overwhelming bias against Loyd for killing one of their own, making them incapable of looking at this case objectively.”
Prosecutors said the two encountered each other in the parking lot, where Loyd was caught on surveillance video fatally shooting Clayton.
Read: A timeline of the Markeith Loyd cases
This is a good indication of Loyd’s defense strategy for the second murder trial, scheduled for later this year.
“In a death case, you can’t not try every possible legal avenue to save your client’s life,” said Bill Sheaffer, Channel 9′s legal analyst.
The defense said it has videos of Loyd in police custody after the shooting that show detectives verbally abusing him, calling him names, and violating internal policy by failing to provide him medical care for hours.
Officers injured Loyd during his arrest, but an investigation found the officers’ use of force was justified.
Sheaffer said the defense is trying to show the police department was biased.
“The likelihood is this evidence isn’t going to result in an acquittal, but if they can convince one to have sympathy or buy into their alternative narrative, then they’ll keep their client off death row,” he said.
Loyd has already been convicted of killing his pregnant ex-girlfriend, Sade Dixon.
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