WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. _ Calling him a killer who wounded the law enforcement community, prosecutors this week asked a judge to keep former Palm Beach Gardens police officer Nouman Raja in prison as he fights his convictions and 25-year prison sentence for the 2015 shooting death of stranded motorist Corey Jones.
Raja's attorneys this month asked Circuit Judge Joseph Marx to free Raja as he appeals the guilty verdicts a Palm Beach County jury returned against him in March on manslaughter and attempted murder charges. The convictions make the now imprisoned 41-year-old the first police officer in three decades to be held criminally liable for taking a life while on duty.
Assistant State Attorney Brian Fernandes objected to Raja's request Monday, asking Marx in a six-page court filing to reject it without conducting a hearing. Florida Department of Corrections records show Raja arrived at a prison reception center from the Palm Beach County jail on May 1, less than a week after Marx sentenced him.
Marx ordered Raja's 25-year sentences to run at the same time, a fact Fernandes on Monday wrote would render Raja's strongest argument on appeal moot.
Among other claims, Raja's defense team will argue to an appellate court that he should not have been convicted and sentenced for both manslaughter and attempted murder in a case that involved a single death. But even a victory on that point would only vacate one of the two convictions, Fernandes wrote, leaving Raja to still serve 25 years on the other.
"It is the state's position that there are no fairly debatable, non-frivolous grounds for a defense appeal that could result in the defendant's exoneration and freedom from incarceration," Fernandes wrote.
Earlier this month, Raja appellate attorney Steven Malone told Marx in court filings that Raja was entitled to an appellate bond and reiterated several issues Raja's defense team raised before and during Raja's weeklong trial, which began in late February with several days of jury selection.
Aside from the objections related to the charges, Raja's defense team has argued that Marx erroneously ruled against them regarding jury instructions and wrongly kept them from calling more than one medical examiner to refute the claims of the state's medical examiner, Dr. Gertrude Juste.
Juste performed Jones' autopsy on Oct. 18, 2015, hours after the church and reggae band drummer died from a gunshot wound that ripped through his heart after a short confrontation with Raja.
At the time, Jones' broken down SUV was on the off-ramp of Interstate 95 at PGA Boulevard and he was on the phone with a roadside assistance operator asking for a tow truck.
Raja, who was working a plainclothes burglary detail, drove the wrong way up the exit ramp in an unmarked van. He shot Jones three times after, he said, Jones pointed a gun at him. Jones gun was found, unfired, more than 40 yards away from his body.
A key piece of evidence in Raja's trial was a recording of Jones' roadside assistance call, which captures both the brief exchange between the two men and the subsequent shooting. The recording contradicted Raja's claims to investigators that he had introduced himself as a police officer to Jones when he approached him.
Jones' loved ones, who are pursuing a wrongful death suit against the city of Palm Beach Gardens, have said they believe Jones died without ever realizing that Raja was a police officer.
"In the present case, the Defendant has shown not only a disrespect for the law by the commission of his violent crimes, but he has also inflicted an egregious wound to the law enforcement community by betraying the principles of justice, community protection, and bravery intended to safeguard the public," Fernandes wrote.
Raja, who was arrested in 2016, had been free on a $250,000 bond and house arrest until the six-member jury convicted him after less than five hours of deliberation. Fernandes, in his objection to Raja's release on appeal, told Marx that while Raja's legal team was confident in his exoneration before his trial, having the real prospect of a 25-year sentence ahead of him could make him a flight risk if Marx releases him now.
A decision from Florida's 4th District of Appeal could take two years or longer.
