{"id":181591,"date":"2026-04-19T06:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T10:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=181591"},"modified":"2026-04-18T15:31:53","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T19:31:53","slug":"sunday-fgs-322","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=181591","title":{"rendered":"Sunday FGS"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nSmith & Wesson 500<\/a><\/p>\n

Judge who tossed jury’s murder verdict finds man not guilty at new trial<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bethany Bruner
\nA Columbus man who fatally shot another man during a December 2023 altercation and was convicted of murder before having that verdict overturned will not spend any time in prison.<\/p>\n

LaRoy Robinson, 51, initially faced murder, felonious assault and other charges in connection with the Dec. 2, 2023, shooting death of 46-year-old Malik Islam.<\/p>\n

On April 16, Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Mark Serrott convicted Robinson of illegally having weapons after a prior felony conviction. Serrott found Robinson not guilty of murder, felonious assault, tampering with evidence and improperly shooting a firearm.<\/p>\n

Serrott sentenced Robinson to five years of probation. As part of his sentence, Robinson is required to pay a $1,000 fine and all court costs and fees.<\/p>\n

Robinson went to trial in May 2024, and a jury convicted him of murder and other charges. After the trial, and following a motion from Robinson’s attorney, Serrott set aside the jury verdict.<\/p>\n

In his decision, Serrott said he gave the jury improper instructions on how to evaluate whether Robinson acted in self-defense, which led to an error of law that left no other choice but to undo the verdict.<\/p>\n

On April 13, Robinson had a second trial but waived his right for a jury, instead asking Serrott to hear the evidence and decide the case himself.<\/p>\n

Robinson presented evidence at his trial that around 12:10 a.m. Dec. 2, he was sitting in a parked car on the 2000 block of Cornell Avenue on the city’s Northeast Side when Islam approached him and became verbally aggressive.<\/p>\n

After a second verbal confrontation, Robinson testified Islam reached into his pocket for what Robinson thought was a gun. Robinson fired a single shot, hitting Islam and then drove away from the scene.<\/p>\n

Robinson said the shooting was in self-defense and Islam was known to have a reputation for being violent and dangerous.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No Score
\nDispatch<\/a><\/p>\n

As a convicted felon Mr. Robinson most likely also has a reputation, but his story is the only one told.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Smith & Wesson 500 Judge who tossed jury’s murder verdict finds man not guilty at new trial Bethany Bruner A Columbus man who fatally shot another man during a December 2023 altercation and was convicted of murder before having that verdict overturned will not spend any time in prison. LaRoy Robinson, 51, initially faced murder, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":657,"featured_media":181593,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[218],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feel-good-stories"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/sw500.jpg?fit=1600%2C1067&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4ozh1-LeT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/657"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=181591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/181593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=181591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=181591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=181591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}