A jury has awarded millions of dollars to the family of the 15-year-old fatally shot by a former Balch Springs police officer.
After deliberating Monday, the jury in the civil trial of former Balch Springs police officer Roy Oliver awarded $21.6 million to the estate of Jordan Edwards, who was 15 years old when he was fatally shot as he left a party in a car in April 2017.
Of the total awarded, the jury awarded Jordan’s father, Odell Edwards, $10.6 million in compensatory damages and $11 million in punitive damages.
Oliver was convicted in August 2018 and is serving a 15-year prison sentence for murder. Monday, the six-person federal jury decided Oliver was responsible for Jordan’s death and that his actions violated the teen’s constitutional rights.
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Edwards's family sued Oliver for wrongful death and sought $8 million in damages. Following lengthy closing arguments Monday afternoon, the jury of five men and one woman was handed the case at about 1:30 p.m.
One of the questions for the jury to decide was whether Oliver used excessive or unreasonable force when he fired five times from his rifle toward a car driving away from him, whether he has qualified immunity since he was a police officer and is there a dollar amount that the family is entitled to based on what the slain teenager could have become.
One of those bullets fired by Oliver struck Edwards in the back of the head, killing him. Edwards and four others were leaving a house party that had been broken up by Balch Springs Police.
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Oliver told the jury the car was about to hit his partner. Oliver said he felt he had no other option but to fire. The other officer, however, testified that he did not fear for his life and never felt the need to fire his weapon. He also said he didn't feel like the vehicle was trying to hit him.
The defense, who argued Oliver didn't use excessive force and had qualified immunity, said any monetary amount awarded by the jury should be somewhere in the middle.
"This case brings attention, the greatest attention ever, to qualified immunity and why that doctrine should be abolished because there's simply no reason why a convicted felon should be in court now saying his actions were reasonable," Daryl Washington, an attorney representing the Edwards family, told NBC 5 Monday afternoon.
The family added the monetary damages are not a money grab but are about full accountability and that if they had their choice they'd have Jordan back.
Before closing arguments took place Monday afternoon, Oliver took the stand in his defense. During closing, Greg Marks, an attorney for the plaintiff, said the kind of conduct displayed by Oliver was reckless and eroded community trust in the police department.
In 2018, the jury in the criminal trial found Oliver not guilty of two counts of aggravated assault but made him the first on-duty police officer in Texas in 45 years to be found guilty of murder.
In his appeal, Oliver's lawyers argued there were more than a dozen separate issues with his trial, including that the court allowed evidence it should not have. In August 2020, the 5th Court of Appeals in Dallas disagreed and upheld his conviction. Four other aggravated assault charges against Oliver were dropped during his appeal but could be refiled later.
