Yesterday, a Dallas County jury found 27-year-old Jaedon Stallworth not guilty of murder in the 2023 shooting death of 31-year-old Javoski Dawson, the stranger who stepped into what witnesses described as a domestic dispute at a northwest Dallas apartment complex. Dawson was shot on April 11, 2023, in a breezeway confrontation that played out in seconds, with the trial later revolving around grainy surveillance footage, clashing witness accounts, and sharply different versions of what those few moments meant.
Jurors watched surveillance video that prosecutors said showed Dawson walking through a gated breezeway with a handgun in his hand. At trial, however, Quinntoria Hall, who testified that she had been arguing with Stallworth earlier that night, told the court she never saw Dawson raise or point the gun. Her account became a focal point for deliberations, according to The Dallas Morning News.
Stallworth’s attorneys argued that he fired because he believed he was about to be shot and that he was justified in using deadly force. After the verdict, defense lawyer Bree West said her client "was ecstatic." Jurors also heard about a jailhouse note attributed to Stallworth that read, "it's our word against a dead man. A dead man can't talk," a line that echoed uneasily in the courtroom as testimony unfolded. The jury deliberated for about five and a half hours before returning the not guilty verdict and, according to the defense team, concluded Stallworth had acted in self-defense, as reported by The Dallas Morning News.
Police Timeline And Video
Dallas police documented the shooting in the 2400 block of Southwell Road at the Palladium Dallas Stemmons apartments and, in 2023, released surveillance clips while asking the public for tips. In the department’s account, Stallworth and a woman argued; the woman left, then later returned, and Dawson was shot in a breezeway during the follow-up encounter. That version was laid out on the Dallas Police Department blog and picked up by local media at the time, with DPD Beat and FOX4 covering the early investigation and the police appeals for information.
Legal Stakes
If Stallworth had been convicted of murder, he would have faced a potential sentence stretching decades into the future. Under Texas law, murder is a first-degree felony that carries a punishment range of five to 99 years or life in prison, as set out in Tex. Penal Code § 19.02.
The acquittal ends the criminal case against Stallworth but leaves the 2023 shooting very much alive in the minds of Dawson’s family and neighbors, who saw that blurry video clip turn into a courtroom battle over what, and whom, to believe. The Dallas police investigation is recorded under case number 060842-2023 in department records.
