Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal reversed Amari T. Wellons’s first-degree murder conviction and sent the case back for a new trial. The panel concluded that jurors should have been allowed to hear evidence about an earlier shooting at Wellons’s home because it could have helped explain his state of mind and his decision to leave the beach.
The evidentiary issue
The excluded evidence concerned a rival group’s firing of shots into Wellons’s home about a month before the December 2020 beach shooting. The defense said that history gave context to testimony that people followed Wellons and his siblings as they left the beach. Their position was that Wellons ran because he believed he was in danger, not because he had fired a weapon. The Tampa Free Press reported the trial evidence and the defense argument.
The appellate court focused on how the prosecution used Wellons’s flight. Prosecutors argued that he had opened fire during a confrontation between two groups and treated his departure as evidence of guilt. The judges determined that the state had not shown the exclusion of the prior-shooting evidence was harmless, particularly in light of that emphasis.
What happens next
A Palm Beach County jury convicted Wellons in May 2025 of first-degree murder with a firearm after less than an hour of deliberation. He received a 50-year prison sentence in August 2025, according to the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office. The appellate ruling vacates that conviction and sentence, returning the matter to Palm Beach County Circuit Court for a new trial.
Maria Tritico was killed by a stray bullet while sitting with her fiancé near Ocean Walk on Singer Island Beach in December 2020. She worked as director of education at the Lighthouse ArtCenter in Tequesta, according to KRIV FOX 26 Houston. Her father, Houston criminal defense attorney and legal analyst Chris Tritico, had earlier urged the court to ensure that Wellons received competent representation, the station reported.
