MESA — A grand jury has indicted Dulance Morin, who was an Arizona Attorney General’s Office investigator when he is accused of fatally shooting his Mesa neighbor in February, on one count of negligent homicide, 12News reported Monday.
The indictment moves the case into court after months of review. Mesa police had recommended the same charge in March and sent their findings to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, which was responsible for deciding whether to prosecute.
An indictment is a formal accusation, not a finding of guilt, and Morin is presumed innocent. Details such as his first court date were not immediately available Monday morning.
What happened
Maria Lewis, 32, a mother of seven, was found shot to death near the front door of Morin’s home after police were called for a welfare check around 2:45 a.m. Feb. 28 in a neighborhood near Ellsworth and Ray roads in southeast Mesa.
Records described by FOX 10 Phoenix said a neighbor heard yelling around 2:15 that morning and that Lewis had been arguing with her husband before she went to Morin’s doorstep. Morin told detectives Lewis was pounding on his door, and that when he warned her he was armed she replied that she had a gun as well, according to those records. He told investigators he did not remember the door opening or pulling the trigger, but acknowledged the shot came from his hand and called it an accident.
Morin, who was 47 at the time of the shooting, joined the attorney general’s office in 2016 and was placed on administrative leave after the shooting. In documents obtained by Arizona’s Family in March, the attorney general’s office said its review did not support a negligent homicide charge, particularly when weighed with Arizona’s self-defense laws. A police union, Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 58, publicly backed Morin and pointed to his record without discipline.
Why it matters
Under Arizona law, negligent homicide means causing a death by failing to recognize a substantial and unjustifiable risk, and it is a class 4 felony. Because Morin works for the state’s top law enforcement office, County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said earlier this year that her office would vet the case thoroughly and that no one assigned to it knew him personally.
The case drew added attention after FOX 10 identified a former attorney general’s investigator seen on video at Morin’s home hours after the shooting appearing to work on a doorbell camera. Morin’s attorney, Larry Kazan, said at the time that the man was helping a friend clean up and replace a camera police had taken as evidence.
Thee Arizona Times will follow the case as it moves through Maricopa County Superior Court.
Photo: Zeb Micelli via Wikimedia Commons (CC0 public domain). File photo of the Maricopa County Superior Court South Court Tower in Phoenix.