MIAMI – After more than three years, the manslaughter trial began Friday for Mexican actor Pablo Lyle in Miami.
It was back in 2019 when a car Lyle was in cut off another vehicle driven by 63-year-old Juan Ricardo Hernandez on Northwest 27th Avenue, near 14th Street as Lyle and his family were heading to the airport.
Police said Hernandez got out of his car and hit the window of the car Lyle was in with his fist.
Surveillance video shows Lyle getting out of the front passenger seat, and punching Hernandez once, knocking him out before continuing on to the airport.
Hernandez eventually died from his injuries.
Since the beginning, surveillance video has been a key piece of evidence.
After listening to opening statements though, it’s clear jurors will have to decide between two vastly different interpretations of the same incident.
“Mr. Hernandez doesn’t take a fighting stance. When he realized that someone is running towards him, he turns around and he puts his hands up,” prosecutor Shawn Abhuhof said. “And the evidence will show that (Mr. Lyle) is going to cause harm. He’s going to strike Mr. Hernandez in the face because he blames Mr. Hernandez for this situation.”
Defense attorney Bruce Lehr, however, countered that Hernandez was the initial aggressor.
“This has been described as a case of road rage and indeed it is, but not road rage by Mr. Lyle -- road rage by the deceased,” he said. “He approaches Hernandez. Hernandez puts his hands up. Only he doesn’t put them up, he puts them up (mimicking a fighting stance), the evidence will show. And Mr. Lyle instinctively, without any intent or thought, hits him once.”
On Thursday, the judge heard several motions, most of them from the defense -- things regarding what type of questioning can be permitted from certain witnesses and whether certain phrases can be said.
One of those defense motions was an effort to suppress statements Lyle made to police while at Miami International Airport.
The defense argued the Miami Police Department didn’t have jurisdiction there, so whatever he said while in their custody shouldn’t be heard at trial.
The judge denied that motion, partly because she ruled that the Miami Police Department had probable cause for Lyle’s arrest at the original scene and that the officer was operating under terms of a mutual aid agreement between her department and the Miami-Dade Police Department.