A murder charge against a Fairfield man in the 2021 shooting death of a 27-year-old mother of three has been dismissed under the state’s Stand Your Ground law.
A Jefferson County grand jury in February 2022 indicted 45-year-old Cliven Milton on intentional murder in the slaying of Ladiamonique Esta Zaire Simmons, who was his wife’s cousin.
Milton was not initially charged in the fatal shooting, but a Bessemer Cutoff grand jury issued the indictment against him five months later.
A lengthy Stand Your Ground hearing was held on Aug. 1, 2023 – during which Milton and his wife testified – and this week Circuit Judge David Carpenter granted the motion to dismiss, which had been filed by Milton’s attorney Jason Wollitz. His wife testified in his defense.
Zaire-Simmons was killed Sept. 16, 2021.
Jefferson County sheriff’s deputies responded shortly after 1 a.m. that Thursday to the shooting at a home in the 500 block of Osceola Circle.
Deputies arrived to find that an argument between family members resulted in shots being fired.
Zaire-Simmons was struck and taken to the hospital where she was later pronounced dead at 2:16 a.m. She was the mother of three young boys.
Milton was gone by the time authorities arrived but did call and report the shooting. He told authorities he would be waiting at a nearby convenience store where deputies were able to make contact with him.
The Stand Your Ground law protects an individual from criminal prosecution if that person can prove that he or she used deadly force in self-defense or defense of another and:
- Reasonably believe that another person was using, or was about to use, deadly force
- He or she was not engaged in any criminal activity
- He or she was in a place where he or she has a right to be
Wollitz in April 2023 filed a motion to dismiss the murder charge under the Stand Your Ground law.
Milton, the attorney said, was in his own home and Zaire-Simmons had been asked to leave.
Zaire-Simmons fired her gun at Milton, and he believed she was trying to kill him.
Prosecutors argued that Milton is a convicted felon and therefore could not legally be in possession of a gun.
Milton told authorities he had been in a physical altercation early that night with his wife because he believed she was having an extramarital affair. When it was over, he said, he went to sleep.
He later woke up to go to the bathroom and saw Zaire-Simmons at his home – a baby in one hand and a gun in the other, he said.
Milton testified that he said hello to Zaire-Simmons, who often frequented the home and whom he did not like being at his home, and said she didn’t respond.
He said she kept bumping into him and at one point said, “I’ll shoot you, you (expletive).”
Milton went into his bedroom and he was telling his wife to tell Zaire-Simmons to leave.
He said he heard Zaire-Simmons on the phone telling someone that he had pulled a gun on her, and he was afraid she was summoning someone to his home.
Then, Milton said, she fired a shot at him. There was a dispute over whether she actually fired a shot or just pointed the gun at him.
He returned fire, striking Zaire-Simmons.
Prosecutors argued that Milton was a convicted felon, and therefore was not allowed to be in possession of a firearm.
Milton testified, however, that the gun used to shoot Zaire-Simmons belonged to his wife, and he had gotten it off her nightstand for self-defense.
Judge Carpenter, in his March 12 ruling, said Milton was in his own home, a place he had a legal right to be, when he was threatened by a visitor whose “permissive status in the home had been revoked.”
Milton, he said, was not the initial aggressor.
“Although the defendant was a convicted felon, and therefore could not legally be in possession of a firearm, the defendant has satisfied his burden that he reasonable feared death or serious injury from an imminent threat,’’ Carpenter wrote.
“He had not recklessly placed himself in the path of that threat, had no reasonable alternative than to take possession of the firearm,’’ the ruling states. “He reasonably believed that temporary possession of the firearm would avert the threat and he maintained possession only as long as necessary to avoid the threat.”
