Newsday.com: Family of man in Vermont church shooting wants case before jury

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NEW YORK -- The family of a Vermont man who brandished a knife before a church congregation and was fatally shot by police asked a federal appeals court on Thursday to overrule a lower judge and let a jury decide whether the shooting was justified.

The lower judge ruled last year that it was reasonable for police to believe their lives or the lives of others were in danger when they confronted Robert Woodward at the church on a December Sunday in 2001.

But Joel Faxon, a lawyer for the family, told a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that critical facts about the shooting were unsettled and a jury should be allowed to hear the case.

"There's substantial evidence in the record suggesting no threat, no charge, no advance" on the officers by Woodward, Faxon told the judges. He said the lower judge disregarded some accounts by witnesses.

On the morning of Dec. 2, 2001, at the All Souls Unitarian Church in West Brattleboro, Vt., Woodward walked into the church carrying a 3 1/2-inch blade and addressed the congregation about conspiracies. When congregants began leaving, he threatened to hurt or kill himself, witnesses said.

Woodward, who grew up in Bozrah, Conn., was shot seven times by police who claimed he lunged at them with the knife, and he died later at a hospital. The Vermont attorney general later said the shooting, while tragic, was justified.

Faxon told the judges some eyewitnesses said they did not see Woodward lunge at the police.

But one of the judges on the panel, Edward Korman, suggested the lower judge gave less credit to those witnesses because they also said they were not watching Woodward or did not have clear sight of the shooting.

In that case, he said, the testimony of the police officers "seems to me to be the beginning and the end of the case." The three-judge panel did not immediately rule.

Arguing for the town of Brattleboro and the police officers, lawyer Bill Ellis noted that when the first shot struck Woodward in the arm, he still did not drop his knife.

"If he didn't have any intent to provoke an attack, he could have dropped the knife right then," Ellis said.

He said it was reasonable for the officers to believe they were in danger because Woodward was as close as 5 feet away from one officer and as close as 7 feet away from one person in the congregation.

"We can't be sitting here in the comfy confines of this courtroom second-guessing what happened that day," Ellis said. "It was tense. It was quick."