Former Florida State receiver Travis Rudolph acquitted in murder trial

Former Florida State receiver Travis Rudolph was found not guilty Wednesday by a South Florida jury on four charges stemming from a 2021 shooting that left a man dead after a confrontation outside of Rudolph’s Florida home.

The 12-person Palm Beach County jury, according to The Palm Beach Post, 

agreed that Rudolph acted in self-defense when he fatally shot one man and injured another in April 2021. Rudolph was facing one count of first-degree murder and three counts of attempted murder. The jury also chose not to convict Rudolph on lesser offenses, including second-degree murder and manslaughter.

From The Palm Beach Post’s

report on the jury decision:

The charges against Rudolph stemmed from a late-night incident on April 7, 2021, in which four young men appeared on his doorstep to confront him about a dispute he had with his girlfriend hours earlier. The confrontation turned violent, Rudolph said, and he armed himself with a semi-automatic rifle.

Prosecutors said the men had stopped fighting Rudolph and were trying to flee in a black Cadillac 300 feet away from Rudolph’s home when the football player fired 39 rounds into their car, killing Sebastien Jean-Jacques in the passenger seat and wounding Tyler Robinson in the back of the car. Rudolph testified that both men were pointing guns back at him, though investigators said they never found evidence to support his claim.

Rudolph asked Circuit Judge Jeffrey Gillen to dismiss the case last year on the basis of Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, which permits the use of deadly force to protect against death or great bodily harm. Gillen denied his request, leaving jurors to decide whether Rudolph ended Jean-Jacques’ life to save his own.

Rudolph, 27, was FSU’s leading receiver in 2015 and 2016 and ended his career with 2,311 receiving yards and 18 touchdowns. He went undrafted in the 2017 NFL Draft but would go on to spend time with the New York Giants and Miami Dolphins. His only NFL appearances came in 2017, when he played in 7 games for the Giants and caught 8 passes for 101 yards.