Law360 (September 10, 2026, 10:50 PM EDT) -- A Florida appeals court ordered a new trial for a man convicted of fatally shooting a bystander during a heated argument with a group of boys, saying the trial court erred in withholding evidence from jurors that the group had previously fired shots into his home.

The three-judge panel ruled Wednesday that the evidence could have been used to cast doubt on prosecutors' claims that Amari T. Wellons was the shooter, and that prosecutors cannot prove the error was not harmless. Wellons was 16 years old at the time of the fatal shooting.

"The excluded evidence would not have compelled the jury to accept Wellons's explanation for fleeing the scene," Judge Cory J. Ciklin said in the opinion. "The excluded evidence merely would have permitted the jury to consider [Wellons'] explanation. Because the jury was denied that opportunity, we reverse and remand for a new trial."

Prosecutors alleged Wellons was involved in an argument between two groups of boys at a beach, and that he fired a shot at the opposing group but struck and killed an innocent bystander, the opinion said.

Video footage from a shop nearby the beach showed that shortly after the shooting, three boys were running in the area where shell casings were later recovered. The video did not show the shooting, but prosecutors allege the footage showed Wellons carrying the firearm, although no gun was recovered, the opinion said.

Wellons was charged with first-degree murder with a firearm.

The defense argued that a group of boys, described in the opinion as a "gang," had followed Wellons and his brothers after they left the beach. One of the boys following Wellons reached into a backpack "as if to withdraw something," the opinion said. A state witness supported the defense theory that Wellons and his brothers fled the scene in fear, the opinion said.

Wellons sought at trial to present evidence that the other group of boys had fired 25 bullets into his home about a month before the deadly shooting, the opinion said.

According to the reverse Williams rule from the 1959 Florida Supreme Court precedent in Williams v. State, a defendant cannot introduce evidence of separate crimes committed by another person in an attempt to prove someone else's possible culpability unless the evidence of the other crimes is relevant and has a "close similarity of facts, a unique or 'fingerprint' type of information," the opinion said.

The trial court refused to admit Wellons' evidence, saying that it violated the reverse Williams rule because the evidence of the group of boys' previous crimes was too dissimilar to the beach shooting, the opinion said.

Wellons was ultimately convicted of first-degree murder with a firearm. Wellons appealed the conviction arguing that the defense evidence about the prior crimes was incorrectly ruled inadmissible, the opinion said.

The Florida appeals court ruled that while the information about the prior crimes was correctly excluded as reverse Williams evidence, it should have been admitted for the limited purpose of explaining Wellons' flight. The panel said that while the evidence of a prior crime could not be admitted to prove the other group fired the shot, it could be used to explain why Wellons was running from the scene, the opinion said.

The panel said that because prosecutors sought to prove that Wellons' flight was indicative of his guilt in the shooting, the prior crime's evidence was significant. Admitting the evidence about the shooting of Wellons' residence could have an impact on the outcome of the trial, and was not harmless, the opinion said.

An attorney representing Wellons and a spokesperson for the Florida Attorney General's Office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Judges Cory J. Ciklin, Burton C. Conner and Mark W. Klingensmith sat on the panel for the Fourth District Court of Appeal of the State of Florida.

The state is represented by James Uthmeier and Sabina Fernandez of the Florida Attorney General's Office.

Wellons is represented by Antony P. Ryan and Richard G. Bartmon of the Office of Criminal Conflict and Civil Regional Counsel.

The case is Wellons v. State of Florida, case number 4D2025-2340, in the Fourth District Court of Appeal of the State of Florida.

--Editing by Jay Jackson Jr.

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