In the early morning hours of June 22, 2017, 53-year-old Michael Gardner was fatally shot in his apartment on Cliff Creek Crossing Drive, in Dallas, Texas.
A 911 caller reported seeing four people leaving Gardner’s apartment. A nearby resident told police she heard gunshots and saw two people running away, one man and one woman. One witness said that two people got into a gold-colored car, and two others got into Gardner’s Pontiac Gran Prix and drove away.
Subsequently, police were made aware of a gold-colored car with front end damage. On June 29, 2017, the police stopped a vehicle fitting the description. Twenty-six-year-old Larry Jean Hart was driving, and a passenger was in the front seat. After police recorded their identification, they were released.
Later that evening, police stopped the car again. This time, Rodneisha Jones, Hart’s girlfriend, was driving. She was arrested on an outstanding warrant. During questioning, Jones said that Hart had borrowed the car on the night of June 21, 2017. She said he had returned the car after midnight.
Jones consented to a search of the car and a search of her cell phone. While nothing of value was obtained from the car, the police found texts on Jones’s phone asking Hart why he had not brought the car back before 9 p.m.
The police called Hart, and he agreed to be interviewed in Jones’s apartment on June 30, 2017. During the interview, which was recorded on video, Hart stated he gave his “little partner” a ride to the apartments so the little partner could break into the little partner’s uncle's house.
Hart said he drove the little partner, a woman, and another man—none of whose real names he knew—to the apartment. He said he waited in the car with his flashers going while they went inside. Hart said he was offered money by the others, but he declined to take it.
Hart told the officers that someone he knew as “Jamarion” and another person he knew as “Mondo” or “Little Mondo” were involved and that he would get back to them with their names, but he never did.
On June 30, 2017, Hart was arrested and charged with capital murder. He would be the only person charged with the crime.
On November 4, 2019, Hart went to trial in Dallas County Criminal District Court.
In addition to testimony from neighbors who heard gunfire and saw either two or three or four people running, Plano police department detective Richard Hendrix, who was working on an FBI task force, testified that he extracted information from Hart’s cell phone.
The extraction showed that on June 22, 2017, a search had been conducted for “Dallas murders 2017.” It also showed a later search for “if he was the driver in a murder.” Hendrix also testified about the texts from Jones to Hart asking him to return the car.
Evidence also was presented that Hart’s cell phone was in the area of the shooting at the time it occurred.
A pathologist testified that Gardner had died of a single gunshot wound to the head. The wound was a contact wound, the pathologist said.
A police officer said Gardner’s apartment appeared to have been ransacked, but also conceded it might just have been an untidy apartment.
The prosecution introduced the video of Hart’s interview as well.
The defense contended that Hart was just being nice when he agreed to give the others a ride and that he had no idea what was going to happen. The defense, through questioning of Hart, sought to portray him as naïve and too inept with words and comprehension to understand what he was getting into. Although Hart spent part of his time with Jones, he also spent time in his home in Greenville, Texas, a town of about 28,000 located about 50 miles northeast of Dallas.
Hart said he was a “friendly person” with an “open heart” who gave people rides if asked, consistent with his small-town upbringing. Asked if it occurred to him that giving people rides could lead to problems, and whether things might be different in Dallas than they were in the small neighborhood in Greenville where he grew up, he said that he “never knew” because he “never just roamed,” sticking to a few spots in Dallas.
Asked by his defense lawyer if Hart’s reference to his “little partner” meant he had a close relationship with that individual, Hart said, “No sir, I just—I just use certain words like—I just have certain meanings for a lot of words. I mean, I don’t have—I guess the right comprehension skills to just—you know, referring to somebody as the right thing because I was always around just how I say words or just the people I’m around or just—it just—it rolls out of me, yes, sir.”
“So,” his defense attorney continued. “So you understand that this trial is about what—what it looks like some people did that you gave them a ride to. Do you understand that?”
Hart replied, “Can you repeat that?”
At that, the trial judge interrupted and excused the jury. He asked defense counsel about Hart’s competency to stand trial. The defense attorney asserted his belief that Hart was competent, but also indicated that he might agree to a competency evaluation out of an abundance of caution.
The court then questioned Hart, who said he understood the charge against him, had been able to communicate with his lawyer about the case, and understood everything that had occurred in trial so far.
The judge declared a recess during which Dr. Lisa Clayton, a psychologist, evaluated Hart for competency. When the trial resumed, the defense reported that Clayton had found Hart competent.
The defense sought to introduce the testimony of Clayton, who was prepared to testify that Hart had a low IQ—in the 70 to 80 range—and that persons with that IQ might not draw the same conclusions as to others’ motives, might not remember things while under stress, and be more naive. When the prosecution objected to Clayton’s testimony, the trial court excluded the testimony.
Hart then resumed testifying. He told the jury that he only knew Mondo by his nickname; that he didn’t see him very often; and that he couldn’t remember what he was thinking about when he gave Mondo a ride. He insisted he was unaware he was giving Mondo a ride to commit a crime. He said that when he learned that a burglary and murder had happened about 24 hours later, “It made me feel like, real dumb. It made me feel…it wasn’t right.”
Before the prosecution began cross-examining Hart, it argued that the defense had opened the door to character evidence pertaining to his level of sophistication and comprehension. The prosecution said that it knew Hart “to be a rapper where he does fluently form sentences and phrases and frequently writes rap [and this] directly relates to his ability to understand what people are communicating to him and form his own opinions about things.”
The defense objected, but the trial court allowed the evidence to be presented. During the cross-examination, the prosecution played two different rap videos. One was Hart’s segment of a collaboration with other rappers entitled “Off Days” and the other was a video entitled “I Won't Tell.”
The prosecution also presented four posts that Hart had made on Facebook. One had the words: “You know I draw down you draw attention slime.” Another was a photograph of Hart with a caption that read: “Pullup with them straps on me like Steve Urkel!!” A third showed Hart with a backpack and a caption reading “gotta hide the blicky.” The fourth was a statement that read: “Best advice i kan give my lil n----- dont get kaught.”
The prosecution contended that the subject matter of the videos was “guns, drugs, dirty money, and jail.” In Hart’s segment of “Off Days,” he was seen swinging one or two bottles with white labels and smoking what looked like a marijuana joint as he rapped about “pouring drink,” having “two glocks,” and being a “trap king.”
Hart was not visible in “I Won't Tell,” but could be heard rapping about various bad acts that he wouldn't admit to, including being “caught with dirty money” and “killing someone over a bill.” A cartoon image was visible throughout the video depicting three bottles of promethazine, which is sometimes used as a recreational drug.
Although the State attempted to draw a connection between the lyrics of “Off Days” to the shooting, Hart maintained that “Off Days” was nothing more than a song.
During his redirect examination, Hart also testified that he didn't write the lyrics to his segment of the video and that he was just lip syncing. He insisted that “I Won't Tell” was “just rap” and did not relate to the shooting.
He also said that his Facebook posts were merely lyrics by popular rap artists like Young Thug.
The defense closed its case by calling Hart’s mother, who testified that Hart had spent a significant amount of time in remedial courses and that he was bullied as a child. She said that he often did not understand others’ intentions and that he was eager to please people.
On November 8, 2019, the jury convicted Hart of capital murder. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
On direct appeal, Hart’s lawyers argued the trial court erred when it allowed the rap videos and the Facebook posts and denied Dr. Clayton’s testimony about Hart’s intelligence.
In August 2022, the Fifth District Texas Court of Appeals upheld the conviction. The court held that the rap videos were relevant to guilt or innocence in that they were a “small nudge toward proving a fact of consequence—specifically, appellant’s ability to comprehend, and to form intent regarding [Mondo]’s plan to break into Gardner’s home.”
The court held that because Hart had put his credulity at issue in his testimony and offered evidence to that effect, it was not erroneous to admit evidence rebutting it.
On May 8, 2024, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overruled that decision and vacated Hart’s conviction. The court held that the trial court’s permission to present the rap video evidence was an abuse of discretion. “In this case, any probative value of the rap videos and lyrics was outweighed by the overwhelming potential for prejudice and confusing the issues,” the court declared.
The court said that because Hart did not contest whether he drove four individuals to an apartment complex whereupon they committed capital murder, “the only issue at trial was mens rea, whether Hart knew what he was doing and should have foreseen the result.”
The court noted that the trial court declined to allow Clayton to testify. “Had Dr. Clayton been allowed to testify, she would have told the jury that individuals with diminished IQ trust others easily, are more naïve, don’t think abstractly about the motives of others, are more forgetful when under stress, and are generally more susceptible to manipulation by others,” the court said. “The jury, in this sense, was not allowed to hear [Hart’s] side of the story despite it having heard the State’s full story assisted by officers’ credibility determinations.”
“Then came the rap videos,” the court said. “After having heard the State cast [Hart] as a liar, as testified to by law enforcement, and being deprived of potentially helpful testimony from Dr. Clayton, the State introduced both rap videos to demonstrate [Hart] was literate and articulate.”
The court said, “[T]hese rap videos did very little to prove that fact and instead cast [Hart] and his fellow performers as criminals in general, untethered to the particular facts of the charged offense.”
In its final statement, the court said, “We think [Hart] stated our view on the issue at hand best when he said, ‘It’s just rap, m’am.’ Because the rap videos were highly prejudicial in nature…[Hart] has shown reversible error.”
On May 15, 2026, the prosecution dismissed the case and Hart was released.
– Maurice Possley
Posting Date: 05-22-2026
