WOMAN CLEARED IN DEPUTY SHOOTING

Based on the "Make My Day" law, the defendant was justified in using
physical force.

A 70-year-old woman who benefitted from a "Make My Day" legal defense was
cleared Thursday of criminal wrongdoing for shooting a law officer during
an ill-fated drug raid in 1996.

A Tulsa jury acquitted Mary Lou Coonfield of two felonies -- assault and
battery with a dangerous weapon and feloniously pointing a weapon.

Testimony indicated that she fired a .22-caliber pistol and wounded Tulsa
County Deputy Sheriff Newt Ellenbarger, one of eight officers from multiple
law enforcement agencies at her Sperry residence to execute a search
warrant around 7 a.m. on Aug. 30, 1996.

Officers were there to search for drugs. However, jurors could not hear any
testimony about drug evidence that investigators reported was recovered
from the premises, because of multiple court rulings in 1996 and 1997 that
determined that officers had used a defective search warrant.

Since the warrant was determined to be invalid after the raid, District
Judge Jefferson Sellers told jurors Thursday that "as a matter of law the
entry of the officers" into Coonfield's house "was unlawful."

Based on the "Make My Day" law enacted in Oklahoma in 1991, the jury was
instructed that an "occupant of a house is justified in using physical
force, including deadly force, against another person who has unlawfully
entered the house if the occupant reasonably believes that the other person
might use any physical force, no matter how slight, against any occupant of
the house."

Coonfield testified Wednesday that she had no idea that the people who
entered her home were law officers until after she fired one shot that
struck Ellenbarger in the arm.

"I was not shooting at anyone. I just shot. I'm very sorry. I certainly
wouldn't have shot a policeman," she said. "I just wanted to get them out
of the house so I could get some help."

Assistant District Attorney David Robertson said officers loudly and
clearly announced their identities as law officers with a search warrant --
and wore clothing with departmental badges and markings -- before forcibly
entering the residence.

"This is not Aunt Bea from `Mayberry, RFD,' " Robertson said of the
defendant. Although the warrant was later ruled invalid, there was a reason
that it was issued by a special judge to allow officers to conduct a search
there, he told jurors.

Defense attorney Bob Brown urged the jury to evaluate the situation from
Coonfield's perspective. Brown said she has a hearing problem, was not
wearing her glasses and made a split-second decision after being awakened
and seeing a man with a gun outside her house.

In addition to being cleared of an allegation of assaulting Ellenbarger,
Coonfield was acquitted of feloniously pointing a weapon at Deputy Sheriff
Lance Ramsey.

By law, the prosecution had the burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt
that Coonfield was not defending herself against an intruder.

To be convicted of the gun-pointing charge, jurors would have had to find
that Coonfield acted without "lawful cause," and it is lawful to point a
pistol "in defense of one's person against an intruder," according to the
instructions issued by Sellers.

While specific details of the warrant and property recovered in the search
were not allowed into evidence, jurors could have surmised from testimony
about duty assignments of the officers that drugs were a target.

Two other counts -- possessing methamphetamine and possessing a firearm
while in commission of a felony drug possession -- were previously
dismissed against Coonfield because they hinged on drug evidence that could
not be used in court due to warrant problems.

In prior court rounds, Brown successfully argued that the language and
description in the search warrant and supporting affidavit -- naming
Coonfield and her son and describing four buildings on the property -- was
not sufficiently specific. Brown had argued that the law disapproved of a
"blanket" warrant for the search of property involving multiple occupants,
owners and places.

Drug charges were likewise dropped against her son, Johnnie Lee Stafford,
because of the flawed warrant, attorneys said. Testimony indicated that
Stafford lived in a separate neighboring residence when the raid was
conducted.

The search warrant affidavit, signed by a Tulsa police officer, said an
informant reported that Stafford was selling methamphetamine "from his and
his mother's residence" at a Sperry address.

"I live alone," Coonfield said Wednesday. "I always thought everybody had a
right to protect themselves in their own home."