Friday was the last day of the Curtis Reeves stand-your-ground hearing, and the judge expects to enter a ruling by March 10.

  • Closing arguments in Pasco 'stand your ground' movie theater shooting case 
  • Curtis Reeves, 74, facing second degree murder charges
  • Chad Oulson was shot and killed in theater in January 2014
  • Judge to decide outcome of hearing in coming days
  • Previous stories on this case

Reeves is facing second-degree murder charges for shooting and killing Chad Oulson inside Cobb Theatre back in 2014.

Reeves' attorney, Richard Escobar, began closing arguments Friday morning, bringing Judge Susan Barthle back to the day they brought her to Cobb Theatre.

"We wanted to give you the experience of seeing just how close that 6-foot-4, 200-pound Chad Oulson was to Mr. Reeves,” Escobar said.

Escobar talked about Reeves' accolades as a police officer, how he's old and frail, and how the investigation was flawed.

"What do we see here, forget the phone if you want to, or the shoe if you want to, we see Mr. Oulson coming into Mr. Reeves' row," Escobar said about the surveillance video. "It's as clear as day."

Escobar's most important argument is that Reeves feared for his life. "A 6-foot-4 individual standing, trying to come over that chair is terrifying," Escobar said.

The prosecution, on the other hand, asked the judge in its closing arguments not to buy the story of a scared old man.

"One word, retaliation. Throw popcorn on me will you? Bang! Retaliation,” assistant state attorney Glenn Martin said about Reeves.

Martin asked the question, 'Who's really invading whose space,' showing in the surveillance video Reeves coming into Oulson's space more than once.

He pointed out that when Oulson threw the popcorn, there was nothing in his hands and that he couldn't have thrown his own cell phone at Reeves.

"Both of (Reeves) hands are down, he never raises his hand up to his face. As to see he was hit with a blunt object the weight of a cue ball, the weight of a baseball, we don’t see that," Martin said. "There’s got to be some pain involved. He had to know that he was hit, but we don’t see that reaction."

Judge Barthle said she will enter a ruling no later than next Friday.

If she believes stand your ground applies to Reeves, he will be immune from prosecution including any civil action by Oulson's family.