A jury was tasked with addressing a key question in Jasmine Blake’s murder trial: Was she a victim of abuse who shot and killed her girlfriend to save her own life, or did she fabricate a story to make herself look like a victim after the fact?
Jurors left their answer to that question unclear with a partial not guilty verdict on Sept. 25 in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court that acquitted 32-year-old Blake of murder. Still, they convicted her of two counts of felonious assault related to the shooting.
Clyde Bennett II, Blake’s attorney, said in court the jury’s verdict is “legally erroneous.”
Blake fatally shot her girlfriend during a Feb. 1 dispute at the couple’s Walnut Hills apartment. They met in 2023. The following year, Blake relocated
from Baltimore to the Cincinnati area after being accepted into the University of Cincinnati’s nurse anesthesia program.
Diamond Rice, Blake's girlfriend from Baltimore, moved to Cincinnati a few months later.
Bennett said his client shot and killed 33-year-old Rice while being attacked and strangled, believing that her life was in danger. He described Blake as a survivor of intimate partner violence who was “in love with a violent woman that was abusive.”
“This is a self-defense case plain and simple,” Bennett said. He added that Blake called 911, tried to save Rice’s life with first aid, cooperated with police and didn’t try to leave the scene.
Prosecutors say woman shot girlfriend in 'cold-blooded murder'
Prosecutors argued that Blake did not mention being strangled when she called 911 or talked to police after the shooting, and there were no physical signs of strangulation or abuse.
The strangulation and accusations of past abuse were part of a story fabricated while Blake awaited trial, Hamilton County Assistant Prosecutor Charles Lippert said.
Rice went to the apartment on the night of the shooting because she missed her girlfriend and she wasn’t the initial aggressor, prosecutors said. She secretly recorded videos on her cellphone that showed Blake repeatedly striking her over the head with a gun.
Lippert said those strikes left numerous “vicious wounds.”
Prosecutors pointed to evidence that Rice was up against a bedroom wall when Blake pushed a gun against her chest and squeezed the trigger.
“This was cold-blooded murder,” Assistant Prosecutor Jordan Cruse told the jury. She added that Rice was unarmed when the shooting occurred.
Rice worked as an assistant director for the local branch of Youth Advocate Programs, a national nonprofit that helps troubled youth. The same organization had helped Rice during her childhood in Baltimore.
Bennett, the defense attorney, said nothing in the evidence prosecutors presented contradicts that Blake acted in self-defense. He said the cellphone videos only show part of the couple’s dispute, not the shooting or what happened immediately before.
“This case is based on speculation,” Bennett said. “There’s only one person that knows what happened, and that is Jasmine.”
Nursing student claims threats, abuse led to fatal shooting in Walnut Hills
Blake said in court that she met Rice while working under contract as a travel nurse at a Baltimore hospital, where Rice was employed as a secretary. They started dating in August 2023.
She described their roughly two-and-a-half-year relationship as being punctuated by incidents of physical, sexual and emotional abuse.
On the night of the shooting, she said she was studying for exams in her bedroom when Rice barged in wanting to reconcile from an earlier dispute. Blake said she’d broken up with Rice the day before.
After rebuffing Rice’s advances and attempts to talk, Blake said that Rice began attacking and threatening to kill her. She added that she grabbed her gun from a dresser drawer fearing for her safety.
She admitted striking Rice with the gun, but said she did so to defend herself. Blake added that she “started seeing stars” after being repeatedly strangled and wasn’t strong enough to fight off another attack.
She said Rice started strangling her again, and afraid that Rice would kill her, she pulled the trigger.
Blake said she didn’t want Rice to die, “I just wanted her to stop.”
During the trial, Blake wore a purple ribbon pin on her lapel, a symbol used by those seeking to raise awareness about domestic violence. She sobbed with her head bent forward as the jury's verdict was read aloud.
Attorney says outcome remains disappointing, despite partial acquittal
One of the murder counts Blake faced alleged that she caused Rice’s death while committing a lesser offense of felonious assault. While the jury found her guilty of both felonious assault counts, they declined to convict her of murder.
Jay Clark, a Cincinnati-area defense attorney for more than 30 years, said a verdict like the one rendered in Blake’s case might be a “compromise verdict” reached by jurors split over whether to issue a murder conviction.
While it doesn't align with what the law states, he said, such outcomes aren't uncommon and juries are anything but predictable.
“Is that the right thing to do? It’s not for me to say,” Clark added.
Bennett, the attorney, said that Blake intends to appeal her convictions. She’s facing five to 11 years in Ohio prison.
If an appeals court decides the case should be retried, prosecutors cannot pursue murder charges again because of the acquittal. A new jury, or a judge, would only be able to decide on the felonious assault counts.
While Blake has been cleared of the more serious charges, Bennett said the outcome is disappointing.
“Most consider this a major victory. I don’t,” Bennett said in a statement. “My goal from the beginning was for her to be acquitted of all charges, and that goal was not fully achieved.”
Blake is scheduled to appear in court on Oct. 29 for sentencing before Judge Alison Hatheway.
Enquirer staff writer Kevin Grasha contributed.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Jury partially acquits UC nursing student who claimed self-defense
