Nineteen-year-old Davon Goodwin was shot in the abdomen in Charleston, South Carolina, on April 26, 2011. He survived long enough to undergo emergency surgeries and a period in intensive care but died on May 4, 2011 when complications from the single penetrating gunshot wound proved fatal; the forensic autopsy attributed his death directly to that wound after an initial belief it was a pulmonary embolism.

While in the ICU Goodwin was interviewed by a Charleston Police Department detective and, from a photographic lineup, identified Marvin Reginald Brown as the person who shot him. Brown was later indicted on murder, armed robbery, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a violent crime. The defense challenged the admissibility of Goodwin’s identification as a dying declaration and the court ruled it inadmissible, finding evidence that Goodwin’s condition seemed to be improving, that he made the identification in response to questioning rather than spontaneously, and that reluctance to name his attacker could reflect fear of reprisal rather than an awareness of impending death.

Are there details about the shooting or the lineup that anyone can add to help clarify what happened that night?