Murder or self defense? Trial dissects deadly Durham bar encounter
Assistant District Attorney Mary Jude Darrow described the June 2019 bar encounter that left one man dead as a murder.
“A man with an explosive temper decides to go and attack someone he doesn’t even know,” Darrow told the jury during opening arguments. “That is second-degree murder. That is killing another person with murder.”
But defense attorneys told a different story about the same incident.
“Mr. Tivnan’s death was a tragedy,” said attorney Emilia Beskind, “but a tragedy does not turn a bar fight into a murder.”
On June 5, emergency officials responded around 10:15 p.m. to Social Games and Brews at 1007 W. Main St. near Durham’s Brightleaf Square and found Edward “Teddy” Tivnan, a father of three, unresponsive.
Tivnan was taken to Duke University Hospital, where he died two days later.
Daniel Peter Mohar of Wake County was charged with first-degree murder about a month later.
On Wednesday, Darrow ask the jury to find Mohar guilty of second-degree murder, which requires prosecutors to prove that Mohar killed Tivnan with malice.
Beskind, however, argued Mohar was defending himself with a punch, followed by Tivnan falling and hitting his head on the sidewalk.
Tivnan was standing on a ramp at the time with uneven concrete that contributed to his head injury, Beskind said.
“When Mr. Tivnan fell he was standing in the exact wrong place, at the exact wrong time, at the exact wrong angle,” she said. “He fell and hit the back of his head, and the blow to the back of his head when he fell is what caused the bleeding” in his brain.
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What prosecutors say happened
According to court statements and video, the fight followed Tivnan’s interaction with a woman.
Video inside the bar showed Tivnan and the woman’s first interaction between 10 and 10:30 p.m. on June 5. The woman had walked up to the bar to order drinks near where Tivnan and his friend were sitting.
Tivnan has stepped away from his seat that the woman stands next to, but he returns while she is at the bar waiting for her drinks. The woman gets two drinks and leaves, the video shows. There appears to be some sort of interaction between Tivnan and the woman, but the video doesn’t catch what is said in the loud bar.
The woman returns less than 10 minutes later to order drinks from a different section of the bar, raises her middle finger at Tivnan, and goes back outside. Again, it isn’t clear if Tivnan made comments to the woman.
A few minutes later, Tivnan and his friend walk outside to a patio area of the bar. Video from the bar show Tivnan walking outside and looking around a corner. The woman who had flipped him off comes around the corner and yells, “Get the (expletive) out of here.”
“Why are you doing this to me?” Tivnan asks.
“Because you are a (expletive) creep,” the woman says. “Go that way. Go.”
They exchange some more words, and then Tivnan says “What a tramp,” as he walks away.
Three men then came around the corner, including Mohar who headbutts Tivnan.
“Watch your (expletive) language. You don’t call a woman that,” Mohar says after the headbutt. “What the (expletive) is wrong with you.”
Tivnan falls out of the view of the camera after the headbutt.
Then Mohar yells for Tivnan to leave.
“Get out. Get out,” he shouts.
Mohar then punches Tivnan who falls to the ground, Darrow told the jury.
One man rendered aid to Tivnan, while Mohar left the bar.
“Mr. Mohar booked. He headed straight out. Didn’t bother to check,” Darrow said. “That’s malice, ladies and gentlemen.”
What the defense said happen
Beskind described the fight as having two parts.
In the first part, in which Mohar headbutted Tivnan, Mohar was in the wrong, she said. In this second part of the fight, Mohar was defending himself, Beskind said.
After Mohar headbutted Tivnan, Tivnan fell to the ground and appeared to be leaving but got back up and the two ended up wrestling back and forth before Mohar punched Tivnan, Beskind told the jury.
Tivnan was two inches taller and weighed about 40 pounds more than Mohar, Beskind said.
If you are in a fight and withdraw, and the other person continues, you have the right to use a reasonable amount of self-defense, Beskind told the jury.
When a smaller man punches a larger one, the expected outcomes include losing teeth, a black eye or fractured nose, Beskind said.
“One punch and the consequences of that punch were completely unforeseeable and tragic,” Beskind said. “You don’t expect a chain reaction is going to start that is going to lead to them cracking their head on the pavement and that cracking is going to cause internal brain bleeding that causes their death.”
This story was originally published March 23, 2022 at 7:17 PM.
