PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) — The Rhode Island Supreme Court has reversed the conviction of a Central Falls man who shot and killed another man in Pawtucket back in 2020.

Jairo Esdel, 25, has been granted a new trial on charges of second-degree murder and the lesser-included offense of voluntary manslaughter. In his appeal, Esdel argued that during his initial trial, the judge failed to instruct the jury on the lesser charge.

The Supreme Court agreed. In their ruling, Senior Justice Maureen McKenna Goldberg wrote that there was “sufficient evidence” from which jurors could’ve convicted Esdel of manslaughter instead of murder, and as such, the judge committed “reversible error.”

The court also determined that the trial judge “abused his discretion” by excluding relevant testimony from Esdel’s grandfather.

Esdel is accused of fatally shooting 22-year-old Joel Rosario on Halloween night. According to the facts presented in court, Esdel, then 21, had pulled up to a red light at the intersection of Mineral Spring and Lonsdale avenues. When it turned green, the vehicles in front of and beside his stopped.

Several individuals, some said to be armed, reportedly surrounded Esdel’s vehicle and started threatening him, prompting him to pull out a gun and fire a shot out the passenger window.

Police said Rosario was hit and later died at the hospital.

Esdel was found guilty of murder and firearms charges the following year and sentenced to life in prison .

He sought to prove during the trial that he was in fear for his life and the shooting was an act of self-defense.

Since murder is defined as “the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought” and manslaughter as “an intentional homicide that does not include the element of malice aforethought by reason of one or more mitigating factors,” the Supreme Court said its justices were “hard-pressed to perceive why an instruction on voluntary manslaughter was not warranted in this case.”

“The evidence in this case that defendant was in fear for his life coupled with how quickly these events transpired, and the decedent’s prior hostile history with defendant—who was known to carry a firearm—are factors that could lead defendant to fire the weapon in the heat of passion on sudden provocation,” McKenna Goldberg wrote.

A new trial date had not yet been set as of this writing.

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