Court Rejects Appeal of Man Convicted in ’15 Attempted Murder

TRENTON – A Lower Township man who threatened to kill his girlfriend before shooting her in the leg will stay in state prison, Appellate Court judges decided Sept. 12.
Ernest P. Davis, 46, was convicted of attempted murder and other offenses after the 2015 incident. Davis was sentenced to 38 years in prison in June 2017, and must serve 85% of the sentence before becoming eligible for parole.
Davis appealed, his defense attorney arguing that, because the incident took place on Davis’ boat on a “dark and stormy night,” the gun may have gone off accidentally and that Davis didn’t intend to kill.
“Was this a situation where they were both drunk and the boats are rocking?” his attorney had asked the jury. “It’s a stormy night; did he accidentally pull the trigger?”
Davis had a prior conviction in another state for pointing a gun at a woman, but the prosecution failed to inform jury, according to the opinion.
Davis and the victim – whose identity was withheld in the opinion – had spent most of Oct. 3, 2015 on a boat named The Storm, where Davis lived. The Storm was docked at a fishery in Cold Spring.
“During their time on The Storm, they drank, watched television, and argued,” Judges Carmen Alvarez and William Nugent wrote in the opinion. “According to the victim’s trial testimony, except for a walk to a package goods store or bar to buy beer, she and defendant were together on The Storm from early in the afternoon until the shooting, which occurred between 10 and 10:30 that night.”
The couple argued because the victim refused to have sex with Davis, judges wrote.
“Throughout the evening, defendant repeatedly threatened to harm the victim, but she did not leave the boat because she did not think he was serious,” they wrote. “She thought differently when he retrieved the shotgun he kept on the boat and threatened to shoot her, pointing the shotgun at her face.”
When Davis walked away, the victim called and texted her sister to pick her up because she was afraid Davis would kill her. She began to climb over a railing and onto an adjacent boat when Davis fired.
“Immediately before pulling the trigger, (Davis) told the victim he was going to shoot her,” the opinion reads. “He aimed the gun at her leg and fired. As the victim screamed, (Davis) kissed her on the forehead, said he was sorry, and left.”
Davis went onto the neighboring boat and asked its owner to dispose of the gun. The man, who heard the argument and subsequent gunshot, refused and called police.
Police found the victim bleeding and emergency responders took her to the hospital, where her leg was amputated from the calf down. 
Two days later, police recovered the gun from underwater.
The appellate judges upheld the court’s decision because “the state’s evidence that (Davis) committed attempted murder was overwhelming and unrefuted by (Davis).”
“(Davis) pointed a shotgun at her and told her he was going to shoot her immediately before he opened fire at nearly point-blank range,” the judges wrote. “He then left her bleeding, unable to walk because her lower left leg had been destroyed by the blast, while he attempted to solicit help from a neighboring boat’s occupant to conceal the shotgun. 
“Considering these unrefuted proofs,” they wrote, “defendant has failed to overcome the presumption that the charge was unlikely to prejudice his case.”
To contact Taylor Henry, email thenry@cmcherald.com.