Is Publix to blame for selling a knife used as a murder weapon? That’s a legal question
A Palm Beach County family is suing Publix Super Markets over the sale of a knife to a minor who has been charged with first-degree murder with a deadly weapon and two counts of premeditated first-degree murder.
Corey Johnson was 17 when he confessed to stabbing 13-year-old Jovanni Sierra Branz and two others at a Palm Beach Gardens home during a sleepover birthday party held for Jovanni, the Sun Sentinel reported in March 2018.
Jovanni died. Two others were stabbed — Elaine Simon and her son Dane Bancroft — according to court records.
LaBovick Law Group, a Palm Beach Gardens firm, is representing Jovanni’s mother, Karen Sierra Velez.
Wrongful death lawsuit
In the wrongful death suit, filed in Palm Beach County Circuit Court on Friday, Velez claims that Publix was negligent for selling a knife, used as the murder weapon, to a minor. At 17, Johnson bought what is described in the suit as a “large steel-edged sharpened knife” at the grocery store on March 11, 2018, a day before the knife was used at the sleepover.
According to court records, Johnson, now 19, had a fascination with ISIS and cited his Muslim faith as his reason for stabbing Jovanni 42 times, as well as Simon and Bancroft, at the sleepover. The FBI had been monitoring Johnson for more than a year because of his social media posts. and internet usage, WPEC 12 News reported.
WPEC also posted surveillance video from Publix, obtained by the LaBovick Group, that shows Johnson walking into the Publix on March 11, 2018.
“Jovanni Sierra Branz died on March 12, 2018, as a result of negligence and criminal violations of Publix Super Markets. Publix sells numerous products that may only be sold to persons over a certain age, such as alcoholic beverages, tobacco products, lottery tickets, certain medications and knives,” Velez’s suit says.
The suit says the bar code on a six-inch stainless-steel-edged sharpened knife should have been programmed into its system — but was not — to cue a cashier to “check the age of any person attempting to purchase any product that has a restriction placed upon it by the Publix Supermarket computer system.”
This is the reason “Corey Johson, a minor, was able to purchase the large steel-edged sharpened deadly ‘weapon’ Publix knife ... that Corey Johnson used to kill Jovanni Sierra Branz.”
Florida Statute on weapons
LaBovick is citing Florida Statute 790.001 that defines “weapon” in this case as “any dirk, knife, metallic knuckles, slungshot, billie, tear gas gun, chemical weapon or device, or other deadly weapon except a firearm or a common pocketknife, plastic knife, or blunt-bladed table knife.”
Maria Brous, director of communication for Publix, told the Miami Herald, “I apologize that I don’t have more to share at the moment, but please see our official statement.” The statement, she said, is: “It would be inappropriate for us to comment on pending litigation.”
The Miami Herald also reached out to the attorneys behind the suit, Brian LaBovick and Peter Hunt, to ask whether Publix can be held liable for selling any number of items to minors in its stores — ranging from corn skewers to plastic garbage bags — that could conceivably be used as weapons.
LaBovick said “it’s one thing to say someone can use something as a weapon — the creativity of the human mind — but it’s another thing to sell a weapon. Knives can be used for killing things. They were selling a knife, not a common table knife. Publix had complete control of the knife. It’s in a Publix package marked as a utility knife. Even by Publix’s definition it’s not a common table knife.
“Had he used a butter knife or a pot or a pan to kill my client we would not have any claim. The law has not prohibited these items” for sale to minors, LaBovick said.
Florida law “has determined certain things are dangerous and they are regulated,” LaBovick said. “So we make rules and businesses must follow the rules or they will be held responsible.”
This story was originally published February 18, 2020 at 11:54 AM.
