A Virginia police officer who will stand trial for murder this week told a witness “this is my second one” after shooting dead an unarmed black 18-year-old, a court heard on Tuesday.

Stephen Rankin, who had killed another unarmed man four years earlier, was recorded by his Taser’s camera making the remark to a Walmart staff member seconds after killing William Chapman in the store’s parking lot in the city of Portsmouth in April last year.

At a final pretrial hearing on Tuesday, Rankin’s defense team argued unsuccessfully that the comment should be censored during his trial for first-degree murder at Portsmouth circuit court. “This statement is not probative of anything,” said James Broccoletti, his lead attorney.

But their motion was denied by judge Johnny E Morrison after prosecutors argued that they should not have to “sanitize the evidence” around the deadly shooting.

“The defendant made the comment not just in the presence and earshot of a witness, but to the witness,” said Stephanie Morales, the commonwealth’s attorney, who is leading the case against Rankin.



The judge’s ruling raised the prospect that Rankin’s previous use of deadly force would at least be hinted at to the jury that must consider whether he acted with justification in shooting Chapman.

William Chapman, left, and Kirill Denyakin. Photograph: Family photos

Morrison had previously ruled that prosecutors may not directly tell jurors that Rankin, 36, killed Kirill Denyakin, a 26-year-old hotel cook from Kazakhstan, in 2011. A grand jury declined to bring charges against Rankin after the officer claimed that Denyakin, who was also unarmed, reached into his waistband and charged at him. Rankin, who was responding to a complaint about Denyakin loudly banging on the door to an apartment building, shot him 11 times.

Rankin, a US navy veteran, is charged with first-degree murder and using a firearm in the commission of a felony for the fatal shooting of Chapman on the morning of 22 April last year. He denies the charges, claiming that he fired in self-defense when Chapman lashed out as he tried to arrest the 18-year-old on suspicion of shoplifting. He has since been fired from his job.

The charges followed extensive coverage of the shooting by the Guardian in connection with an ongoing project to document every killing by law enforcement officers in the US.

A witness said last year that Chapman appeared to knock Rankin’s Taser from his hand during their physical struggle in the parking lot. Rankin’s attorneys made clear on Tuesday that they intend to argue that the electronic weapon was indeed out of his reach.

They also suggested that photographs of the Taser at the scene that are expected to be used as evidence are misleading because the weapon was kicked by a fellow Portsmouth police officer who had arrived on the scene. “It is clearly relevant to the defense’s case, in terms of ‘did he have access to the Taser?,’” said Broccoletti.

Broccoletti did not elaborate on whether the arriving officer had said why he kicked the Taser or whether the kick was intentional. Asked by the Guardian after Tuesday’s hearing to explain the incident further, he declined to comment.

Morrison, the judge, ruled on Tuesday that Rankin’s attorneys could obtain any juvenile criminal records Chapman had, but that they may not use writings and drawings found in a bookbag that Chapman was carrying when he died. He also rejected a request from the defense attorneys to have jurors sequestered during the trial to ensure they would not have access to external information on the case including media reports.



Nicole Belote, another attorney for Rankin, had asked the judge to have all potential jurors surrender their electronic devices during jury selection. Belote suggested that traditional instructions to not look at news media coverage may be insufficient due to “news alerts on their cell phones that pop up”.



Rankin’s attorneys also had a last-ditch request to have the trial delayed and moved out of Portsmouth rejected by the judge. Broccoletti argued that the fatal shooting of three police officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, showed that the feeling around issues connected to Rankin’s case were too heated and dangerous for him to receive a fair trial.



Rankin’s team had a similar motion denied last week amid protests over the fatal shootings by police of African American men in Louisiana and Minnesota.



But the judge was unmoved, declaring that jury selection for the trial would begin on Wednesday morning. “I do not have a crystal ball,” said Morrison, adding that the trial might be delayed only for another controversial incident to occur shortly before the rescheduled start date.