A judge heard arguments Thursday on whether to throw out Weldon Boyd’s separate lawsuit against attorney Mark Tinsley, pushing the fight over a deadly 2023 road-rage shooting one step closer to a ruling. The judge took the motion to dismiss under advisement, and a decision is expected sometime next week.
Boyd, who owns Bouys on the Boulevard, is accused of shooting and killing Scott Spivey in the 2023 incident along Camp Swamp Road. His separate lawsuit targets Tinsley, who represents Spivey’s family in the wrongful death case against Boyd and Kenneth Williams, and it asks the court to treat the lawyer’s public comments and video releases as something more than ordinary advocacy.
That is why the hearing drew attention now. Boyd says Tinsley created a false narrative about him and the shooting to boost his celebrity status, while the lawsuit also claims he released select body camera and dash camera videos to the media, setting off a massive wave of coverage across news and social platforms. Boyd’s attorney, Desa Ballard, pressed the point directly in court, asking what Tinsley’s purpose was in telling what she called lies and arguing that he was not trying to help a client but to build his own profile at Boyd’s expense.
John Thomas Lay, representing Tinsley, told the judge the conduct was proper public speaking tied to the case and not the kind of behavior that should open the door to a separate suit. He argued that the complaint is trying to pull an issue that belongs in the wrongful death case into a different lawsuit aimed at Tinsley’s representation, warning that letting it proceed would set a dangerous precedent. In his words, if this is allowed to move forward, similar lawsuits could follow any time a lawyer or someone connected to a case speaks to the media.
The broader dispute sits on top of the existing wrongful death case involving Boyd and Spivey’s family, which has already made the road-rage shooting a closely watched public matter. The judge did not rule from the bench Thursday, leaving Boyd’s claim against Tinsley alive for now and putting the immediate question on next week’s calendar: whether the separate lawsuit survives or gets dismissed before it can go any further.
