The man charged with murder after a bystander was fatally shot during exhibition driving in downtown last year is claiming he fired in self-defense and should be immune from prosecution under Alabama’s Stand Your Ground law.

Ronald Demetrius White, a 24-year-old Bessemer man, is charged with murder in the killing of 19-year-old Ja’Kia Winston.

Winston, the mother of an infant son, was shot to death Sunday, Aug. 7, 2022.

White’s trial was set to begin Monday before Jefferson County Circuit Judge Michael Streety.

White’s attorney, Leroy Maxwell Jr., last week filed a motion for immunity under the State’s Stand Your Ground law. The trial has been postponed until next year.

A large crowd was gathered in a parking lot in the 800 block of Second Avenue North where drivers were doing burnouts and donuts. According to police and to a video circulating on social media, a vehicle doing a burnout struck another vehicle in the parking lot.

The collision happened just after 3 a.m.

Video of the incident showed a male opening fire immediately after a silver Infiniti was struck. Officer Truman Fitzgerald said police saw White outside of that vehicle immediately after the shooting.

Winston was pronounced dead on the scene. Four other people were wounded.

Police at the time said they believed there were other shooters.

The deadly shooting prompted police and city officials to speak out. Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin at the time said it “not acceptable and will not be tolerated.”

Woodfin, Police Chief Scott Thurmond and District Attorney Danny Carr later held a press conference to address gun violence and exhibition driving.

Alabama is a Stand Your Ground state, which says a person is justified in using physical force on another person in order to defend himself or herself or a third person from what he or she reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of unlawful physical force by that other person.

According to Maxwell’s motion, White was in the parking lot when a black Charger began doing donuts and then struck his car.

“At that point, other people began firing and Mr. White returned fire, allegedly striking Ja’Kia Winston and causing her death,’’ the motion states. “Mr. White has maintained from the beginning that he only fired his gun in response to oncoming fire from other unknown shooters.”

Another witnesses, Blackwell said, reported seeing men with rifles firing toward her.

“The state believes that Ronald White began firing after the black car hit his vehicle,’’ Maxwell wrote. “However, on Aug. 30, 2023, the state turned over new video evidence that shows men with long AK and AR-15 style rifles at the scene.”

“These men began firing immediately when the black car hits Mr. White’s car and before Mr. White returned fire,’’ he said. “This new video corroborates Mr. White’s testimony.”

Maxwell contents White was justified in using deadly defensive force because he was not engaged in an unlawful activity and was in a public space, where he had a right to be.

“Therefore, he had not duty to retreat and had the right to stand his ground,’’ he said. “Additionally, Mr. White was not the initial aggressor and reasonable believed his life was in imminent danger due to the shooting from other gunmen.”

“My baby was very outspoken,’’ Winston’s heartbroken mother, Keizia Gaines, said at the time.

She said her daughter loved to sing and joked a lot.

“She was my go-to person,’’ Gaines said. “My world, my rider. We were together every day.”

“My soul is hurt deeply,’’ she said.

The judge has not responded to the Stand Your Ground Motion, but the murder trial has been reset for March 18, 2024.

White has been held in the Jefferson County Jail on $1.5 million bond since his Aug. 8,2022, arrest.