Remember one other element - theft, at night,
and the property cannot be recovered by any other means or would put the victim at the risk of substantial harm = ok to use lethal force.
But I agree otherwise with the synopsis below. What was probably important in the defense, was the consideration that there was no other way to recover the $150.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Poet Laureate
I read the first couple pages of these posts but not all of them, so I hope my observations don't duplicate those of others.
-
Please do not misunderstand what I'm about to write. I don't agree with what this guy did. I can't think of any instance in which I would kill or even threaten to kill over $150. But we need to look at this dispassionately, like the jury did. They took eleven hours to come to a unanimous verdict. Have any of you ever been in a jury room? I have, more than once. It gets heated, nasty, sometimes even vicious, but in the end they usually get it right according to the law.
-
So look only at the law, not at what the young lady did for a living.
1. The law says that if you steal after dark, your victim has the right to use deadly force to recover the stolen property.
2. Trial law says that the jury must decide who is telling the truth. In this case the lady couldn't testify for herself; other than her driver/pimp there is no one to contest the defendant's version, and it is just as believable that he would get angry and chase down the girl because she failed to perform as expected as it is that he expected more than she promised. So it's clear that the jury believed that part of the defendant's story.
3. When this point is reached, applying the law is pretty straightforward, and the way this particular law was written it doesn't give a jury much leeway. They decided to believe that she stole from him, the incident happened at night, and the law gives him the legal right to use deadly force to recover the stolen property. Whatever else happened, the jury appears to have followed the law once they agreed on which pieces of evidence and whose testimony they were going to believe.
4. Once the jury renders a verdict to acquit, that's not always it. There are legal avenues for the prosecution to pursue appeals under certain circumstances.
5. This verdict DOES carry significant impact on future cases, because there is now legal precedent that the law allowing recovery of stolen property after dark by use of deadly force does not necessarily have to involve a legal transaction. And neither the County nor the State can appeal, because of double jeopardy laws.
-
I too have been ripped off occasionally by a provider. Regardless of the law, I don't believe that this gives me the right to end a life. Instead of railing against what some perceive to have been an unjust verdict, which doesn't appear to apply, we should be working to repeal a law that gives every person, regardless of gender, the right to kill just because they've been the victim of a minor theft after dark.
|
