That may come up, but not only regarding handloads. Some nasty-sounding commercial loads or a really powerful handgun could bring in the same argument. It would pertain to state of mind, but I think it could be countered effectively.A more-serious issue: The D.A. will say something like, "Ladies & gentlemen of the jury: The defendant was not satisfied with the lethality of regular factory ammunition used by police officers;...
In law, it doesn't matter one whit what kind of situation might have been involved. The rules of evidence are there.I'd like to see ONE CASE cited that involved hand loaded ammo used in a defensive situation.
What's factory ammo?
The really serious issue has to do with the rules of evidence. Should a defendant happen to need to introduce gunshot residue pattern evidence to counter something like unfavorable eyewitness testimony regarding the distance of the shooting, the use of handloads would create a problem and most probably prevent test data and expert witness testimony pertaining thereto from being admitted.
Really amazing. You're sittin' at your computer, posting in a forum & a spaceship lands right next to you. Then little green aliens emerge, take over your mind & force you to read posts that annoy you.Please, please, would a moderator just lock this. The anti-handload zealots have once again hijacked an otherwise good thread in their religious belief that, even though it's never happened, handloads will convict you.
May as well lock this thread too, because it will never come back from it.
Heck add that discussion to list of banned conversation, it would be for the best of the forum.
Please, please, would a moderator just lock this. The anti-handload zealots have once again hijacked an otherwise good thread in their religious belief that, even though it's never happened, handloads will convict you.
It may enter in to a discussion of ability and opportunity in some incidents, but that's not the point at all. The issue may arise when testimony regarding distance is contradictory, and may harm the defendant's credibility. That credibility is crucial.When did distance become an issue with whether or not a SD shoot is good or not?
See the above post on this. It just doesn't matter what the case is about. What matters is the admissibility of evidence.The infamous Daniel Bias case that is the poster child for Ayoob's insistence upon using factory ammo was not a SD shoot....
Do you have a basis for knowing the judge's reasons? Regardless of what they may have been, the prosecution, or the plaintiff in a civil case, could have, and would have been expected to, challenge the admissibility of test data and related expert witness testimony on the basis of the verifiability and custodial trail of information relating to the ammunition.GSR evidence was ruled invalid because Bias' attorney claimed the ammo used ....
True.GSR is used much more frequently to convict folks when it is deposited on the shooter than when deposited on the victim. In that case, handloaded/factory won't make a difference.
In a case that is not clear, the prosecution could use all kinds of things to try to establish state of mind. And one more time, if it is the ammunition that they would like to mention, there have been some kinds of factory loads that would seem to a juror to be at least as vicious as handloads.If one wants to claim handloaded ammo will make you a killer and not just someone trying to protect themselves, they should also claim that a trigger job, after market sights/parts or taking tactical training makes you a psycho killer instead of a victim too.
Actually, there are several moderators here and on another board, and several well known members, who have posted about the risk of not being able to have a jury see potentially important exculpatory evidence, in the unlikely event that it might prove necessary.Seems one of the moderators is one of those anti-handload zealots and is involved with this discussion as well. Still, folks have been relatively respectful of each other in the discussion of pro/con handload use, and it may be of some informational value to those that are new to the topic and have yet to make an objective decision.
I am rather familiar with how the relevant SCOTUS rulings would apply to handloads.
Really amazing. You're sittin' at your computer, posting in a forum & a spaceship lands right next to you. Then little green aliens emerge, take over your mind & force you to read posts that annoy you.
I have tried to do that in the past. The problem lies in trying to summarize and explain a very technical eight hour law course, the understanding of which really required some knowledge of manufacturing engineering, quality control, software design, and/or other things; and a few kilograms of copyrighted small-text paper handouts.....and if it is pertinent, that would be good information to have and to pass on to others.
That's kinda why I come to forums and get involved in conversations like this....... to gain information and knowledge. No legitimate reason for someone, if they have pertinent information, to not willingly pass it on and inform others. This is how some of us make our risk management decisions. Not by emotion or by whether or not someone else does it one way or the other, but from facts that are pertinent and relative to our scenarios.
They won't even know about how the ammo performs.How many jurors would think that handloads within published specs would be more destructive than commercial SD ammo touted and advertised as being the most deadly?
The facts are that firearm choice and appearance, the name of the ammo, the kinds of charts the defender had in his folder, and a lot of other things can sway an impartial jury. We know that from jury simulations and from interviews with real jurors.Again , folks need to make their decisions on fact, not just on the speculation of others,... IMHO, ammo choice is no different than firearm/mag capacity choice and will not be any more of a factor to making a shoot good or bad in the eyes of my peers.
Do you seriously believe that the best premium factory ammunition might prove ineffective for hunting or defense?When it comes to hunting or self defense, when I want the best possible ammo, there is no question that ammo I desire will come from my loading bench.
And let's look at a couple of court decisions addressing the issue.Kleanbore said:...There are two issues at hand. The first has to do with the admissibility of test data from exemplar specimens, and the other, with the admissibility of GSR pattern data to estimate distance.
The latter was still not in question when we last went into this some years ago. I haven't kept up with it.
I'll try to explain the former in simple terms. It is not specific to ammunition--the relevant rules of evidence actually resulted from high court decisions that came out of appeals of civil cases involving pharmaceuticals. But they apply, nonetheless. They even apply to the admissibility of computer-generated financial records.
The following is summary level, couched in layman's terms, and based on the meaning of the rules and not on the underlying legal principles per se.
The short answer: if you want a judge to admit evidence that is based on the testing of exemplar specimens of something (the defendant's ammunition, here)
- the stuff will have to have been made using certified procedures and methods, on calibrated equipment, by trained persons who do not have a stake in the case;
- the same rules apply to lot acceptance test data;
- the same rules apply to material handling, packaging, labelling and shipping;
- and very importantly, the records and data involving all of that measurement, calibration, testing, labelling, and so on must have been maintained from the outset in a manner in which there can be no question about their independence and validity or about the possibility of their having been lost, changed, mixed with other records and data, and so on and so on.
Ammunition manufacturers and drug makers, beer brewers, makers of insecticides, processors of foodstuffs, makers of x-ray machines, and makers of aircraft engines and fuel additives, use procedures and controls that will ensure all of that. That's simply because of the importance of the safety and effectiveness of their products.....
...but the Rules of Evidence—especially Rule 702—do assign to the trial judge the task of ensuring that an expert's testimony both rests on a reliable foundation and is relevant to the task at hand...
See also United States v. Downing, 753 F.2d 1224, 1242 (CA3 1985) ("An additional consideration under Rule 702—and another aspect of relevancy —is whether expert testimony proffered in the case is sufficiently tied to the facts of the case that it will aid the jury in resolving a factual dispute").