example of how choice of decorations can hurt you in court

The attorney is doing his job.

From the very limited info in the article, it seems the dust cover inscription is the least of that cops worries. Just more fuel for the fire.

In any case it's unlikely the dust cover and inscription will help him. This sort of thing represents an unnecessary risk.

I don't have any snarky dust cover slogans but should I decide to get some I would give ZERO thought to how they may be presented in court.

The odds of any of us ever being involved in a shooting that goes to trial are astronomical. If some of you want to base your purchasing and gun design decisions on these odds then put your tin foil hats on and enjoy a boring hobby.

Uh, I missed the part regarding how the inscription has hurt him in court.

I wonder if it will help me in court if my dust cover says "peace". Or better yet "innocent."

The inscription on a dust cover would seem to be the least of his worries. There are several stories out there all pointing to the fact that he gunned down an unarmed man. When you shoot someone five times and they are unarmed and on their knees you have a heck of a case to make that the shoot was justified.

Ron

I make holsters, when I have the time and spirit moves me. I've turned down a lot of work because someone wants a "Punisher" skull on their holster, and not just because Stan Lee's copyright lawyers would have me for lunch. There are plenty of makers who will turn out such a holster, or a ''SMILE, WAIT FOR FLASH" recoil spring plug, or AR receivers with "THE FULL RETARD" stamped into the "FULL" selector position (OK, that one's kinda funny), and I don't feel the need to feed someone's already crippled decision-making process. If they want to seek out another vendor I'll sleep just fine. I just consider it bad form to cover one's defensive arm with jokes about killing.

I wish him luck, but I don't see this officer beating this rap. I don't know what his personnel file looks like, or whether he makes a habit of hanging gun-show playpretties on his personal weapons. The case against him looks increasingly grim, without much exculpatory evidence on the horizon.

Unfortunately this officer is almost certainly guilty. Guys like him fuel the anti-police fervor that presently grips American politics and protests, and justifiably so. It's hard to defend police officers when you see cases like this, even if they are just isolated cases and most cops try hard and do the right thing- Doing the right thing never makes the news it seems...

Mas Ayoob has warned about things like that for years. More taboos that can get you in trouble in court:

Offensive bumper stickers like "keep honking, I'm re-loading as fast as I can"
"Kill for peace" Exactly what do you mean by that?
"Kill em' all, let God sort em' out! Sounds like you like to kill people.

Yard signs can really get you in trouble:
"Forget the dog, beware of the owner" A picture of a man with a gun.
"I shoot first and ask questions later" No need to even comment on that one.
"Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again." You sure are bloodthirsty!

Prosecutors will cite language like that as evidence of serious mental problems.

And the WORST thing you can do is have hand-loaded ammo in your gun. The other sides lawyer WILL find out and this argument will be presented to the Jury.: "Ladies and gentlemen of the Jury, the Defendant obviously did not consider factory loaded ammo powerful enough....no...he had to load super powerful ammo, THAT HAD A GREATER ABILITY TO KILL AND MAIM!!!"

Stupid? of course it is. But to 12 people who know nothing about guns is is a powerful argument. And don't get started with: You have the right to be tried by a jury of your peers, so there will be at least a few gun people on the jury.

No there won't. And you DO NOT have the right to be tried by a jury of your peers. The word "peers" is not in the sixth amendment! You have the right to "A speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury, OF THE STATE AND DISTRICT WHEREIN THE CRIME SHALL HAVE BEEN COMMITED". You have a right to a trial by a jury of your neighbors. Peers means "equals" and you can bet that the prosecutor will pack that jury as best he can with idiots. Don't believe this? Go read the sixth amendment, you won't find the word "Peers" anywhere in it, or anywhere else in the Constitution.

A lot of people don't like Mas Ayoob, and that's their right, but he has seen more shooting self defense cases that most of us ever will, and he has seen all of the above mentioned scenarios harm defendants.

The odds...

Click to expand...

When folks ask what are the odds, I usually point out they are asking the wrong question.

The better question is what are the consequences...

Tark - you have a good point.

However (you KNEW that was coming!), there are always exceptions. I don't believe that any jury would hold having a sign like those you mention

"Forget the dog, beware of the owner."
"I shoot first and ask questions later."
"Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again."
"There is nothing in here worth your life."

Click to expand...

against a lone female in her mid-80s.

Any attorney worth his/her salt would do the same thing.

But in this case, I don't think the inscription is what's going to hang him in court.

When I read the thread title I thought it was something like this-

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tark said:

Mas Ayoob has warned about things like that for years. More taboos that can get you in trouble in court:

And the WORST thing you can do is have hand-loaded ammo in your gun. The other sides lawyer WILL find out and this argument will be presented to the Jury.: "Ladies and gentlemen of the Jury, the Defendant obviously did not consider factory loaded ammo powerful enough....no...he had to load super powerful ammo, THAT HAD A GREATER ABILITY TO KILL AND MAIM!!!"

A lot of people don't like Mas Ayoob, and that's their right, but he has seen more shooting self defense cases that most of us ever will, and he has seen all of the above mentioned scenarios harm defendants.

Click to expand...

I've never believed in the hand loaded ammunition as something to worry about in a trial. I'd take the stand and have my defense team question me about it and I'll explain that I found my handloaded ammunition was the most reliable and accurate and allowed me to feel safer than factory ammunition that I've heard can be overloaded with powder to explosion levels or no powder and squib a bullet leaving me with no gun to defend myself with.

I wouldn't take the stand and say that!!

I would take the stand and testify I picked up the first thing at hand to stop the attack before I was killed.

That it happened to be a gun with my hand-loads in it?
So what?

Suppose it had been my grandpa's old trap shotgun and his reloaded target shells he left me in his will??
Suppose it was the pocket knife, kitchen knife, or ax I had just sharpened to a razor edge?

There is no 'intent' in using any weapon at hand to defend yourself.

If, you are justified to use deadly force to defend yourself in the first place.

But putting video game crap on your weapon like that is just plain Juvenal Stupid in the first place.

rc

Are you saying there's no place in a legal defense to say you use what you find safest? What if all you have in your house is handloaded ammuntion? A lot of people only shoot and own handloaded ammunition for decades, so are they bloodthirsty maniacs for using the only ammo they have?

If you're justified in a defensive shooting the ammo you used is irrelevant. Writing dumb crap on your gun is giving ammunition to a prosecuting attorney.

No, I didn't say that.

I would say that if you said what you found to be the safest, (in your personal opinion) might open up a new line of questioning from prosecution.

Such as, if your Handloaded ammo is so much more reliable and safe?
Why isn't our police department reloading ammo like yours??

I never said there was no place in a legal defense.
Please read my post again.

rc

Point 1 - My ex was a Court Reporter (stenographer) assigned to Circuit Court. As such she sat through a lot of trials and heard a lot of comments from both the prosecution and defense attorneys in non-courtroom settings. The bottom line is anytime you step into a courtroom "they" refer to it as courtroom lottery, meaning you never know which way a jury will swing.

Point 2 - The Miranda warning says "anything you say can and will be used against you". "Say" can be interpreted in many ways.

Point 3 - Everything in life revolves around a risk vs rewards calculation. Some play those odds better than others. If you feel like the reward you get from placing juvenile, racist, macho or otherwise potentially inflammatory slogans or symbols on your guns or accessories, knock yourself out. I've weighed the benefits for me and decided I'll walk a more conservative path.

????.....how is anyone going to know its handloaded ammo, unless you tell them it is?......

you go to the range, and see brass all over the place, can you honestly tell me you know which one was handloaded, and which one was factory loaded?......because i cant, and i hand load ammo......

now you expect a lawyer, who likely knows nothing about guns to be able to tell the difference?

please.

The problem with using hand loads for self defense is described in Mas Ayoob's book about concealed carry. He described a case where using hand loads actually hurt the defendant in court. I will have to look up the case later to get the details.

Ok here is some of the case. I believe the case went to appeals after the first trial.
NJ V. Bias

This is the classic case of gunshot residue (GSR) evidence being complicated by the use of handloaded ammunition, resulting in a case being misinterpreted in a tragic and unjust way. On the night of 2/26/89, Danny Bias entered the master bedroom of his home to find his wife Lise holding the family home defense revolver, a 6” S&W 686, to her head. He told police that knowing that she had a history of suicidal ideation, he attempted to grab the gun, which discharged, killing her. The gun was loaded with four handloaded lead SWC cartridges headstamped Federal .38 Special +P.

Autopsy showed no GSR. The medical examiner determined that Lise Bias had a reach of 30”, and the NJSP Crime Lab in Trenton determined that the gun in question would deposit GSR to a distance of 50” or more with either factory Federal 158 grain SWC +P .38 Special, or handloads taken from his home under warrant for testing after Danny told them about the reloads. However, the reloads that were taken and tested had Remington-Peters headstamps on the casings and were obviously not from the same batch.

Danny had loaded 50 rounds into the Federal cases of 2.3, 2.6, and 2.9 grains of Bullseye, with Winchester primers, under an unusually light 115 grain SWC that he had cast himself, seeking a very light load that his recoil sensitive wife could handle. The gun had been loaded at random from that box of 50 and there was no way of knowing which of the three recipes was in the chamber from which the fatal bullet was launched.

We duplicated that load, and determined that with all of them and particularly the 2.3 grain load, GSR distribution was so light that it could not be reliably gathered or recovered, from distances as short as 24”. Unfortunately, the remaining rounds in the gun could not be disassembled for testing as they were the property of the court, and there is no forensic artifact that can determine the exact powder charge that was fired from a given spent cartridge.

According to an attorney who represented him later, police originally believed the death to be a suicide. However, the forensic evidence testing indicated that was not possible, and it was listed as suspicious death. Based largely on the GSR evidence, as they perceived it, the Warren County prosecutor’s office presented the case to the grand jury, which indicted Danny Bias for Murder in the First Degree in the death of his wife.