yhtomit
Member
Warning: this is long 
I participated today in program that some here would find interesting. The program (of which I partook in only the culminating day) was a week-long "trial institute" run by a large law firm as a training session for 24 of its young attorneys, who practiced their trial skills the whole week, and today took part in a mock trial, the facts of which were given to them only yesterday.
The facts of the case, in cavalier summary-of-a-summary style, to spare my fingers:
- A married couple, each with some past involvement in illegal drug use, live in a house in a suburban neighborhood, but one with its share of violence and drugs (at least their house has *its* share!)
- In mid September, the wife is attacked at their home; three thugs hide in her bushes, ring the doorbell. When she opens the door, then steps outside in bewilderment to find no one in sight, they rush her, push her into the house, strip her, torture her with cigarette burns (43 separate burns on her chest and abdomen), demand to know where "the stuff" is. The couple's barking dog alerts the neighbors, and the attackers flee, but promise that they will return.
- Wife describes the attackers as wearing camo and masks of U.S. presidents (Nixon, possibly Carter, third one she remembers only as being some other president). She never saw their faces. She says they were all over 6 ft tall, and stocky.
- Husband, a long-distance trucker away 10 days of any typical 14-day stretch, is distraught, rearranges schedule to be home at least every weekend (the previous attack took place on a weekend). Wife recovers for two weeks at the hospital, but is traumatized, and enters a mental-health inpatient facility to try to get over her attack. (Whether that sounds like a good idea is not the point -- it's just one of the provided facts)
- Husband comes home as described (on weekends), tends to and visits his wife days, sleeps nights at their house. He keeps the lights off at night, incl. porch lights, to give the appearance that no one is home; this, he thinks, will keep away at least the thugs who promised to return, if their goal is to physically assault him or his wife.
- In the weeks before Hallowe'en, the husband on one occasion finds a large fish (either in the mailbox, or on the porch) left to rot (no note or other clue as to the sender), and a few weeks later finds a pack of cigarettes (the same thing used to torture her before) in the mailbox with a note "FOR YOUR WIFE." Both times, he complains to the police, but is dissatisfied with their reaction, which seems to him cursory and uninterested, even if it is technically by-the-book as far as taking the information. (One of the witnesses is a police officer, who says that though they did take the reports, there was no strong evidence with which to proceed; the cigarette pack was dusted for prints, but without finding any usable ones.)
- On Oct. 29, a Saturday, two teenagers (16 and 17, respectively, I think) park next to the couple's house at 8:45; they intended to go to a party in another part of town (at a house to which neither had previously been), but somehow misnavigated to this house instead. The party to which they were supposed to drive had a "home invasion" theme, in which these two (and I think some others, traveling separately) were to be the "attackers," whose job was to infiltrate their friend's house and squirt the "defenders" with red dye in water pistols; they were wearing camo, had military style face paint on, and were carrying [EDIT: insert "their water pistols"] in full holsters by their sides. (It's stretchy, I know, but this is what they had to work with)
- Both teenagers are relatively short; 5'6 or 5'7, 140 or so pounds.
- One of the teenagers is a Russian exchange student, who speaks some English but is not close to fluent. The other is his host brother, and it is the host brother who directs Ivan (the real name of the fictional Russian) to knock on the door and say "Trick or Treat!", while the host brother was to sneak around back and try to enter the house that way.
- The two teenagers have exited the car, but the hostbrother has not yet gotten far from Ivan, is still on the front of the house.
- The husband, having seen the car park outside his house and seeing two men in camo moving secretively in his yard, thinks that the "I will return" thugs are back; he takes his cellphone and his gun (of which a picture was briefly shown to us, so I can tell you it was a stainless or chome S&W 686 with a 2" or 3" barrel and nice Hogue grips), sneaks out through the garage, so he's hiding in bushes near the house, which puts him next to the porch beyond which is the front door.
As I understand the story, Ivan unknowingly moves closer to the husband because he intends to ring the doorbell. (Both teenagers have yet to realize they've got the wrong house, in the wrong part of town.) Husband reveals himself, with the gun, says "STOP!" (Perhaps he also says "... or I'll shoot," but the gun probably communicates that anyhow.)
- Ivan, blissful, thinking he's still taking part in some Hallowe'en ritual, takes another few steps, smiling, toward the householder, and at this point raises the bag he's brought along, and says "Trick or Treat." He knows the word "stop," clearly, but didn't realize the intensity of the danger he was in. But he's moved closer in those steps, and ends up less than 3 feet from the husband, who (in fear of his life, he later explains) fires, hitting him in the heart; Ivan dies a few minutes later.
- Before the trigger is pulled, the hostbrother, who saw the confrontation develop (if that's not too strong a word for a situation that happens so quickly), is running toward Ivan, and yells "He's a guest!" This sounds a bit odd, I know, but it's easy to see how eloquence fails in a panic situation -- he meant something like "He's an exchange student, and a guest of my family, and perfectly innocent!" but it came out "He's a guest!" He might have said some other things; previous deposition testimony and his account on the stand today vary somewhat, and the defense attorney skewered on this; some of what he says *today* that he said then is plausible and sounds fine (things like "Stop, don't shoot!"), but he didn't report saying them in depositions much nearer to the time of the shooting. No one suggests that he's lying, but rather that his memory of what he *did* say might now be colored if not replaced by a "memory" of what he *should* have said.
- After he shoots, the husband keeps the hostbrother covered with his gun, tells him not to move, calls the police, reports the shooting, telling the police that the previous intruders have returned and that he's shot one of them. Hostbrother, anguished but not completely nuts, complies with the order not to move, and watches Ivan die.
- The cops arrive 10 minutes after the call; Ivan is dead. They interview both the hostbrother and the householder, and take away the gun (yielded willingly).
NOTE: The above facts are as best I recall them, but incomplete; I will try to add clarifications, if you have specific questions to which I have answers; lots of details that I'd like to have had were not available to jurors, though they may have been more fully explained in the case facts given to the attorneys.
The trial I saw is a civil suit (wrongful death) filed by Ivan's family for negligence against the householder. The facts above are set in a fictional city, county and state (the state is "Jefferson"), which means precedent in other states can be persuasive, but there is no ready made "castle doctrine" (or lack of it) to point to definitively.
There were 6 trials going on at once; I saw only the one for which I was a juror (one of 3, though, not one of 12). I was told later by one of the organizers that I was the only juror who did not vote for negligence -- the others were all unanimous. (Our trial's judge is a PA Supreme Court Justice, which was interesting -- seemed a nice fellow, too.) And, too bad, a hung jury was not an acceptable outcome; with our three-person jury (all of us law students about to start year three), I lost out to the other two, and the verdict therefore went against the householder.
There were lots of questions I'd have wanted answered before I could vote for negligence in this case; it seemed to me that the householder's actions, though perhaps other than ideal, were not necessarily unreasonable for someone in his circumstances -- including his experience of the previous attack (and more promised / threatened) committed by men in camo, who forced their way into the house when the front door was opened. Seems to me that he reasonably thought they were making another go of it to do who-knows-what to him, and he even testifies that he went outside in order to "have the drop on" the same attackers.
Stipulations (that is, agreements by the two sides' attorneys to which each agrees to be held) kept out a lot of perhaps relevant facts; the cocaine involvement that was hinted at was probably tip of the iceberg, but who knows.
The prosecution (which overall did a credible job, though I disagreed with them in sum) had some oddball suggestions which would have sounded smart to me a few years ago -- for instance, they make much of the fact that the householder didn't "fire a warning shot" or "aim for a leg." For reasons no doubt familiar to readers of this board, *that* would be the true "Hollywood solution," whereas the prosecution was trying to paint the shooter as a "vigilante" and a would-be "Dirty Harry."
The other jurors (in our trial as well as the other 5 similar ones) I think were really affected by the fact that he didn't 1) IMMEDIATELY call the police and 2) stay in his house, or lock himself in a bathroom / basement / saferoom. (The house is large enough that this looks pretty reasonable, at least at first glance.) My fellow jurors were also very offput by the "didn't fire a warning shot" / "aim for the leg" part; both of them said that if they were attacked, they'd rather not shoot to kill someone. I mentioned briefly the Teuller drill, the danger of a wounded attacker, disparity of force, the "reasonability" of "someone in the householder's position," but ... it was clear we were hung, so the other jurors completed the *rest* of the jury form, and they found the kid not even contributorialy negligent.
So, that's how it went to today. I apologize for gaps in the above story, but I welcome questions and I'll try to answer which ones I can, but based on the story as told, would you have voted as I did?
Cheers,
timothy
p.s. Mods, if this should be in L&P, I'd really appreciate it being moved -- but since it's so hypothetical, I wasn't sure that L&P was the right place ... thanks!
I participated today in program that some here would find interesting. The program (of which I partook in only the culminating day) was a week-long "trial institute" run by a large law firm as a training session for 24 of its young attorneys, who practiced their trial skills the whole week, and today took part in a mock trial, the facts of which were given to them only yesterday.
The facts of the case, in cavalier summary-of-a-summary style, to spare my fingers:
- A married couple, each with some past involvement in illegal drug use, live in a house in a suburban neighborhood, but one with its share of violence and drugs (at least their house has *its* share!)
- In mid September, the wife is attacked at their home; three thugs hide in her bushes, ring the doorbell. When she opens the door, then steps outside in bewilderment to find no one in sight, they rush her, push her into the house, strip her, torture her with cigarette burns (43 separate burns on her chest and abdomen), demand to know where "the stuff" is. The couple's barking dog alerts the neighbors, and the attackers flee, but promise that they will return.
- Wife describes the attackers as wearing camo and masks of U.S. presidents (Nixon, possibly Carter, third one she remembers only as being some other president). She never saw their faces. She says they were all over 6 ft tall, and stocky.
- Husband, a long-distance trucker away 10 days of any typical 14-day stretch, is distraught, rearranges schedule to be home at least every weekend (the previous attack took place on a weekend). Wife recovers for two weeks at the hospital, but is traumatized, and enters a mental-health inpatient facility to try to get over her attack. (Whether that sounds like a good idea is not the point -- it's just one of the provided facts
)- Husband comes home as described (on weekends), tends to and visits his wife days, sleeps nights at their house. He keeps the lights off at night, incl. porch lights, to give the appearance that no one is home; this, he thinks, will keep away at least the thugs who promised to return, if their goal is to physically assault him or his wife.
- In the weeks before Hallowe'en, the husband on one occasion finds a large fish (either in the mailbox, or on the porch) left to rot (no note or other clue as to the sender), and a few weeks later finds a pack of cigarettes (the same thing used to torture her before) in the mailbox with a note "FOR YOUR WIFE." Both times, he complains to the police, but is dissatisfied with their reaction, which seems to him cursory and uninterested, even if it is technically by-the-book as far as taking the information. (One of the witnesses is a police officer, who says that though they did take the reports, there was no strong evidence with which to proceed; the cigarette pack was dusted for prints, but without finding any usable ones.)
- On Oct. 29, a Saturday, two teenagers (16 and 17, respectively, I think) park next to the couple's house at 8:45; they intended to go to a party in another part of town (at a house to which neither had previously been), but somehow misnavigated to this house instead. The party to which they were supposed to drive had a "home invasion" theme, in which these two (and I think some others, traveling separately) were to be the "attackers," whose job was to infiltrate their friend's house and squirt the "defenders" with red dye in water pistols; they were wearing camo, had military style face paint on, and were carrying [EDIT: insert "their water pistols"] in full holsters by their sides. (It's stretchy, I know, but this is what they had to work with
)- Both teenagers are relatively short; 5'6 or 5'7, 140 or so pounds.
- One of the teenagers is a Russian exchange student, who speaks some English but is not close to fluent. The other is his host brother, and it is the host brother who directs Ivan (the real name of the fictional Russian) to knock on the door and say "Trick or Treat!", while the host brother was to sneak around back and try to enter the house that way.
- The two teenagers have exited the car, but the hostbrother has not yet gotten far from Ivan, is still on the front of the house.
- The husband, having seen the car park outside his house and seeing two men in camo moving secretively in his yard, thinks that the "I will return" thugs are back; he takes his cellphone and his gun (of which a picture was briefly shown to us, so I can tell you it was a stainless or chome S&W 686 with a 2" or 3" barrel and nice Hogue grips
), sneaks out through the garage, so he's hiding in bushes near the house, which puts him next to the porch beyond which is the front door. As I understand the story, Ivan unknowingly moves closer to the husband because he intends to ring the doorbell. (Both teenagers have yet to realize they've got the wrong house, in the wrong part of town.) Husband reveals himself, with the gun, says "STOP!" (Perhaps he also says "... or I'll shoot," but the gun probably communicates that anyhow.)
- Ivan, blissful, thinking he's still taking part in some Hallowe'en ritual, takes another few steps, smiling, toward the householder, and at this point raises the bag he's brought along, and says "Trick or Treat." He knows the word "stop," clearly, but didn't realize the intensity of the danger he was in. But he's moved closer in those steps, and ends up less than 3 feet from the husband, who (in fear of his life, he later explains) fires, hitting him in the heart; Ivan dies a few minutes later.
- Before the trigger is pulled, the hostbrother, who saw the confrontation develop (if that's not too strong a word for a situation that happens so quickly), is running toward Ivan, and yells "He's a guest!" This sounds a bit odd, I know, but it's easy to see how eloquence fails in a panic situation -- he meant something like "He's an exchange student, and a guest of my family, and perfectly innocent!" but it came out "He's a guest!" He might have said some other things; previous deposition testimony and his account on the stand today vary somewhat, and the defense attorney skewered on this; some of what he says *today* that he said then is plausible and sounds fine (things like "Stop, don't shoot!"), but he didn't report saying them in depositions much nearer to the time of the shooting. No one suggests that he's lying, but rather that his memory of what he *did* say might now be colored if not replaced by a "memory" of what he *should* have said.
- After he shoots, the husband keeps the hostbrother covered with his gun, tells him not to move, calls the police, reports the shooting, telling the police that the previous intruders have returned and that he's shot one of them. Hostbrother, anguished but not completely nuts, complies with the order not to move, and watches Ivan die.
- The cops arrive 10 minutes after the call; Ivan is dead. They interview both the hostbrother and the householder, and take away the gun (yielded willingly).
NOTE: The above facts are as best I recall them, but incomplete; I will try to add clarifications, if you have specific questions to which I have answers; lots of details that I'd like to have had were not available to jurors, though they may have been more fully explained in the case facts given to the attorneys.
The trial I saw is a civil suit (wrongful death) filed by Ivan's family for negligence against the householder. The facts above are set in a fictional city, county and state (the state is "Jefferson"), which means precedent in other states can be persuasive, but there is no ready made "castle doctrine" (or lack of it) to point to definitively.
There were 6 trials going on at once; I saw only the one for which I was a juror (one of 3, though, not one of 12). I was told later by one of the organizers that I was the only juror who did not vote for negligence -- the others were all unanimous. (Our trial's judge is a PA Supreme Court Justice, which was interesting -- seemed a nice fellow, too.) And, too bad, a hung jury was not an acceptable outcome; with our three-person jury (all of us law students about to start year three), I lost out to the other two, and the verdict therefore went against the householder.
There were lots of questions I'd have wanted answered before I could vote for negligence in this case; it seemed to me that the householder's actions, though perhaps other than ideal, were not necessarily unreasonable for someone in his circumstances -- including his experience of the previous attack (and more promised / threatened) committed by men in camo, who forced their way into the house when the front door was opened. Seems to me that he reasonably thought they were making another go of it to do who-knows-what to him, and he even testifies that he went outside in order to "have the drop on" the same attackers.
Stipulations (that is, agreements by the two sides' attorneys to which each agrees to be held) kept out a lot of perhaps relevant facts; the cocaine involvement that was hinted at was probably tip of the iceberg, but who knows.
The prosecution (which overall did a credible job, though I disagreed with them in sum) had some oddball suggestions which would have sounded smart to me a few years ago -- for instance, they make much of the fact that the householder didn't "fire a warning shot" or "aim for a leg." For reasons no doubt familiar to readers of this board, *that* would be the true "Hollywood solution," whereas the prosecution was trying to paint the shooter as a "vigilante" and a would-be "Dirty Harry."
The other jurors (in our trial as well as the other 5 similar ones) I think were really affected by the fact that he didn't 1) IMMEDIATELY call the police and 2) stay in his house, or lock himself in a bathroom / basement / saferoom. (The house is large enough that this looks pretty reasonable, at least at first glance.) My fellow jurors were also very offput by the "didn't fire a warning shot" / "aim for the leg" part; both of them said that if they were attacked, they'd rather not shoot to kill someone. I mentioned briefly the Teuller drill, the danger of a wounded attacker, disparity of force, the "reasonability" of "someone in the householder's position," but ... it was clear we were hung, so the other jurors completed the *rest* of the jury form, and they found the kid not even contributorialy negligent.
So, that's how it went to today. I apologize for gaps in the above story, but I welcome questions and I'll try to answer which ones I can, but based on the story as told, would you have voted as I did?
Cheers,
timothy
p.s. Mods, if this should be in L&P, I'd really appreciate it being moved -- but since it's so hypothetical, I wasn't sure that L&P was the right place ... thanks!
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