Assess this recent in-the-news defensive shooting incident (Houston)

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If they do track down the shooter he's gonna burn for sure. No matter how justified he might have been in firing the first shots, 'disarming' the guy and shooting him in the head is murder. It just depends on how hard they wanna go at the guy (assuming he's found).
 
Kleanbore said:
Judges are extremely reluctant to declare mistrials, and prosecutors, to dismiss charges.

I wouldn't expect a man who shot an unconscious man after having disarming him to fare well at trial.
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Branca's guest expert, a criminal defense attorney, pointed out that there is the legal case and there is the "feelings" case (I think he may have called it something else, but that was the gist), and in the latter the defender gets a big sympathy boost for having taken the stolen money off the robber and returning it to the other patrons.
 
If this actually does go to trial…attorneys for the tacqueria hero can hopefully illustrate the final shots were fired at an already dead robber and were essentially inconsequential as the criminal gunman was already deceased.
 
Blue Jays said:
If this actually does go to trial…attorneys for the tacqueria hero can hopefully illustrate the final shots were fired at an already dead robber and were essentially inconsequential as the criminal gunman was already deceased.
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It wouldn't change the intent of the guy doing the shooting.

If this goes to trial one of two things is going to happen, the shooter is going to go bankrupt or he's going to take a plea deal and go to jail
 
Even if he's found not guilty of the state charges, if there's enough noise in the press, the Feds can always come back later with a violation of civil rights charge, race is immaterial and it's not double jeopardy.
 
Speedo66 said:
Even if he's found not guilty of the state charges, if there's enough noise in the press, the Feds can always come back later with a violation of civil rights charge, race is immaterial and it's not double jeopardy.
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No. The shooter was not acing as an agent of any government.
 
old lady new shooter said:
Branca's guest expert, a criminal defense attorney, pointed out that there is the legal case and there is the "feelings" case (I think he may have called it something else, but that was the gist), and in the latter the defender gets a big sympathy boost for having taken the stolen money off the robber and returning it to the other patrons.
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He mentioned that possibility, and also that it may work against the shooter for social reasons.
 
MEHavey said:
Fascinating.
What would be the argument made for that?.
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No, not returning the money. The extra-legal political factors. Shot that poor boy in the back when he was down....riots, protests...
 
"Experts"--"what if", "looks like instinct", "he could have had another gun", "he could have had a knife", "the person was clearly trained", blah blah blah.

Terrible journalism.
 
Kleanbore said:
"Experts"--"what if", "looks like instinct", "he could have had another gun", "he could have had a knife", "the person was clearly trained", blah blah blah.

Terrible journalism.
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Let's see, we have the opinion of a cop who's actually been on the streets for at least 20 years versus your opinion. I know who I'm going to listen to
 
Night Rider said:
Let's see, we have the opinion of a cop who's actually been on the streets for at least 20 years versus your opinion.
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Who would that be, and what is his opinion? What has he studied about use of force law?
 
Kleanbore said:
Terrible journalism.
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Yep! Unfortunately that kind of reporting (I won’t call it journalism) shapes a lot of charging decisions, grand jury outcomes and trial juries.

We like to think that our system is based on the law but public opinion has more to do with those decisions than we realize. Like it or not, right or not, the national coverage of this story that’s feeding on the public anger over out of control crime in many areas is liable to skew prosecution decisions and grand jury outcomes.

I’ve posted several times about the businessman here who shot three people fleeing after stealing anhydrous ammonia. There was nothing legal about that shooting. No charges. Public opinion
and the message it sent to others who would endanger the public by stealing anhydrous ammonia is why he wasn’t charged. I got that directly from the states attorney.

I sincerely hope that isn’t the case here and no one should feel that they too would get away with executing a downed attacker if he’s not charged or indicted. You can’t count on that kind of public opinion…….
 
Jeff White said:
We like to think that our system is based on the law but public opinion has more to do with those decisions than we realize
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Right. We've seen that with the Michael Brown, Gorge Floyd, Kyle Rittenhouse, and George Zimmerman cases--acquittals with no new evidence. and that case involving four officers in Maryland.

In all of those, the evidence was entirely consistent with legal self defense. In this one, we have the other side of the coin.

There's the legal side--Attorneys Andrew Branca and Mike Gosney think the guy is in hot water--and there is the political side.

The Houston DA is one of the Soros prosecutors. They don't have to win cases to meet their objectives. They just have to be able to show that they fought the good fight....at the expense of the defendant. That ninth shot gave the DA everything needed to start the game.

We'll see what George wants to do.

The public anger over crime just may be about to overtake the hysteria about police shootings.
 
Jeff White said:
Yep! Unfortunately that kind of reporting (I won’t call it journalism) shapes a lot of charging decisions, grand jury outcomes and trial juries.

We like to think that our system is based on the law but public opinion has more to do with those decisions than we realize. Like it or not, right or not, the national coverage of this story that’s feeding on the public anger over out of control crime in many areas is liable to skew prosecution decisions and grand jury outcomes.

I’ve posted several times about the businessman here who shot three people fleeing after stealing anhydrous ammonia. There was nothing legal about that shooting. No charges. Public opinion
and the message it sent to others who would endanger the public by stealing anhydrous ammonia is why he wasn’t charged. I got that directly from the states attorney.

I sincerely hope that isn’t the case here and no one should feel that they too would get away with executing a downed attacker if he’s not charged or indicted. You can’t count on that kind of public opinion…….
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This is a tangent, I looked up anhydrous ammonia and see that it's a dangerous substance, but why would people steal it?
 
Jeff White said:


The anchoring shot was "instinct" and "this man is a hero". Public opinion might be the deciding factor here.................
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A lot of the commentary was obviously ill-informed from a legal perspective. But I am heartened to see journalists (?) actually speaking in positive terms about defending oneself, this is a huge change from a couple of years ago.
 
Phaedrus/69 said:
I think it's used to cook meth.
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It's a major ingredient of the "nazi" method (named because it was developed in Germany) of producing meth amphetamine. It's widely used in agriculture and when home cooked meth was all the rage we had huge problems with people stealing it. Often they would break the valve off of the big tanks in the field and we would have to evacuate people. We had several officers injured when they came across a mobile lab and anhydrous escaped from the things like thermos bottles they stored it in. They also modified propane bottles like you would use on a gas grill to keep anhydrous.
 
Jeff White said:


The anchoring shot was "instinct" and "this man is a hero". Public opinion might be the deciding factor here.................
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Sorry, but the above is the same way I see it. If ever there was a case for jury nullification, this is it. We don't know if the guy was actually dead or not, and absent wisdom directly from the Deities, we can't assume he was dead and incapable of further violence --either now or in the future. I point out that one of the "victims" of the Valentine's Day Massacre was hit by seven bullets and still lived for hours. When asked who shot him, he responded "Nobody." Given modern medical wizardry, who's to say that he would not have survived to rob or kill or rape in the future? (Terry's Judgement: He looked like he was really enjoying his power over others.)

My question always has been "When is the threat ever actually, for sure, ended?"

When is the threat actually ended?

Without making a joke out of it, I would like to see the shooter awarded a substantial portion of the "suspect's" (ha!) potential prison costs for his service to the community .

Sorry, lawyers. But I know I'd never be able to serve on his jury.

After all, "ending the threat" is why we have capital punishment.

Terry, 230RN
 
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