Double Naught Spy
Sus Venator
Have you seen the new Feb 2004 Combat Handguns and read the article by Ayoob? Either the man is steadily losing his ability to reason or he has no ability write in a manner where the information presented actually leads to the claimed conclusion. My reading skills are not always fully engaged when reading these things, but I think the guy has lost his mind.
His claim is that flight from a shooting, justified even, will cause you to be guilty. He then claims to provide 6 actual shooting cases that tell why flight equals guilt. Maybe y'all can help me out here. If a person is involved in a hit-and-run accident, is that a shooting? If a person hits a pedestrian with a car, lodging the pedestrian in the windshield and then drives home and hides the car and pedestrian until after he dies a couple of days later, is that a shooting? If a person draws and points a gun at a person to protect himself from attack and never fires a gun, is that a shooting? I know Ayoob has countless years of experience as an expert witness and in law enforcement, but in my limited knowledge of law, I never read anything anywhere that said a hit and run was a shooting. My ejumacation has apparently been lax.
As near as I can tell, only three cases actually involved shooting (Cases 1, 4, 5). One of the shooting cases wasn't by a good guy and was murder (Case 5). He claims that flight equals guilt, but fails to show how it was that flight equalled guilt versus being convicted on all the other stupid stuff the folks did, or as in the last case, whether it was flight or failure to report an engagement (bad guy attacker called police and reported a man pointed a gun at him) and so the complaintant was seen as the victim instead of the good guy.
Case #1 - never showed where the action of flight caused the guilty conviction, but was a shooting case. Ayoob says that experts later said that had the guy stayed at the scene, things might have turned out differently. I don't know. He didn't show where the issue of flight was used against the guy in court, but did note the jury was biased and that information had been witheld from the jury. I can't determine whether it was flight or bad lawyering that resulted in the guy's conviction. There is more evidence for bad lawyering in the actual trial than there is for flight as presented by Ayoob.
Case #2 - given to show where flight of a head injured person after an accident can be understood by the jury since the person was unintentionally stupified. Interesting example, but this case was not about shooting.
Case #3 - our local case in North Texas where the woman who hit the man who lodged in her windshield and then left him in her garage for days until he died. She did flee the original scene, but that had nothing to do with her conviction. The issue was not that she fled the scene, but that she kept the victim who was alive in her garage until he died. The guy suffered greatly and she even spent time talking to him, apologizing, but not getting him help. As in Case #2, this was not a shooting case.
Case #4 - brutalized and repeatedly raped guy is then threatened by his attacker and shoots and kills the attacker with an illegally possessed gun and fled the scene. Ayoob claimed that there was a strong "flight equals guilt" element to the conviction, although he never says where that came from. The conviction was overturned.
Case #5 - brutal murder by a youth. Lawyer claimed it was due to TV violence that warped his client's mind. In the aftermath of TV shootings, the good guy shooter often leaves the scene. I have no idea why this example is given. It does not support his contention that leaving the scene had anything to do with the conviction or that the TV violence aspect and flight from the scene actually had anything to do with the murder. Heck, Ayoob never even notes if the youth fled the scene or not. The conviction was for murder, not flight
Case #6 Road rage. The good guy defends himself with his pistol to stop an attack, but the gun is not fired - not a shooting. The attacker calls the cops to report the good guy pointed a gun at him. The good guy, happy the event is over, goes about his business without reporting to the cops. Here, Ayoob claims that since the guy fled the scene, he was presumed guilty. At issue here is not whether or not he fled the scene, but that the bad guy managed to call the cops first and the good guy never did. Of course, if the good guy did not have a cell phone, he would have to leave the scene to report the incident as the actual attacker did. The failure was not in flight, but in failure to report the event. While the initial aspect of flight equaling guilt is addressed, Ayoob then correctly noted that in our system, it is the person who files the complaint that is believed to be the victim. So the fact that the good guy left the scene was not what caused perceived guilt, but the failure of reporting. So here Ayoob contradicts himself and weakens his argument by showing that the reason for presumed guilt was something other than flight.
I don't know about you guys, but I have some really serious reservations about a man giving legal advice in a gun magazine that seemingly does not have the ability to separate out what a shooting is versus what is pointing a gun versus what is hit and run and what is homicide via a vehicle. I fail to see where intentional murder resulted in a conviction due to flight. Each of these cases was supposed to show were flight equalled guilt. I don't know about y'all, but I fail to understand the relevance of flight being relevant to guilt when at least two of the people were definitely guilty of homicide, knowingly and intentionally performing their acts. The guilt was there whether or not the perps fled.
Ayoob is right that fleeing the scene is a bad idea if you have been involved in a self defense shooting, but nothing in this article really convinced me that his examples substantiated the point.
If Ayoob gets to testify as an expert witness at some future date, the opposing lawyer only need introduce this article to the court to show that the expert aspect of Ayoob's qualifications may have seriously deteriorated.
His claim is that flight from a shooting, justified even, will cause you to be guilty. He then claims to provide 6 actual shooting cases that tell why flight equals guilt. Maybe y'all can help me out here. If a person is involved in a hit-and-run accident, is that a shooting? If a person hits a pedestrian with a car, lodging the pedestrian in the windshield and then drives home and hides the car and pedestrian until after he dies a couple of days later, is that a shooting? If a person draws and points a gun at a person to protect himself from attack and never fires a gun, is that a shooting? I know Ayoob has countless years of experience as an expert witness and in law enforcement, but in my limited knowledge of law, I never read anything anywhere that said a hit and run was a shooting. My ejumacation has apparently been lax.
As near as I can tell, only three cases actually involved shooting (Cases 1, 4, 5). One of the shooting cases wasn't by a good guy and was murder (Case 5). He claims that flight equals guilt, but fails to show how it was that flight equalled guilt versus being convicted on all the other stupid stuff the folks did, or as in the last case, whether it was flight or failure to report an engagement (bad guy attacker called police and reported a man pointed a gun at him) and so the complaintant was seen as the victim instead of the good guy.
Case #1 - never showed where the action of flight caused the guilty conviction, but was a shooting case. Ayoob says that experts later said that had the guy stayed at the scene, things might have turned out differently. I don't know. He didn't show where the issue of flight was used against the guy in court, but did note the jury was biased and that information had been witheld from the jury. I can't determine whether it was flight or bad lawyering that resulted in the guy's conviction. There is more evidence for bad lawyering in the actual trial than there is for flight as presented by Ayoob.
Case #2 - given to show where flight of a head injured person after an accident can be understood by the jury since the person was unintentionally stupified. Interesting example, but this case was not about shooting.
Case #3 - our local case in North Texas where the woman who hit the man who lodged in her windshield and then left him in her garage for days until he died. She did flee the original scene, but that had nothing to do with her conviction. The issue was not that she fled the scene, but that she kept the victim who was alive in her garage until he died. The guy suffered greatly and she even spent time talking to him, apologizing, but not getting him help. As in Case #2, this was not a shooting case.
Case #4 - brutalized and repeatedly raped guy is then threatened by his attacker and shoots and kills the attacker with an illegally possessed gun and fled the scene. Ayoob claimed that there was a strong "flight equals guilt" element to the conviction, although he never says where that came from. The conviction was overturned.
Case #5 - brutal murder by a youth. Lawyer claimed it was due to TV violence that warped his client's mind. In the aftermath of TV shootings, the good guy shooter often leaves the scene. I have no idea why this example is given. It does not support his contention that leaving the scene had anything to do with the conviction or that the TV violence aspect and flight from the scene actually had anything to do with the murder. Heck, Ayoob never even notes if the youth fled the scene or not. The conviction was for murder, not flight
Case #6 Road rage. The good guy defends himself with his pistol to stop an attack, but the gun is not fired - not a shooting. The attacker calls the cops to report the good guy pointed a gun at him. The good guy, happy the event is over, goes about his business without reporting to the cops. Here, Ayoob claims that since the guy fled the scene, he was presumed guilty. At issue here is not whether or not he fled the scene, but that the bad guy managed to call the cops first and the good guy never did. Of course, if the good guy did not have a cell phone, he would have to leave the scene to report the incident as the actual attacker did. The failure was not in flight, but in failure to report the event. While the initial aspect of flight equaling guilt is addressed, Ayoob then correctly noted that in our system, it is the person who files the complaint that is believed to be the victim. So the fact that the good guy left the scene was not what caused perceived guilt, but the failure of reporting. So here Ayoob contradicts himself and weakens his argument by showing that the reason for presumed guilt was something other than flight.
I don't know about you guys, but I have some really serious reservations about a man giving legal advice in a gun magazine that seemingly does not have the ability to separate out what a shooting is versus what is pointing a gun versus what is hit and run and what is homicide via a vehicle. I fail to see where intentional murder resulted in a conviction due to flight. Each of these cases was supposed to show were flight equalled guilt. I don't know about y'all, but I fail to understand the relevance of flight being relevant to guilt when at least two of the people were definitely guilty of homicide, knowingly and intentionally performing their acts. The guilt was there whether or not the perps fled.
Ayoob is right that fleeing the scene is a bad idea if you have been involved in a self defense shooting, but nothing in this article really convinced me that his examples substantiated the point.
If Ayoob gets to testify as an expert witness at some future date, the opposing lawyer only need introduce this article to the court to show that the expert aspect of Ayoob's qualifications may have seriously deteriorated.
