Was it one too many?

[primetime]

http://www.cnycentral.com/news/story.aspx?id=487787

To summarize, a man and his wife were approached by an armed individual, some wrestling for the gun occured, the man was able to gain control of the weapon during the scruffle a round went off into the BG's leg..and then, the victim fired one off into the back of the BG's head...Thoughts?

 

[Bullnettles]

Good job citizens, but I was taught to eliminate the threat, not necessarily the person... I honestly hope he walks because that one more criminal off the street, but he probably won't. At least he kept his wife safe, which is the most important thing, Bravo. I don't see why killing someone who has willingly put your life in danger is a crime, but that's how the cookie crumbles I suppose.

 

[primetime]

^I agree....Unfortunately our judicial system may not.

 

[CoRoMo]

There are ways in which the final shot could have been delivered in self defense, but the chances of it are remote and I don't think Peterson will be able to prove it. Of course, I know almost nothing about this case except for a couple lines in that article that give us a glimpse of what happened. The best he might hope for is reasonable doubt. If he executed the attacker, he needs to work hard to get an acceptable plea bargain.

 

[FIVETWOSEVEN]

He could have been getting back up after being commanded to stop.

 

[KodiakBeer]

The gun went off accidentally...

 

[Old Shooter]

Aparently he gained control of the BG's weapon. I will take a wild guess that he was not familiar with that type of weapon or for that matter may not even have been familiar with guns at all. BG is on the ground, he is telling him to stay put and the combination of adrenalin combined with finger on the trigger and KaBoom!

But being in the Peoples Republic of New York it will probably be an uphill battle for him. Since it happened in Syracuse that is just slightly in his favor as compared to New York City but a bad deal to be sure.

I wonder if the BG had a permit for that weapon?

 

[rm23]

He could have been getting back up after being commanded to stop.

Yeah, and the world could end in 2012. Why do people have to speculate in every single one of these types of threads.

 

[Manco]

I think the way these things work is that the Grand Jury is pretty much forced to indict the shooter for second-degree murder if there is a reasonable possibility that excessive force was used, especially since it looks--at least superficially--a lot like an execution in this particular case. Now the shooter will have to convince a jury that it was all done in self-defense, and even if he did take one more shot than absolutely necessary, he only did it in the heat of the moment because he so feared for his life and that of his wife, as opposed to, say, standing over a helpless person, mocking him, and then executing him unnecessarily in cold blood with a sneer of contempt slowly morphing into a smile of satisfaction (how you "paint" the scenario makes a big difference ). Then it's up to the jury to decide what they think happened, and obviously to convict there would have to be no reasonable doubt that the shooter had deliberately murdered the deceased. If juries in this country weren't so prone to convict despite even a lack of evidence, I'd say that the shooter--who was, as far as we know, the real victim in this case--would definitely be acquitted, but innocent people get convicted on a regular basis, so there you go.

 

[Blackbeard]

Seems like his best bet is to plead ignorance. He could have been trying to hold the guy at gunpoint when it went off -- he could say he's not familiar with guns (easy to believe in NY), and didn't realize that small pressure on the trigger would make it discharge.

No idea if that's the truth or not but it's certainly reasonable doubt.

 

[xmanpike]

I see nothing wrong with the victims actions regardless of how the last shot was fired. When my life is in danger, as it obviously is when an armed individual engages you, I will do everything in my power to end that threat completely. What if the BG had another gun on him? It's not like you can trust this individual. Maybe his hand moved to his waistband? Maybe it didn't. Who cares. At the moment a weapon is pointed at me or my family, all bets are off.

 

[wishin]

It's tragic that a person defending himself and his family against some scumball must then defend his actions. There should be a law that says if you commit an armed crime, you deserve the consequences no matter what they are!

 

[Kleanbore]

I don't see why killing someone who has willingly put your life in danger is a crime,...

Well, if it were done intentionally--knowingly and willfully--it would be murder in any jurisdiction in the country.

One does not have the right to decide guilt or innocence and impose a sentence because of what someone else has done. That's up to the courts. Always has been.

The fellow is going to have to convincingly argue that the shot was unavoidable because the wounded man continued to present an imminent deadly threat. However, the fact that the man had been disarmed will work strongly against that argument

He could have been getting back up after being commanded to stop.

?

Lawful justification to shoot, someone thinks?

At the moment a weapon is pointed at me or my family, all bets are off.

Yep--but once the gun has been taken, the justification for deadly force ends.

It's tragic that a person defending himself and his family against some scumball must then defend his actions.

It's the way things have worked for about nine centuries. If one uses deadly force, it is normally a crime. However, if that use of force was lawfully justified, it is up to the actor to present evidence to that effect.

There should be a law that says if you commit an armed crime, you deserve the consequences no matter what they are!

First you would have to be charged, and then convicted--you are presumed innocent until that happens. Then there's the sentencing.

In this case, there is some evidence that the robbery victim committed an "armed crime" of some kind. We'll have to see.

 

[Sam1911]

regardless of how the last shot was fired

Yet, the line between self-defense and murder definitely exists.

If he's moving to attack you again, you can shoot (again) in self-defense.

If he's squirming on the floor and is unable or unwilling to attack you again, you cannot shoot him just because he's still moving.

Maybe he has another gun on him. Maybe not. Until you see him and try to draw that second gun, you don't have a legitimate justification. You can't shoot him because he MIGHT have had a weapon.

Who cares. At the moment a weapon is pointed at me or my family, all bets are off.

Yes. But at the moment he stops hostilities, those "bets" are back on! In the eyes of the law, whether you agree with them or not.

It is completely illegitimate to try and convict or exonerate the shooter with nothing more than this brief account. There are plenty of ways the shoot could be completely righteous, even with a round landing in the back of the attacker's head. And some where it isn't. I certainly hope that he's proved justified in this, but if he executed the guy, he shouldn't be.

 

[CoRoMo]

...moving to attack you again...

...he's squirming on the floor...

The jury will have plenty of time to decide which of those were occurring. They'll also have to decide whether or not Peterson could/should have been able to tell the difference, in those split seconds of the attack.

 

[Sam1911]

... decide which of those was occurring. ... could/should have been able to tell the difference in those split seconds of the attack.

Yup, which is part of why we shouldn't get too invested in our knee-jerk opinions of guilt or innocence.

It is certainly a tough case to argue (either way). The jury will come back with an opinion based on the best facts they're able to see. None of them will see in their minds' eyes EXACTLY what happened that night, and so their opinion should leave as much room as possible for the benefit of doubt. The defendant has some worried days ahead of him...

 

[GEM]

Nice cautionary tale for those who say that if someone does XYZ, enters their house, etc. - they are a dead man.

 

[xmanpike]

I realize a lot of people disagree with my earlier post. Legally I would probably be in the wrong in a lot of scenarios. When my lifes on the line though, the only law I abide by is Darwinism. I believe my right to live supercedes anything ever written by a politician.

 

[Sam1911]

xmanpike, I don't think (perhaps) we're all at odds with that statement. When your life is on the line, act as you must to stop the attack -- up to and including homicide. The tough part to process is that at some point in the incident your life is no longer in immideate danger.

Maybe because he's dead. Maybe because he's hurt too bad to continue. Maybe because he's given up and surrendered. Maybe because he's fleeing from you.

You can't shoot him if he moves. What if he's moving to run away? What if he's moving because he's lying on an injured limb or can't breathe? He might be moving to start the attack again, but you can't react to that possibility unless he actually does so.

You can't shoot him because he might attack you again in 5 minutes. That's not immidiate danger. Call the police and watch him carefully with weapon at the ready until they show up.

You can't chase him down to prevent him from hurting you at some later date. His crimes must be tried by a jury, not by you, and you don't get to sentence him to death for attacking you. That's not how civilized law works.

When your life is no longer in danger you cannot continue to harm him. That's what Kleanbore was saying about deciding guilt or innocence. From the moment your attacker has stopped causing you harm, his fate is no longer in your hands, but those of the law.

For better or worse, the line becomes very blurry in the second or so on either side of the cessation of hostilities. Lots of things can happen that might look bad to a non-expert jury. And some things that may be technically over the line will be lost in the moment. Perhaps the attacker and the shooter were wrestling over the gun, the bad guy pressed the attack -- twisting at the last moment -- and the shot entered the back of his head. Perhaps the attacker was lying on the ground clutching his leg wound and screaming and the shooter stood over him and killed him. One second's worth of decisions and actions -- two very different realities.

 

[Kleanbore]

When my lifes on the line though, the only law I abide by is Darwinism. I believe my right to live supercedes anything ever written by a politician.

While the right of self-defense seems to have become somewhat endangered in some countries, we have it here, in every jurisdiction.

That's not the issue at hand. When the armed robber accosted the citizen, he put the citizen in immediate jeopardy, and the citizen had the right to defend himself. He reportedly did so successfully.

What the Police Chief, the DA, and the Grand Jury contend is that the citizen, having successfully and lawfully defended himself and incapacitated the robber, shot the robber in the head after the injured robber, having been disarmed, no longer posed an imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm to the citizen or his spouse. They have concluded that while the citizen's initial actions were justified, the citizen's life was no longer "on the line", so to speak, when he fired the second shot.

They do not have the final word. Whether or not the citizen could have or should have been able to discern in those split seconds during the struggle that the robber no longer constituted an immediate threat will be decided by a trial jury, unless the defendant decides to plead guilty to a lesser charge, should he be given the opportunity. None of us are charged with making that judgment, nor have any of us seen all the evidence, heard all of the testimony, or been instructed in the law by the trial court judge.

As Sam1911 said, the defendant has some worried days ahead of him.

Regardless of how it turns out, this kind of thing has happened before and it will happen gain, and we need to all be extremely mindful of the fact that deadly force is lawful when and only when one is in immediate danger and one has no other alternative--not when one believes that danger might present itself later, and not after it has passed.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

But Syracuse Police Chief Frank Fowler says the wounds didn’t match Peterson's story. The results of the police investigation and the medical examiner's autopsy led a grand jury to conclude that Bean was murdered.

There is a lot to be said for this quote.

When my lifes on the line though, the only law I abide by is Darwinism.

LOL, I have already lived long enough to reproduce successfully. "Darwinism" is ancient history for me. I am living for something Darwin's theory didn't take into consideration.

 

[Manco]

Nice cautionary tale for those who say that if someone does XYZ, enters their house, etc. - they are a dead man.

While that's true in general, depending on one's jurisdiction there are different degrees of justification needed for one's self-defensive actions, as well as the basic assumptions made by the jury. In the most general case, you have to convince the jury that you had a valid reason for using deadly force, which applies to each and every action you took during an incident. In general, you must have had a legitimate belief that your very life was in danger.

In the case of somebody forcibly entering your home, in many jurisdictions there is a Castle law that says that your life is automatically presumed to be in danger, which gives you much more leeway in what you can justify doing. While shooting somebody who ran outside of your home trying to escape would still get you in trouble, even a bullet to the back of the head could more easily be explained away than a similar incident on the street, I believe. Now, I'm not suggesting that anybody should take advantage of this to execute or murder somebody else, and you could still be convicted if there is solid evidence of a deliberate act of murder, but I'm just saying that the presumption of your life being in danger does work very much in your favor. Outside of your home, however, you have a greater burden in justifying your actions because the jury doesn't know for sure who is the bad guy (or the worse guy).

As imperfect as the system is, I'll take it over the duty-to-surrender laws in some places....

 

[Deltaboy1984]

I read all I need to know that the man is trouble. He defended himself in NY State. If he was in TX the GJ would have no billed him. Prayers for this man since he is in a anti gun state.

 

[Cosmoline]

Two issues here by the look of it. One is he made what might have been a coup de grace shot. Perhaps more importantly, he seems to have LIED about it to the police:

At the time of the shooting, Peterson told police that he and his wife were returning home when they were confronted by an armed man, later identified as Bean. Peterson says he and Bean struggled for control of the gun when he heard several shots ring out and then Bean went limp.

But Syracuse Police Chief Frank Fowler says the wounds didn’t match Peterson's story. The results of the police investigation and the medical examiner's autopsy led a grand jury to conclude that Bean was murdered.

See that highlighted bit? That's a guaranteed ticket to trouble. And yet we see in this thread the suggestion that he should lie and claim the gun just went off by accident!

He could have been trying to hold the guy at gunpoint when it went off -- he could say he's not familiar with guns (easy to believe in NY), and didn't realize that small pressure on the trigger would make it discharge

Don't talk to the police before seeing your lawyer. And for the love of Pete DO NOT LIE TO THEM! I don't know why people think making up stories for the cops is a good idea, but the prisons are full of them.

 

[Purgatory]

Unfortunately Delta, I don't think there's a state in the nation anymore that won't convict you on SOME angle of the events Absolutely No Matter What You Do.

If you shoot an attacker until he stops, then run (as some juries say, why didn't you flee when you could?), then you'll be indicted for leaving the scene of a crime.

If you stop his attack with force then stand over him with the gun, you could be charged with Kidnapping or holding someone against their will.

If you stop his attack with force and happen to kill him, some way or another, you'll be indicted.

If you worry about all these BS ins and outs of the wonderful judicial system while your defending yourself, you may not do ENOUGH and the BG will kill you anyway.

There is no way to win in the U.S. when it comes to self preservation anymore. -and many other things for that matter.

Just know when you leave your house, and sometimes even when you don't, you have to watch out for the bad guys AND the so-called good guys.

The atmosphere in this day and age is that you cannot defend yourself lawfully and not be indicted.

xmanpike:

I see nothing wrong with the victims actions regardless of how the last shot was fired. When my life is in danger, as it obviously is when an armed individual engages you, I will do everything in my power to end that threat completely. What if the BG had another gun on him? It's not like you can trust this individual. Maybe his hand moved to his waistband? Maybe it didn't. Who cares. At the moment a weapon is pointed at me or my family, all bets are off.

+1

wishin:

It's tragic that a person defending himself and his family against some scumball must then defend his actions. There should be a law that says if you commit an armed crime, you deserve the consequences no matter what they are!

I agree with this statement implicitly. Unfortunately that doesn't make any difference.