Encouraging people to shoot first
A man pulls a knife on another man. The other man simply let it be known he had a gun and the situation was defused. He gets convicted for having a gun on school grounds. The judge said that had the guy pointed the gun at the other man or, I guess, shot him, it would have been valid self defense. Pretty dumb. H/T Robb.
May 23rd, 2009 at 11:14 am
Ya know….
Judges warn juries about returning “inconsistent verdicts”, such as “not guilty but the defendant is so despicable he should get the minimum sentence anyway.” And yet here we have a judge doing it. Nobody hurt, no shots fired, situation defused, licensed CCW-holder, and yet a finding of “guilty”. Doesn’t make sense.
May 23rd, 2009 at 11:53 am
And it seems his defense attorney messed up, too. Just from reading the article, the man with the gun met the provision in law for self defense in that he “possessed” the firearm in a self defense situation.
Either TN law is more murky than the article explains, or this case has more, shall we say, “interesting” facts than are presented in the article.
Or maybe Turk is right, and this guy needed to be convicted of something, anything, for being a rotten person.
May 23rd, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Any defense lawyer worth his/her salt should be able to argue the “force continuum”, and argue it successfully regardless of whether some steps on it were skipped, or whether the continuum was stopped at a certain place. When I was in police work, we had a list of defense lawyers who COULD argue the force continuum, in case we were sued for excessive force.
This lawyer was obviously not worth his/her salt.
The issue of past legal problems is not supposed to come in to a trial during the finding of fact, only during the sentencing phase, unless the defendant is going to testify, when past impropriety can be used to impeach that testimony.
May 23rd, 2009 at 12:34 pm
A self-defense situation is created by the action of the perpetrator, not the reaction of the victim. Whether the victim sneezed, displayed a handgun or called in an airstrike is irrelevant. He was being threatened with a knife and that made it a self-defense situation. Knives have been known to be lethal, even in Tennessee, though it’s not clear that the judge is aware of that.
May 23rd, 2009 at 5:39 pm
This is also an obvious case of Tommy TactiCop. That’s the syndrome where the officer thinks that he/she just CAN’T be doing the job right if someone doesn’t go to jail out of every incident dispatched.
The correct police action in this case should have taken 15 minutes for field investigation/notes, another 15 minutes checking on evidence gathering (surveillance cameras, eyewitnesses), and a half-hour to write up the Special Report.
With a proper report of the circumstances written, the shift lieutenant could decide whether he/she wanted to send detectives out for more in-depth investigation. The patrol officer did his/her job by making a report of the facts. Stretching this case to a probably-un-Constitutional field arrest was NOT part of that officer’s job.
May 23rd, 2009 at 10:17 pm
The link doesn’t work for me. What happened to the jerk with the knife? In any case, gun, knife, or their limp little weenies in their hands, neither of these clowns sound like they had any business being near kids. Maybe the judge sent him away for the wrong reasons but, you know … “take it outside”.
May 23rd, 2009 at 10:36 pm
The unfortunate truism of the American legal system is this: you either have a right to use lethal force, or you don’t. If you are threatened, and lethal force is necessary to reduce that threat, it is usually accepted as legal by the courts. Any level of self defense other than lethal force is questioned, and generally not protected. This is why I frown upon the use of things like Pepper Spray and Tasers. Less Lethal rounds used in a Shotgun during a home invasion for example, are more likely to be treated as assault than legitimate self defense, but if you blow a punk’s guts through your living room wall, it’s a legitimate use of force.
I once asked a Self-Defense instructor at a prestigious shooting academy what I should do if I yell ‘FREEZE’, and the guy actually freezes. He said: “Get a good description of the guy. Get a safe distance away, and allow him to run. He’s the cop’s problem after that.” I thought that was despicable, but it makes a lot of sense, legally. You can’t be prosecuted if the guy escapes, and kills someone to steal their car, but you can be if you handcuff the guy and he gets a bruise on his wrist.
May 23rd, 2009 at 10:57 pm
Any level of self defense other than lethal force is questioned, and generally not protected.
No! “Force likely to cause death or great bodily harm” is very frowned upon by the law. Do not use it unless you feel secure that you will not go to prison for twenty-five years for using it.
This case sounds like a possessory offense to me, and maybe the judge articulated the wrong reasons, but neither self-defense nor necessity are defenses to possessory offenses. There is a legislatively-enacted exception to that rule, in Illinois, but it only applies to one’s home or place of business.