Father indicted in death of drunk driver

[CaptainHaplo]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

Ah, I did not see that. My bad, then.

I still stand by the fact that allowing revenge killings is a bad thing to do. Even by victims.

Not your bad - I had to go digging (which I did initially) to find that out. It isn't in the quoted article, but it is out there in others.

I agree with you that "allowing" revenge killings is generally a bad idea - by anybody. Victims included. However, I do see a difference between the guy walking (or running) 100 or 150 yards (about the length of a football field) into his home to get his gun and shoot the guy after seeing his two sons CRUSHED - vs some premeditated plan that results in a vengeance killing.

Seriously - as a dad of 2 - if that were me - I wouldn't be in my right mind for a long, long time. I can so totally see that this guy might have lost it. The time frame to get the gun and kill the drunk driver - is not enough for it to be premeditated. The shooter just saw his 2 sons crushed to death....

Which brings up the issue of WHY he will get off. Temporary insanity or jury nullification. It would be a rare jury that knows they have nullification rights that would be ok with applying the murder statute to this guy. I don't think its "ok" to commit a vengeance killing. However, given the individual circumstances of this case - the actions could be viewed as justified. That is what a jury may consider in regards to nullification. If they feel he was justified, then that would mean the law would be applied to him in error.

While I am against vigilanteism generally speaking, but I admit that my views are subject to change on it. The reality is that our legal system at this point continues to fail to protect us or rehabilitate the wrongdoer. Its broken - perhaps beyond repair.

I wonder why people are still going on about what a fictional jury will do when a grand jury has already looked at it and decided the indictment is fitting murder.
Is there some magical formula where 12 future people will view the case completely differently in regards to law than the 12 who already looked at it?

[Bilge_Rat]

There are some cases where revenge killings have been accepted as mitigating circumstances, but it is always on a case by case basis.

You have, for example, the Don Ayala-Paula LLoyd case.

Paula LLoyd was a anthropologist who worked as a volunteer in Afghanistan. In november 2008, she was part of a team visiting a village, she went to talk to a vilager who was holding a can of gasoline. For an unknown reason, he doused her with gasoline and set her on fire. She suffered first/second degree burns to 60% of her body and died two months later.

Don Ayala who was on her team immediately detained the attacker who was then held by other soldiers. Ayala went to check on the condition of LLoyd. When he came back 10 minutes later, he shot and killed the attacker with one bullet to the head. At that point, the attacker was lying on the ground with his hands tied behind his back.

Ayala was initially charged with 2nd degree murder, but he eventually pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was only sentenced to probation.

Obviously an extreme case.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/30645926/

[swamprat69er]

Personally, I don't think I would have wasted the time to go and get the gun. Just beat the drunk to death. That way he would get to die as slowly as the kids did and probably with as much pain.

[tater]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

I wonder why people are still going on about what a fictional jury will do when a grand jury has already looked at it and decided the indictment is fitting murder.
Is there some magical formula where 12 future people will view the case completely differently in regards to law than the 12 who already looked at it?

I take it you have not sat on a US Grand Jury.

I did for 3 months a few years ago.

The GJ is given the charge the DA wishes to bring. ONLY the DA's case is presented. The GJ then virtually rubber stamps the indictment. In 3 months I was empaneled for only about a weeks worth of days over that period. We worked 8 hours, and did multiple criminal indictments per day. There were hundreds of charges, usually several per case. In a FEW of the cases we indicted on fewer than all the charges. Maybe 5%. No one was NOT indicted for any crime. Not one. We all knew that we were not deciding anything other than "is it worth having a day in court?" We didn't suggest lesser charges to the DA or asst DA, we assumed they knew what they were doing.

You can, as they say, indict a ham sandwich.

Indictments mean nothing at all.

PS---I never suggested that juries should ignore instructions, but that they could ignore instructions.

Tater, explain why they rejected the defence that would have brought a lesser charge.

[tater]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

Tater, explain why they rejected the defence that would have brought a lesser charge.

The GJ?

The GJ is only presented with the charges that the DA presses. They can either indict, or not indict, charge by charge. They have no flexibility. There is no defense. Even witnesses have no lawyers.

The DA clearly thinks he can get murder. The GJ thought "this deserves a day in court" and did what they always do, rubber stamp the DA.

There is no defense in a grand jury at all. Only the DA presents, the jury decides if there is probable cause for a trial.

There is only a lesser charge if the DA decides to ask for one (though some states might have included lesser charges, I dunno, and it never came up in any of my 4 jury duties).

The GJ is only presented with the charges that the DA presses.

The question is again.... why did they reject the lesser charge?
Do you understand the question or are you again just going to try and tell me what a grand jury is?

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

The question is again.... why did they reject the lesser charge?
Do you understand the question or are you again just going to try and tell me what a grand jury is?

Here did you question that a lesser charge was rejected?

[tater]

I've see all of 2 articles on this, and one mentioned a murder indictment, none listed all the charges, or all presented to the grand jury. If you have the list of charges presented to the gj, and how they voted on each, do tell.

[Jimbuna]

Painting oneself into a corner perhaps.

[tater]

GJs are generally secret, and the charges they reject are not made public. That way if a DA goes after you, and the GJ says no dice, you are not stigmatized, it simply does not exist. Knowledge of a rejected charge would actually mean a leak in the GJ, and that might be a news story by itself.

Murder is basically knowingly (intentionally) killing someone in TX. Looks like manslaughter might include the idea of spontaneously doing it. Presented to a GJ, just the DA side, it's cut and dried murder in TX. He left the scene, got a gun, came back.

I'm not arguing the veracity of the charge, I'm just saying that the idea of a jury nullifying it in a climate of so many drunk driving deaths should not be ignored.

And again, maybe they can find him guilty of lesser, included charges, I have no idea, and the 2 stories didn't list all the charges brought against him.

Only thing I can say about the case.

I'd not waste time going for any weapon myself.
If I knew he was drunk without a doubt?
I'd still be beating his dead body when the Law arrived.

I'd only use a firearm should he walk away from Court with little or no punishment.

Then it would be long range and well planned.

I've see all of 2 articles on this, and one mentioned a murder indictment, none listed all the charges, or all presented to the grand jury. If you have the list of charges presented to the gj, and how they voted on each, do tell.

If you had read the articles then you would know, it is in the first post in the topic.
If you take the 3rd&4th words of the 3rd post it covers that avenue too.

Here did you question that a lesser charge was rejected?

Indeed

Painting oneself into a corner perhaps.

Painting even further into the corner with...."GJs are generally secret, and the charges they reject are not made public. That way if a DA goes after you, and the GJ says no dice, you are not stigmatized, it simply does not exist. Knowledge of a rejected charge would actually mean a leak in the GJ, and that might be a news story by itself.".....the "leak" is the people handling the case, it is those people who are quoted in the article mentioning the lesser charge which was rejected.

So tater are you actually going to answer the question which funnily enough is already answered in the article you say you read or are you going to try and tell me what a grand jury is again?

[tater]

The article says this, "The grand jury reviewed it and has indicted him for murder."

That's the sum total of the information on charges. It's the major charge, so all that is reported. Are there more?

One count, obviously, one victim. What other charges? Discharging a weapon within city limits? There could be more. What were the lesser charges offered the GJ? You claim they were offered lesser charges, but rejected them. What were they?

The 3d and forth words? Temporary insanity? That's not a charge (unsure if it is a valid defense in TX, too, that varies by state).

The charges don't matter, whatever the DA charges will get indicted 99.999999% of the time. It's apparently an ongoing area of study as the old saw of it being a rubber stamp instead of a check on the DA is true. The GJ will "sign a napkin if you put it in front of them" as they say.

No one has argued that the charge is legally wrong. What those of us that know better have argued is that the GJ process is nothing at all like the trial process, as guilt is not even an issue in the GJ process, just if there is probable cause to have a trial. Every single criminal case has a GJ, so every single case the DA loses loses in spite of the GJ indicting the defendant by definition.

In this case, I don't personally think a guilty verdict is a foregone conclusion because there will be much empathy for someone bumping off a guy he watched murder his kids. A lesser charge would be far more of a sure thing, even if after reading the TX murder statute, I think it is cut and dried murder technically. But again, juries can do whatever they like, regardless of the law.

We'll see how it turns out, but you need to remember that the jury is filled with the man on the street, not legal scholars.