Man shot, killed by off-duty Dallas police officer who walked into wrong apartment p3

[JoeMorgue]

You might have noticed that at the end of the Chauvin trial, the lawyer asked for a mistrial because, among other reasons, the prosecution put on too many witnesses against his client.

No I wouldn't have noticed because my brain would protect me from anything that stupid.

 

[Samson]

Just remind me how this woman profited from this crime.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Just remind me how this woman profited from this crime.

This doesn't seem to follow from anything said recently. What's it supposed to mean?


She didn't profit from the crime, if you really need an answer.

 

[JoeMorgue]

This doesn't seem to follow from anything said recently. What's it supposed to mean?

Hijack bait.

 

[Samson]

This doesn't seem to follow from anything said recently. What's it supposed to mean?


She didn't profit from the crime, if you really need an answer.

Normally when people pile on criminals there is profit or malice to be discovered.

 

[Samson]

Hijack bait.

Sceptical forum where the obvious [woman shoots innocent man in cold blood] opens rather than closes the discussion.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

I'll go with dead victim = malice then.

 

[Samson]

I'll go with dead victim = malice then.

Malice? I honestly don't see this. America is a quasi war zone where this hapless woman was brave enough to train to fight at the front. Had she not been that brave she would certainly be free to help out on forums like this instead of being totally screwed.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Sceptical forum where the obvious [woman shoots innocent man in cold blood] opens rather than closes the discussion.

"I tHouGht dIs wAs a PLAce 4 SKEPTIks!"

Get a new tune.

 

[Belz...]

Sceptical forum where the obvious [woman shoots innocent man in cold blood] opens rather than closes the discussion.

What?

 

[Thermal]

Malice? I honestly don't see this. America is a quasi war zone where this hapless woman was brave enough to train to fight at the front. Had she not been that brave she would certainly be free to help out on forums like this instead of being totally screwed.

If she was brave, I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have shot some dude eating ice cream. That would have been a stellar time to show some balls and take control instead of firing into the dark like the most sniveling of cowards.

I probably recounted way upthread about the times I have walked in my own home and found strangers in it, and strangers charging through the front door without warning, and three guys creeping into my home at midnight. I never shot anyone. Because im not a sniveling ******* coward.

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

I don't know how compelling the argument that the jury just straight up got it wrong is going to be. Appeals, in general, are extremely hard to win, so I would bet this just gets tossed pretty quick.

It will probably get tossed. But this is a weird case. I expect the court will give this appeal more consideration than most similar types of appeals. The appeal is well written. This is a different lawyer who specializes in appellant law.

The claim is legal insufficiency. That basically means that the prosecution didn't prove the case. That basically means that even if all the facts that the prosecution presented are accepted as true, the defendant would still not be guilty of a crime. That gets a bit complicated here because there are defenses raised, where in some cases (such as self-defense) the defense has the burden of proof.

They are basically just rehashing the case. They say she clearly made a mistake of fact and believed she was facing an intruder in her own home. If we accept the mistake of fact, we must consider the case of that perspective. If she was facing an intruder in her own home this was a case of self defense. I'll address those in separate posts.

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

Mistake of Fact

The appeal may fail solely on the mistake of fact issue. Maybe. Under Texas law, if mistake of fact is raised as a defense the prosecution has the burden to prove there was not a mistake of fact. It is not up to the appellant court to determine whether or not there was a mistake of fact, but only whether or not the prosecution presented evidence by which a reasonable juror could determine that there was not a mistake of fact. The prosecution presented a lot of such evidence. I didn't find it convincing, and the appellant judges may not either, but the only question is whether a reasonable juror could have made that determination.

 

[Bob001]

.....
They are basically just rehashing the case. They say she clearly made a mistake of fact and believed she was facing an intruder in her own home. If we accept the mistake of fact, we must consider the case of that perspective. If she was facing an intruder in her own home this was a case of self defense. I'll address those in separate posts.

Assume for the sake of argument that she believed an intruder was in her home. Would that have justified killing an unarmed person instantly, instead of retreating outside the apartment, calling for backup, turning on the lights so she could see where she was, etc.? How far does "I was scared" get her if she wasn't even acting as a cop? And if she wins her appeal, does that get her off, or just a new trial?

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

Assume for the sake of argument that she believed an intruder was in her home. Would that have justified killing an unarmed person instantly, instead of retreating outside the apartment, calling for backup, turning on the lights so she could see where she was, etc.? How far does "I was scared" get her if she wasn't even acting as a cop? And if she wins her appeal, does that get her off, or just a new trial?

You are getting ahead of me. I'll address the self defense claim next.

The appeal is asking for either an acquittal or as an alternative a conviction of criminally negligent homicide.

The argument for acquittal is question of law, not facts. It is not about any issues related to how the trial was conducted. The appellant court will make the final decision on that claim.

On the issue of criminally negligent homicide, I honestly don't know. I was going to address this later, but might as well do it here.

The charges before the jury were murder and manslaughter. Those are lesser included crimes. The appeal argues that the charges (or specifically, the jury instructions) should have been for criminally negligent homicide rather than manslaughter.

I agree with the defense that manslaughter, as written in Texas law, is not really legally possible in this case. Manslaughter would mean that she knew that she was doing something that had a significant risk of causing death but did it anyway. There is really no way that works in this case.

But the manslaughter charge was approved by a grand jury. The prosecution has no obligation (as far as I know) to include an indictment for the lesser charge of criminally negligent homicide.

This is sort of like a plea deal with the appellant court. It is saying that if the appellant court agrees that the defenses of mistake of fact and self defense holds but that the defendant did act in a criminal manner, but that there was negligence not presented at trial, the defendant will accept the lesser charge of criminally negligent homicide without retrial.

 

[Bob001]

.....
I agree with the defense that manslaughter, as written in Texas law, is not really legally possible in this case. Manslaughter would mean that she knew that she was doing something that had a significant risk of causing death but did it anyway. There is really no way that works in this case.
.....

Wait, what? Surely nobody could pretend that firing two shots at someone at close range doesn't present "a significant risk of causing death." How could this possibly be a question?

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

Wait, what? Surely nobody could pretend that firing two shots at someone at close range doesn't present "a significant risk of causing death." How could this possibly be a question?

Because you only get to the manslaughter charge if you accept the mistake of fact and self defense claims.

If she was actually acting in self defense, then of course she was shooting to kill. And if she made a mistake of fact, then of course she was shooting to kill.

If we accept that she made a mistake of fact that she was in her own apartment and facing an intruder and acted in self defense, then she is not guilty of murder. But then the question remains of whether she committed a criminal act in her legitimate mistakes.

The question is whether ignoring all the indicators that she was in the worn g apartment was an act of recklessness or negligence. Under Texas law (and in general) to act recklessly means you knew there was a risk but did it anyway. To act negligently means you didn't know there was a risk, but but you should have known.

In this case, once we have eliminated the conditions for the murder charge, there is no way she knew that she was in the wrong apartment and that the person she was facing was not there unlawfully.

If she knew she was wrong but did it anyway, then there cannot be the mistake of fact that got us here in the first place. There is either a mistake of fact, which means it is negligence and cannot be manslaughter, or there was not, which means it is murder and not manslaughter.

There is really no way it can be manslaughter.

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

Self Defense

The appeal also raises a self defense claim. It says that she twice yelled "Let me see your hands!" and then shot when he didn't show his hands, as is consistent with her cop training. This is where everything falls apart for me. With the trajectory of the bullet wound and the position of the body, the only reasonable conclusion is that Jean was standing up from the couch when he was shot. That almost probably means she shot immediately after opening the door and yelling those words, giving him no time to show his hands.

That contradicts her testimony that she saw a man pacing back and forth at the back of the apartment and that he then charged at her in an aggressive manner. Even though there was a counter between them. And even though that could not be what happened. She was lying. She was lying because she knew she was wrong going in with guns blazing and yelling the secret magical words that her cop training tells her give her permission to kill anybody at any time for any reason.

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

Castle Doctrine

The self defense claim in the appeal relies much more on the castle doctrine than the original case did. In this thread I raised a number of issues and complications about how the Texas castle doctrine applies in this case.

The way this is addressed in the appeal is rather curious. When they first bring it up, they talk about an “imminent commission of aggravated kidnapping, murder, sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault, robbery, or aggravated robbery.” That’s straight from the standard law on self defense for deadly force.

But later, they switch to the castle doctrine, and then include that same argument about certain crimes. I don’t think this isn’t actually a problem with the appeal. The law says a person can use deadly force “to prevent” those certain crimes. Then the law gets into the castle doctrine that says when the use of deadly force is presumed. But that section also incudes that the person “ had reason to believe that the person…was committing or attempting to commit” those crimes.

It is a rather strange construction of law, because it first says that deadly force is only allowed if it is immediately necessary to prevent those crimes, but then says that deadly force is presumed to be necessary if a person “had reason to believe” that someone “was committing or attempting to commit” one of those crimes.

This is a problem with many castle doctrine laws. They were controversial and legislators copied text from other exiting laws to give them legitimacy.

That leads to other complications I have brought up before with the castle doctrine in the case. The law requires that the person reasonably believe that the person entered “with force”. The defense argued, for their own purposes at the time, that Guyger found that there was no sign of forced entry. The defense argued that was one of the reasons she knew someone had broke in and went in with guns blazing. It was just a dumb argument by the defense, but that’s is what they said. And it is repeated in the appeal.

 

[catsmate]

Just remind me how this woman profited from this crime.

Sceptical forum where the obvious [woman shoots innocent man in cold blood] opens rather than closes the discussion.

Normally when people pile on criminals there is profit or malice to be discovered.

Is there an actual point buried in this nonsense? Or are you returning to your usual "no-one is ever guilty" track?