Guilty of manslaughter
 

My sister was on a murder trial this week. The location is New York City, borough of Queens.

I post this to allow all the conservatives to get a good, hearty laugh. :D

The individual on trial is a 19 year old male. The facts of the case, as best as I can relay them are as follows.

Alleged perpetrator is known to the individual who was killed (DM). Apparently the perpetrator was going to confront the DM regarding some unknown issue. The perpetrator was carrying a loaded handgun when he went to visit the DM.

The DM was not an "esteemed member society" to put it nicely. There clearly was no outporing of grief over his death.

After shooting the DM three times, he vacated the location and left the state.

When he was located, the police brought him back to NY and extracted a confession from him. However, in the confession, he stated that he shot the DM in self defense.

The police did their usual bogus job in the investigation. No witnesses for the prosecution. No handgun. No physical evidence, whatsoever, to connect this man to the crime. However, there was motive present.

So, the jury is charged with finding him guilty of murder II, or manslaughter II or not guilty.

This is where it gets interesting.

The first vote is 2 in favor of murder, 7 in favor of manslaughter, and 3 who don't understand the process well enough to decide anything.

Some of the logic from these idiots:

-----Carrying a loaded gun, without a license, is typical these days. You can't convict someone of murder if he had no intent to kill the DM. Just because he was carrying a loaded gun does not mean that he was going to use it.

-----The police might have coerced the confession from the perpetrator. You can't necessarily believe a confession extracted by the police.

-----The fact that he shot the DM is not evidence that he meant to kill him. He many have just meant to injure him. But, he died from his injuries.


So, eventually the jury went 10-2 in favor of Man II. It didn't take much to cause the other two to rollover. My sister was one of the last two, but, she has no constitution to holdout against 10 people.

Her logic, and it might make some sense, is that it is better to hang him for Man II rather than hang the jury. The next jury might just acquit him.

The prosecutor was happy with the verdict. Apparently, in some areas of NYC, you can't convict someone of murder under just about any circumstances because the "jury of peers" don't trust the police. :eek:

I'm with the Bonehead on this one. ;)

In all likelihood, I would agree that he probably did murder, but where is the evidence to prove other than the self defense part that he claims?

Based on the lack of hard evidence, and if he had kept his mouth shut, had even a marginal lawyer, he might have got off!

That's why I'm not in favor of the death penalty. It might not be the case for this but too many people fess up for crimes they did not commit and off to the chair they go.

You know, I missed that perspective somehow. I have been sort of undecided about death penalty. I think some folks really, really need it. Like a local serial killer who murdered at least 8 women. Why should that mofo live? Or that wacko in CA who killed his entire family, after having incestuously fathered many of the children. A man like that should not breath my air. Or Bin Laden.

OTOH, there are murderers and there are murderers. And there are mistakes--miscarriages of justice. Why risk executing innocent people? It's bad enough if they serve life in prison when innocent, at least there's some chance that justice will finally be done. But if they're executed...sorry 'bout that, y'all.

The plea-bargain thing is another point. What with cops having the right to lie to suspects anyway, just give them a bit more leverage by threatening them with death.

I don't know. I want Bin Laden to die. It would be nice if death came to him while sealed in a black cave by Hellfire missle, alone in the dark. But it would also be pretty cool to have a Hollywood-style show trial in which everything he finds contemptible about western society, like maybe a really pretty and real smart Jewish defense attorney, was the last thing he saw as the needle slipped into his arm. OTOH, dying of old age in a max security prison might be kind of nice, too.

Oh I second that, I should have said I don't support the DP under existing guidlines.

The interesting thing about the DP is that there are no consistent guidelines. Up here in liberal land, it's nearly impossible to receive the death penalty. If a perp does get it, he's got a very long road before it is carried out. I'd venture to guess that the NY application of the DP would meet the requirements of almost all of us, with the exception of those who are opposed to the DP as a matter of principle. I don't believe that you can get the DP in NY unless you kill a police officer or a prision guard.

Now, the opposite end of the spectrum is Texas, of course. I have the suspicion that the rather cavalier application of the DP down there will (has??) result(ed) in a miscarriage of justice where an innocent man (woman) is put to death.

I look at the DP in a different way. While it is terrific to assign death to some of these extreme murderers, the cost to actually get there is extremely large. I don't have the data in hand, but, I recall reading that to put a man to death requires about three times the money that it would otherwise cost to leave in in jail for the rest of his life. Just on this economic basis, alone, I believe the DP should be off the table for all but the most heinous of crimes.

If this is true, and you believe in the DP or not, why should a police officer, or prison guard, have higher human status, or are their human being values higher up, like next to God? If your going to kill, kill someone who isn't a cop, or you'll really get it! BS.............

I'd guess the reason is mostly some sort of psychological thing. We put our trust in law enforcement to keep evil at bay. So when something bad happens to somebody in whom society places greater trust and responsibility than it does the general public, we react more harshly. I don't think it is necessarily that we value law enforcement more than regular folks, it's that we value their responsibility more than we value the repsonsibility of say, a botanist.

In thinking about it a bit more, what does the death penalty actually accomplish, other than the extraction of revenge?

If you wish to rid the individual from society for the rest of his life, you can do this far more economically if you sentence him to life without the possibility of parole.

DP as a deterrent?? Probably not.

This is where many come to loggerheads. What does it cost us the tax payers to imprison a killer for life. Many say the DP, from a humanitarian perspective, is wrong, while many justify an eye for an eye because of their being a burden to the tax payer, others justify the DP because the believe only in an eye for an eye. What quality of life is there to the killer in a cell for the remainder of their life? Why should we pay something on the order of $40,000 a year (I read that somewhere a long time ago) to keep them locked up?

Life in prison didn't deter Kenneth McDuff. They let his ass out. He proceeded to kill a half-dozen more people. Death penalty finally deterred him.

The cost to apply the death penalty is something close to 1 million.

It's way more costly than incarceration for life.

Eliminates recidivism.

Life, no parole, accomplishes the same thing.

Except....life without parole may not actually be so. Also escapes happen. And of course the easily overlooked and ignored murder of other prisoners, guards, etc.

If they daid, they can't do nuttin, to nobody.