On Mar 26, 2007, at 10:14 AM, Guy Smith wrote:
Related question: What are known instances of civilians using
firearms to
defend themselves against off-duty cop violence and how are these
cases
typically adjudicated (if there is any "typical" possible)? I have to
imaging the burden of proof shifts dramatically when the person
receiving a
bullet is a cop and not a mugger with a record (this semantic
distinction
evaporates a bit in Chicago).
I keep an archive of such incidents.
The answer is, the treatment is all over the map. I assume it is
heavily dependent on the evidence allowed at trial, the stories told,
past records, jurisdiction, jury selection, and other biasing sources.
You can Google Corey Maye of Prentiss MI, and find dozens of articles
about his case. He shot at a home invader, who turned out to be a
cop breaking in the wrong door on a midnight raid. He was pretty
clearly unfairly convicted because (choose any of the following) his
"victim" was a cop; the cop was the chief's son; he was black and
everybody else involved was white.
Brian Eggleston of Tacoma was convicted of a 1995 incident based on
the judge's instructions to the jury, which ruled out a claim of self-
defense. The instructions caused an appeals court to overturn the
conviction.
Some shooters are exonerated right out of the box. Lewis S.
Cauthorne (November 2002) shot FOUR plainclothes detectives in a no-
knock in North Baltimore; Robert Howell of Prescott AZ in March,
2003; Charles DiGristine of Titusville FL in 1989; and Mario Barca of
Miami in October, 2003.
Many times, of course, the actor never makes it to trial: John Lekan
of Brunswick OH (March, 1995); Manuel Ramirez of Stockton CA in
January of 1993; Steven Douglas Dons (who mysteriously "hanged
himself in his cell with a bedsheet" while heavily medicated and
paralyzed from the waist down) had killed one officer and wounded two
more during a no-knock in January of 1998; and the recent case of 92-
year-old Katherine Johnson of Atlanta, who shot three invading
detectives this last November before being shot down herself.
Ob ConLaw: another poster on this issue makes reference to the case
of John Bab Elk v. U.S., 177 U.S..929 (1900):
"Where the officer is killed in the course of the disorder which
naturally
accompanies an attempted arrest that is resisted, the law looks with
different eyes upon the transaction, when the officer had the right
to make
an arrest, from what it does if the officer had no right. What might be
murder in the first case might be nothing more than manslaughter in the
other, or the facts might show that no offense had been committed.
"An arrest made with a defective warrant; or one issued without a
affidavit;
or one that fails to allege a crime is without jurisdiction, and one
who is
being arrested, may resist arrest and break away. If the arresting
officer
is killed by the one who is so resisting, the killing will be no more
than an
involuntary manslaughter."
--
Escape the Rat Race for Peace, Quiet, and Miles of Desert Beauty
Take a Sanity Break at The Bunkhouse at Liberty Haven Ranch
http://libertyhavenranch.com
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