Jose Colaco wrote: For a chap who gave Roland Francis unmitigated hell for his error about Canadian Tigers, you are talking astonishing and unremitting gibberish while swinging from one point to another. Please STOP. You have already proved that You do not have a clue. In short REMEMBER this: a: Murder and attempted Murder require a Mens Rea - which could NOT have been present in the example (albeit fictitious) you provided. b: In (common law) Canada (as in Ontario)....Juries are NOT interpreters of Law. They are mere 'Finders of Fact'. The term 'Interpretation of Law' is very specific and not subject to imaginative Tigerbabian hyperelucidation. --------------------------------------------------------
Doc Colaco, The Ronald Opus case is a fictional one. For those who have not read the link provided, here it is: --x-- On March 23, 1994, a medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a gunshot wound of the head caused by a shotgun. Investigation to that point had revealed that the decedent had jumped from the top of a ten-story building with the intent to commit suicide. (He left a note indicating his despondency.) As he passed the 9th floor on the way down, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast through a window, killing him instantly. Neither the shooter nor the decedent was aware that a safety net had been erected at the 8th floor level to protect some window washers, and that the decedent would most likely not have been able to complete his intent to commit suicide because of this. Ordinarily, a person who starts into motion the events with a suicide intent ultimately commits suicide even though the mechanism might be not what he intended. That he was shot on the way to certain death nine stories below probably would not change his mode of death from suicide to homicide, but the fact that his suicide intent would not have been achieved under any circumstance caused the medical examiner to feel that he had homicide on his hands. Further investigation led to the discovery that the room on the 9th floor from whence the shotgun blast emanated was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. He was threatening her with the shotgun because of an interspousal spat and became so upset that he could not hold the shotgun straight. Therefore, when he pulled the trigger, he completely missed his wife, and the pellets went through the window, striking the decedent. When one intends to kill subject A but kills subject B in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject B. The old man was confronted with this conclusion, but both he and his wife were adamant in stating that neither knew that the shotgun was loaded. It was the longtime habit of the old man to threaten his wife with an unloaded shotgun. He had no intent to murder her; therefore, the killing of the decedent appeared then to be accident. That is, the gun had been accidentally loaded. But further investigation turned up a witness that their son was seen loading the shotgun approximately six weeks prior to the fatal accident. That investigation showed that the mother (the old lady) had cut off her son's financial support, and her son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that the father would shoot his mother. The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus. Now comes the exquisite twist. Further investigation revealed that the son, Ronald Opus himself, had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to get his mother murdered. This led him to jump off the ten-story building on March 23, only to be killed by a shotgun blast through a 9th story window.The medical examiner closed the case as a suicide. ---x-- Once again, it is a made up story - "to show how different legal consequences can follow each twist in a homicide inquiry." In short, there was no Mens Rea, no husband, no wife nor a Ronald Opus. I brought up the case only to illustrate how difficult it can be for a jury to interpret the law. In real life, a jury is called in for not for their knowledge of robotics, nor of photography. They are called in to hear the law and the evidence. They then have to use their interpretation of the law to determine if the accused can be considered guilty. The easiest way to illustrate a jury's (mis?)interpretation of the law is the OJ Simpson case. The jury was told over and over, "If the glove does not fit, you got to acquit." Mervyn
