Bah, I hit stop too soon; I thought I remembered how the rest of the scene went.
Agreed, though; it’s a great film and probably the first one in which I took Pitt seriously as an actor. Listening to the commentary track with him and Freeman really established how much thought they put into their roles.
I’d have to say guilty. I could see a case for extenuating circumstances, but cops can’t just kill someone for personal reasons.
No fucking way. The laws are meant to govern how people should behave within reason. No reasonable person would NOT have pulled the trigger. And even if my premise regarding the law is wrong: Fuck the law.
If Chewbacca lives on Endor you must acquit.
I’d vote Not Guilty by reason of temporary insanity, which any decent defense attorney would use. IF it came to trial, which I doubt it would. I think it would probably be buried.
Not guilty; Insanity.
That is not the point of a jury. The point of a jury is to decide whether or not the defendant committed the crime he or she is charged with.
Okay, it’s a little more complicated than that, but’s it’s not true that it’s the jury’s duty to decide right or wrong beyond the letter of the law.
Hopefully the defense would argue temporary insanity, which is what I would vote for if they did.
Others might argue with that. Certainly the state would prefer that juries restrict themselves only to deciding matters of fact, but the fact that (in the United States) jury acquittals are non-reviewable could be seen as supporting the idea that jurors have a higher duty.
I’m not denying that juries doing so is a wholly,or even mostly, good thing; certainly here in the South, during the civil rights movement, that power was often abused. But it’s less than correct to say that there’s no precedent for the idea that jurors are charged with deciding morality as well as fact.
I think you watched too many movies or tv shows. The District Attorney’s office would probably be none too pleased that their high profile suspect was killed in police custody before he could have a trial. The press would certainly get wind of the fact that the wife of a detective investigating the case was murdered the same day the suspect was with that detective. There might be recordings of the radio traffic between the units at the scene, even though only Mills and Summerset were close enough to actually see what was going on.
IOW, the case is way too high profile with way too much evidence to be handled “quietly through back channels”.
“Soulless hardass”? The only way he could NOT be charged with a crime is if they could somehow make a case that John Doe was attempting to flee or attack them. Extenuating circumstances MIGHT buy him a lesser charge or suspeded sentence.
Guilty because he broke the law, BUT… the absolute minimum (like time served for the 1/2 hour he spent in booking) if I had input on the sentencing.
I think what he did was immoral, but I could not convict him. I would either buy a temporary insanity defense, or just assert the privilege of jury nullification.
Once they close the door to the jury deliberation room YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO DICK. You can do any damn thing you please, including voting not guilty regardless of any evidence to the contrary.
I would have no problem accepting the defense’s assertion that Doe represented a credible and continuing threat to Mill’s personal safety, right up until point when the clip was empty. He was coming right for him.
No way in hell temporary insanity would not have been used as a defense in this case, and no way in hell I wouldn’t buy it. Not guilty.
As it stands, I’d vote guilty of voluntary manslaughter. However, I’d probably be open to seriously considering a well-argued defense of temporary insanity.
I tried to think of the best real-life parallel to this situation. The closest I got was that of Ellie Nesler. She ended up serving three years out of ten year sentence but was released when her conviction was overturned for juror misconduct. Ellie Nesler and her family weren’t exactly pillars of the community, however. She died in prison while serving a sentence for selling meth and her son, William, is doing life for viciously murdering a neighbor that had been hired to clean their property.
Not guilty by reason of “sucka had it coming” with a dash of “temporarily murderously insane”.
He’s guilty. Voluntary manslaughter would be appropriate.
And temporary insanity wouldn’t fly here. He’s a cop, he knew killing him would be wrong.
What he did was illegal, but I wouldn’t say it was immoral. I’d vote “not guilty due to bastard had it coming.”
I hate to admit it, but this is pretty much my thinking. Of course, we have the advantage of knowing the whole story. A real juror wouldn’t have seen everything we saw.
Random question. As I understand it, you can’t be charged twice for the same illegal act, even if you’re charged with a different crime.
If a DA really wanted to protect Mills, could he charge Mills with first-degree murder for the shooting and make a shitty case, guaranteeing a not guilty verdict and thereby protecting Mills from ever facing a lesser charge for the crime?