No.
I was talking about the standards for voluntary manslaughter which the jury rejected by apparently believing him. I’m saying that I don’t see the distinction between those and the second-degree murder standard.
Anyway, this whole case is a good illustration of how excessive concern with “intent” corrupts justice.
How was “justice” “corrupted?”
I used quotes for a reason.
Me too. 
I have to admit that having a video of a man drawing a gun, pointing it at someone, and then pulling the trigger strikes me as being about as much evidence as you can have, without actually getting a confession, that he intended to draw the gun, point it at a man, and shoot him. The gun did not accidentally go off during cleaning or some such thing.
I guess I just don’t understand how “I thought it was my Taser” won’t now inevitably become the excuse of choice for unnecessary close-range shootings.
Yep, that’s pretty much my take on it, too.
That’s why i said earlier that, even if the verdict is an appropriate reflection of the law as currently written, i don’t think justice has been done here. He pulled the gun, he aimed it, he fired it, and he hit the target he was aiming at. Even if we believe that the guy was too stupid to know his gun from his taser, that shouldn’t be sufficient to reduce the penalty by as much as it has in the current case.
As for your last point, it was something that crossed my mind, too. Pretty convenient argument, especially given that it might work as long as you can cry enough and convince the jury that you really mean it.
My reaction is almost the opposite - the excuse “I didn’t have enough training to know when I was Tasing and when I was firing my sidearm” is about as lame as I can think of on the spur of the moment. For all the reasons you cite, and some others besides.
As mentioned, someone who can’t tell the difference between a Taser and a gun is not someone who is to be trusted with either. I don’t think training would fix that.
It is probably true that I am the sort of person who gives the po-pos the benefit of the doubt in these kinds of cases. And, based on my very superficial understanding of the circumstances, I would agree this goes well beyond any benefit of the doubt.
But people talk about the “code of silence” and the tendency of police (and neo-fascist right-wing reactionaries like myself) to close ranks behind the cops every time a civilian gets shot or Tased or beat down. And there is a lot of downside to that - it allows abuses and cover ups and all kinds of horrors that nobody really wants. But there is a flip side to that, where people automatically condemn the police no matter what. I don’t mean this case, but in general. And that has a downside as well - not least that it makes it that much harder for the police to maintain order and otherwise do their job in cases where most people would agree it was necessary. And, unfortunately, it tends to reinforce the “code of silence” because it is an understandable reaction when whole groups of people get condemned for everything they do.
I don’t mean that you are doing this. I hope you don’t misunderstand me. I mean that, for every instance where a cop does something criminally stupid, as seems to be the case here, there are at least as many situations where the shootings were righteous. And, to everyone’s regret, the police get condemned just as loudly in those cases as they do in this one. And automatic condemnation leads to automatic stonewalling.
Like I said, I tend to reflexively side with the cops. There are a lot of people who reflexively condemn them. We are both sometimes right, and sometimes wrong, in that reaction.
It is equally wrong to say “the cops do this all the time - those pigs” as it would be to say “so, he shot a dinge - BFD”. Neither should be passed over with a wink.
It seems that justice was done in this case, to the extent that it could be. And there was still rioting. That’s too bad - it gives fuel to those who say “why bother about police abuses, those people react like animals no matter what you do”. And that’s just as bad as anything else.
Regards,
Shodan
And one more thing -
The cop didn’t get away with that excuse (nor, AFAICT, should he have). So, as excuses of choice go, it ain’t a very good one. Nor, as I say, should it be.
Regards,
Shodan
Apparently he did get away with it, to be convicted only of involuntary manslaughter.
RE your earlier post: A cop caught a lot of flak for shooting a guy on a bus in Little Rock who was wielding two axes. I’m extremely glad policemen shoot folks doing that. 
What do you mean?
He got away with that excuse to the extent that he avoided a murder and a voluntary manslaughter conviction. Which is the sort of conviction that one might generally expect for someone caught, on video, shooting a prone man in the back from a distance of two feet.
And the reason he got the involuntary manslaughter conviction was precisely that the jury placed credence in the argument that it was an accident, which means they presumably placed credence in the argument that he had accidentally drawn and fired his gun instead of his taser.
I mean he lost his badge and his pension and is going to serve years in prison. If you want to define that as “getting away with it”, I won’t object.
Regards,
Shodan
There was? From what I heard there was some scuffling but it was mainly non-oaklanders, including a group of white supremecists trashing a footlocker.
:shrugs:
If you want to quibble about what constitutes rioting, go ahead.
I don’t think it matters much if they were Oaklanders or not.
Regards,
Shodan
You don’t think the difference between A) “Citizens in Oakland were so outraged they began rioting” and B) “A small number of people within driving distance of Oakland saw an opportunity to rage and took advantage” matters? 
Not saying its a total swing, but I definitely think it is relevant to the whole “There are a lot of people who reflexively condemn cops” argument you seem to be pushing. From what I saw most of the rioters in question weren’t interested parties to this case, but rather opportunists.
Not enough years for taking someone’s life.
Regards,
Plant
I thought the odds of him ever being convicted of 2nd degree murder were always pretty low. I thought the odds of him getting voluntary manslaughter were better, but also less likely than not since “reasonable doubt” is pretty easy to achieve. Really getting any conviction of a serving cop in a shooting case seems pretty unusual. This one was so egregious though, I was fairly certain they wouldn’t out and out acquit.
But if he had gotten VM instead of IM, as I suspect he deserved, the sentence isn’t actually that much stronger, primarily because the gun enhancement is the same for both. With the gun enhancement it is 5 to 14 years for IM ( 2, 3 or 4 for the charge + 3, 4 or 10 for the gun ), but only 6 to 21 years with VM ( 3, 6 or 11 for the charge + again 3, 4 or 10 for the gun ). So potentially 50% longer, but there is a lot of overlap there.
Murder would have been a different story - mandatory 25 for using a gun, plus 15 to life for the charge. But again murder was always a pretty high bar to reach.
What the po pos didnt say is that he was on route to the local Renaissance fair.
What pisses me off is that if there had been no video tape of the incident, I guarantee you that he wouldn’t have been convicted of anything, and both of the officers stories would have Been a he’ll of a lot different. And of course shodan would be asserting that all the eye witnesses are all just a bunch of cop haters and only the cops accounts of events should be considered.
Now there are states actually trying to make it illegal for anyone to Video tape a police officer. Gee, I wonder why.
Isn’t this is how it usually is? The victims are black, the juries are deliberately purged of blacks.