Except you’re ignoring that a Michael Dunn didn’t act in self defense. He murdered Jordan Davis and was convicted of it by a jury who heard vastly more evidence than you did.
Anyway Jordan Davis did nothing other than play loud music in public.
Do you consider teenage girls who play loud music “thugs”?
Well, yes, you’re innocent unless and until you’re found guilty. A not guilty verdict simply maintains the status quo - that you are innocent.
Very occasionally there’ll be enough proof presented outside of court to show that a not guilty verdict was incorrect - such as OJ Simpson - but these are enormously rare.
When the first jury didn’t do as they were told, they found another one that would, yes. Forgive me for not considering such a kangaroo court legitimate.
There’s been much talk in these threads, and plenty of it legitimate, about courts bending or breaking the rules to imprison black people unfairly. It’s a fucking shame that this doesn’t seem to be working both ways here.
Dunno, what race are the girls? Apparently that’s the deciding factor these days.
It’s not “balanced” – it’s heavily biased in favor of the defendant (hence “reasonable doubt” – and this is how it should be).
But our history shows that our system doesn’t successfully screen out all nutty, bigoted, or idiotic jurors.
No it doesn’t. Doubts can be reasonable and they can be unreasonable. If a juror has doubts but can’t express them reasonably, then other jurors shouldn’t take on the doubt.
In the case of Dunn, there was strong enough evidence that Dunn’s self-defense story did not provide reasonable doubt (according to the jury), and it’s entirely reasonable that they found him guilty. It should be really hard to convict people of murder, and it is. It should also be hard to convince a jury that shooting an unarmed kid was self-defense.
You’ve failed to demonstrate that this is the case. “Steophan doesn’t like that hung juries lead to new trials” isn’t enough to convince me that hung juries shouldn’t lead to new trials.
You still don’t get the nerve you touch by calling a dead kid for whom there’s no evidence he acted violently a “thug”. It’s not a huge deal – you slipped up. But you should recognize that you shouldn’t have called him a thug – that’s unfair to him and his family at the very least, and, further, unreasonable based on the evidence of what went on.
haha no
The evidence is that he shot a guy dead, who happened to possess a weapon.
Absent further circumstances & context that would, in and of itself, point to self-defence (i.e. he was home and the dead guy was a stranger), or material evidence that would confirm Live Guy’s version of what happened ; the finding is still that he shot a guy.
Self-defence is a mitigating factor of manslaughter, which in most jurisdictions mitigates it all the hell away, but it still has to be positively established and corroborated. Else we’re back to the default : manslaughter.
And “there’s a gun on the corpse” is really but really not enough to go on, there.
No, it shouldn’t. No-one should have to prove their innocence. The burden should be entirely on those claiming that it wasn’t self defence. If the jury is working from anything other than a presumption, which the prosecution must overcome, that it was self defence, then the defendant is inadequately protected, and the trial is not (morally) valid.
Not, fortunately, in every jurisdiction. In some (such as has been exhaustively covered, Florida) it becomes an element of the crime that needs to be proved if the defendant asserts that it was self defence.
Which is as it should be. Self defence should be considered a basic right, not a “mitigating factor”, killing in self defence should not be a crime, and no-one should be expected to prove they’ve not committed a crime.
Technically true. It doesn’t make you innocent, as you were, and remain, innocent at all times until found guilty. What it certainly does is affirm your innocence.
I’m not saying that they should have to prove their innocence – the prosecution tries to prove that it wasn’t self defense (in cases like this), and the defendant tries to provide reasonable doubt. Dunn and his lawyers failed to provide reasonable doubt, according to the jury.
I see no reason to believe that this jury did anything other than this. The defense failed to provide reasonable doubt in the prosecution’s case – the jury found that the assertion of self-defense was not reasonable based on the evidence. The prosecution met that burden in Dunn’s case.
The Dunn case seems like an excellent example of how self-defense assertions can be handled – sometimes they may provide reasonable doubt for the prosecution’s case, but not always. Steophan, you’ve failed to demonstrate that Dunn’s assertion of self-defense must necessarily have provided reasonable doubt in the prosecution’s case, which included a lot of evidence against self-defense.
I really don’t think it’s possible to argue with anyone who thinks it’s acceptable to retry someone because the original jury didn’t find them guilty.
If you mean someone who thinks it’s acceptable to retry someone after a hung jury, then apparently you don’t think it’s possible to argue with pretty much everyone (lawyers, judges, etc.) who is part of the legal establishments of either the US and the UK.
It’s fine that you have this opinion, but from what I can tell and understand of laws on hung juries and retrials in the US and the UK, it’s an incredibly extreme fringe opinion on the law.
Double post
Not to mention hung juries have almost always led to retrials which makes poor dumb Steophan’s complaints about the “erosion” of defendants rights so ridiculous.
He’s pretending this is some weird occurrence when in fact it’s what almost always happens in the case 10-2 verdicts.
Plenty of things that have “always happened” have turned out to be wrong. Progress of any sort fights against that attitude.
That’s fine, but I’m totally unconvinced that this is wrong. Especially in Dunn’s case – the evidence seemed quite strong (and beyond a reasonable doubt) that it was not self-defense, from my understanding and reading. If one juror has doubts that are not reasonable to any of the other jurors, then it seems entirely reasonable to re-try the case.
Actually, by the UK system, Dunn could have been found guilty in the first trial (the UK allows “guilty” verdicts even if one juror disagrees). The US system gave him another chance to offer reasonable doubt, and he failed.
No, but you’ve been talking as if this is some brand new developement which would make it look like you’re either grossly ignorant of the history of the judicial system or were attempting to debate in bad faith.
That was a very surreal experience. That incessant knocking will be the soundtrack of my nightmares for a long time.
I don’t know how anyone can defend the craziness in this video.