-over any* wtf?
I am the Original Poster. In the story, the three thugs stole 10 CASES of candy. The value of the candy was 650 dollars. I guess they could of sold off the candy to some small mom and pop inner city stores in Memphis for a few dollars.
The call came from a “Dollar General Store” a local franchise that is like a small dollar store. They called and said that they have been “robbed”. Before the cops could find out that the shop was the victim of shoplifting, they find the car. The chase was on. Cop gets killed during chase. Thugs caught. Thugs fucked.
The Law is an ass.
While I’m mindful of the admonition posted above by xash, I find it more disenheartening that he focuses on the gratuitous insult offered by a poster and says nothing at all about the scads of incorrect information being posted in GQ.
If you don’t know the answer, don’t post. This would produce two salutary effects: GQ questions would be subject only to honest mistake-type error, rather than wilful ignorance, and the temptation to characterize posters as ignorant loudmouths would be greatly reduced, if not eliminated.
If you know the factual answer to a question, but believe that it exposes a great injustice, surely a rant in the Pit or a reasoned proposition in GD is the place for your screed.
Beryl_Mooncalf: theft is an included offense of robbery. In some jurisdictions, it is an included offense of burglary. In others, burglary is the breaking and entering of a dwelling with intent to commit any crime therein. However, if the predicate offense is taking stuff, then that’s theft.
In the OP’s case, there is no question that under the facts alleged, theft can be charged. And as theft is a predicate offense for felony murder, felony murder can be charged.
For all those posters who have argued that the police were driving recklessly, and that this means the felony murder charge is “bullshit”: no. It’s possible for the defense to show that the officers’ conduct was so reckless as to create an independent, intervening act that severs the nexus between the felony and the death. But the ‘record’ presented by the OP and accompanying stories is sufficient as a matter of law to find felony murder.
Whether the law SHOULD permit such a finding is an issue I’ll happily discuss in GD, should anyone wish to initiate such a thread. The factual answer to this question is that the law DOES.
- Rick
lucwarm
Lucwarm, gets an “A”…
That is exactly what you are suppose to do when looking at this type of question. Look at the applicable law, look at the facts, apply one to the other. Yes you are correct, theft may apply. It could well be theft. It depends on whether this is a shoplifting, petty theft or some other statute that applies. Sometimes theft requires the other persons knowledge of the act, vs. finding something missing later on. Sometimes the legislature has written exceptions, like shoplifting statutes into their penal code, to allow ‘second chances” Now, corndog man has added a few more facts, like, the $650.00 value. There is always one more thing to check. This is where the lawyer comes in and this is exactly what will happen prior to the trial.
Incidentally, my initial opinion was the “burglary” was sufficient, and that theft would be inapplicable due to a shoplifting statute, or the like. I should not have excluded theft as you pointed out though. Very good application lucwarm.
Bricker Sorry, you may have the right answer, but you didn’t show your work. So, Lucwarm still gets the “A”, and you’ll have to settle for less.
As you see from my answer to lucwarm, there are still specific issues to be resolved.
As to your first three paragraphs, I agree with what you are leading to and you are, again, 100 correct. The exception is the requirement for an answer. I believe it is not possible to produce anything more than an opinion. I have never seen a legal question like this, complete enough, or simple enough for anyone to answer, without researching the facts and the law Opinions at best. You have opinions the day the trial starts too, otherwise the option of a plea bargain would never be taken. Legal opinions are legal egos, wrapped up in a vernacular of long words, requiring paper that is 3” longer than normal paper to start with, just to express them. Therefore, at best, you’ll get two correct answers most of the time.
For instance…
Blanket legal applications rarely fly, and here is one place that it won’t. Even if it is technically correct, it may be factually or legally incorrect. Shoplifting may be “theft” in the sense that something is stolen, but it may not be theft in the legal -statutory- sense. Shoplifting may be a category independent of theft, created to categorize the offenders differently that the others. An example is joy riding vs grand theft auto. Same concept, same act, only it is a different offense based on the mitigating facts in the situation.
If we are Fighting Ignorance at this board, then that concept includes helping people learn how to “learn”. Giving them correct answers is but a small part (IMHO), learning how to identify issues and apply laws to legal questions is a skill that will help everyone when faced with these situations.
Correct answer in legal questions are , most of the time, opinions anyway. That is why conclusions such as “he is guilty” are worth nothing. Find a 1st. year law student and you’ll get yes/no answers. Find one in the last semester of law school, you’ll get “ maybe yes, I have to look it up” for an answer. Find a lawyer, you’ll get “maybe yes, maybe no, could be either”.
Lawyers face off with a theoretical 50/50 chance of winning. However, where I am, it is 92/08 for the DA.(felony trials) If anyone post an “absolute” answer to a question any more specific than “Is it legal to shoot my neighbor for singing too loud in church”, run from it. (for those considering this, the answer is how loud and who is looking?)
Are you referring to the civil aspect of liability? I disagree on the criminal aspect, because there is a duty for the officer to chase.
This is no different than when he uses a firearm and injures another. If he shoots at another deliberately, most likely he would be criminally liable. However, if he returns fire in a way he believes reasonable, in the heat of the moment, he is immune, even if a review board determines that the return wasn’t the best thing to do. Officers are reviewed under a standard that takes fully into consideration the milliseconds they have to perceive, process and react to the threat.
What has been used against officers is their violation of the departments policy for pursuit or weapon use. If the department his such a policy and the officer was in compliance with it, he will not be found criminally liable. (Civil is a different thing, -the city, county, state, who ever employees the officer, may be liable)
One other thing. Juries will always have considerable sympathy for a police officer who is injured, or one who has died in the performance of his duties. This (arguing police negligence)is a far greater challenge than you realize.
The Officer
I assume this is the officer. Look at him as the jury will be doing.
Note also the “armed robbery” reference and the 9PM time.
corndog man The OP, has added more facts. Look at what the police thought when they approached the vehicle. Now, apply what they thought they were facing, with what happened (the high speed chase). They are entitled to have a mistaken belief that they are pursuing “robbers”. (robbery is typically a physical act against a person, done with threat of or fear of violence). Does this work for or against the police.
This may be GQ and not GD, but helping others develop tools to answer these questions is as important as giving them the answer. Maybe these legal questions belong in GD to start with? Maybe yes, maybe no.
Thanks for the additional information corndog man.
Also from the TN code:
So if the candy bars are valued at $650 then the the taking of them meets the statutory definition of theft and the theft was a class E felony.
I know you have posted complaints about this sort of thing before, Bricker, and I understand completely the frustration of seeing people pull answers out of the sky. However, it’s hardly fair to expect the GQ moderators to be experts on every conceivable topic that might be posted here so they can police the accuracy of posters’ answers, particularly with legal questions that are jurisdiction-dependent. If the average American doesn’t have the answers to questions about US laws, how can one expect folks from other countries to correct them? Let’s be realistic.
I like Beryl_Mooncalf’s suggestion that legal questions be placed into GD from the get-go, because I have rarely seen a legal question thread that didn’t devolve into a discussion of (sometimes heated) opinions.
Otto, correct, and right on.
Here is the secret.
- Read the fact situation. As posted here, this would be the OP.
- Look for the issues of law. As posted, the statutes from the TN code.
- Apply the issues to the rules of law that you have found.
- Conclude. (this is the answer most people are after anyway) But by this time
you have probably found far more problems than answers. Which is my point, there are very few direct answers, only opinions. If any one pursues a legal education, or has, they will instantly recognize IRAC in the above. Issue, Rule, Application, Conclusion.
How much difference does it make when, as here, the officer responded to what he thought was an armed robbery, (robbery where a weapon was used) at 9PM at night, spots the car and gives chase without having interviewed the victim?
Well, We have a problem here. [Get the facts first Beryl, always, get the facts first]
I assumed the “Memphis” corndog man was referring to was Memphis TN. It appears that it was Memphis AR. So, I guess I don’t have to say this, the TN statute was a great exercise, but …
In Denver a couple of years ago, boyfriend and girlfriend robbed a bank. Girlfriend had been handcuffed in the back seat of a police car, boy friend killed a cop shortly thereafter. Girlfriend is on Death Row.
Maybe. But not as “fucked” as the cop who died. Or his widow and children, if any.
I don’t recall signing up for a class you were grading.
You are so wrong that I doubt you can even see Right from where you are.
In my criminal trial experience, there was rarely a dispute about the law. I agree, of course, that the facts were often in dispute, but the plea bargain decision was almost universally based on a realistic appraisal of what the prosecution could prove - not what conclusions of law those facts compel.
I’m certainly willing to be educated, though. How extensive is your criminal trial experience, and how often was there a genuine difference of opinion between prosecution and defense on a question of law, as opposed to fact?
Can you cite a jurisdiction in which theft is not an included offense of shoplifting?
Can you cite a jurisdiction in which theft is not an included offense of either joy-riding or grand theft auto ?
I tend to treat all of these posts as law-school type hypos. It goes without saying that undisclosed facts may change things. As my post suggests, I also treat them as though reviewing the conclusion from an appellate perspective, given an appeal for sufficiency of the evidence. It also goes without saying that even the most guilty person may wrangle a not-guilty verdict, through leniency, poor prosecution, or outright nullification. I don’t address those possibilites in every answer. If the hypo offers sufficient facts to create a record that would allow a reviewing court to affirm the verdict, that’s enough for me to say ‘guilty’.
If we were to adopt the approach you seem to suugest, it renders the answers to future legal questions rather easy: “Maybe yes, maybe no, could be either.”
Call me crazy, but I think more is required.
I was an underpaid PD in an underfunded office, and we did better than that. Where are you, where the DA rules the roost to this degree?
- Rick
[quote]
How much difference does it make when, as here, the officer responded to what he thought was an armed robbery, (robbery where a weapon was used) at 9PM at night, spots the car and gives chase without having interviewed the victim?
[quote]
Um…none?
I cannot believe you are an attorney.
Well, there was a recent case here in Edmonton that happened differently.
A police officer was involved in a high speed chase two years ago. He was recently acquitted of criminal negligence and dangerous driving. He had been driving approximately 110-112 km/h (the speed limit there was 70kph), and he was not using his emergency lights or siren at the time (he said that he did this in order to “avoid provoking the speeding cars into a dangerous chase.” He was chasing two street racers. As the unmarked police car went through an intersection, it t-boned another vehicle (that was turning left, into the path of his car - the cop had a green light). The other car was basically shorn in half and caught fire. One occupant (a child) was killed, and another was severely injured.
My point in bringing this case up isn’t that the police officer was acquitted of the crime. The judge said that: “We need to remember that police officers are often placed in positions where they have to make quick and spontaneous decisions in the course of their duties. Sometimes they make the wrong decision.”
My point is that the police officer was charged with criminal negligence and dangerous driving in the first place - and brought to trial. (And BTW, apparently the family of the dead child is planning on bringing a civil suit).
(To me), this situation doesn’t seem so far different than the OP. There was a car chase, and an accident occurred, with the police officer’s negligence being a contributing factor (not using sirens, not wearing a seatbelt; hitting another car, running over the police officer on the road).
Several posters have given links to stories of criminals (leading the car chase) being charged with murder due to indirectly causing accidents as a result of the chase. So why was the police officer charged in this case, and not the perpetrators of the original crime? There’s been some public outcry that the police officer should have been found guilty (some even call him a murderer - although I think that’s ridiculous). Some other people put the blame on the driver of the car that was hit - since he turned left into the path of the police car. But I don’t recall ever hearing on the news that they even considered charging the original criminals with the deaths, and in all the recent commentary on the case, I haven’t heard anyone suggest that.
Also, several people on the first page of the thread said that they don’t think that police chases should not be curtailed when chasing criminals who have committed lesser crimes - that this would just encourage criminals to run for it more often. That is also being debated here in Edmonton. From the second link:
This case occurred in Canada, and laws do vary between Canada and the US, and between US States, but I would have thought there’d be a large degree of commonality in the law for cases like this. As far as I can see, the only difference is that in this case the original people being chased hadn’t committed a felony (AFAIK). But it would seem logical that a high speed car chase is a high speed car chase, and if you initiate one, then you should either be held responsible for all eventual outcomes, or not. Of course, it appears the law doesn’t always follow that logic.
I am totally off-base here? I Am Definitely NOT A Lawyer.
Waenara: The family of the dead child is planning on bringing suit? It seems to me that the driver of the car in which the child was riding is at fault for going against a red light. Am I misreading that?
Answer me this you legal beagles…
When does the crime stop?
In the story above, it sounds like the crime being committed when the cop was killed was not theft, but evading. If the guy in the back seat was pleading for the driver to stop the car, hasn’t his crime stopped, and driver taken on a new one?
If I break into a store and get caught on video tape, and the cops come over to my house the next day to arrest me and get killed on the way over, would it apply?
What if the cop had been killed on the way to the store?
Of course the jury has to decide so I am simply asking for your informed opinions.
Monty - It seems kind of bizarre to me too:
But the driver of the car the children were in was their grandfather. Since it seems the family is looking to sue someone, I guess they decided to go after the cop instead of dear old gramps.
I agree that it doesn’t make sense that they’d sue the cop, but there’s been a sizeable negative public reaction to his acquittal. Not everyone, by any means, but several vocal “man on the street” types of things on the news. I think they’re on counting a sympathetic jury to give them an award. After all, it is really sad - a young boy killed and his brother severely burned.
The law does not have to be reasonable but the is what the law says not what you would want it to say. If the law says “a person is guilty of murder when in the commission of a felony his actions lead directly to the death of a person” then, if I am in the jury I am going to vote for an acquittal because I do not believe the suspects fleeing lead directly to the death of the police. I am interpreting the law as I understand what it says and I suspect many jurors would agree with my interpretation. I am not judging whether the law is logical or fair. I am just applying what it says. It says directly and that condition is missing.
The deaths were not inevitable. The cops had the last resort to avoid the death from happening. They chose not to exercise actions which would have prevented the deaths from happening. The cops made them happen, not the fleeing suspects.
Is a cop allowed to use deadly force to prevent a suspect from escaping? NO. Would a cop have been allowed to shoot these people to prevent them from escaping? NO. If he is not allowed to use deadly force against the suspects, how can he be allowed actions with entail deadly danger to himself or to third parties? No way.
The law says directly and this is NOT directly. If I am in the jury he defendant is free to walk.
As I understand the point of this thread, the question was whether or not it is appropriate to charge 1st degree murder in this case. Based on the law I posted, it seems self-evident that the charge is reasonable and appropriate. A person was killed while the defendants were committing one of the predicate defenses. The question as to the appropriateness of the charge is answered.