I would agree, *if *she had been in her apartment, and someone broke in.
But
So she wasn’t surprised *in *her apartment. She had a lot of other choices besides entering and shooting the first thing that moved.
There. That puts that question to rest. Really. I know a lot of people wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt but (even at a cursory glance at her actions) this was by far the most likely answer.
Like I stated earlier, Jean was a dead man the moment she was able to enter his apartment.
What I’m taking away from this is:
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No one doubts Guyger was genuinely mistaken about the circumstances which led to the shooting.
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She was convicted basically of being “trigger happy”- resorting to deadly force far too quickly.
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That Guyger is genuinely sorry for her actions.
Does this sum it up accurately?
I’m afraid I disagree. Murder is easily available here, and provocation is not, if it were in Canada.
First, it’s a basic principle of Canadian law that a person is presumed to intend the reasonably foreseeable consequences of one’s actions. If one intentionally pulls a gun, intentionally aims it at another person, and intentionally fires it, and the other person is hit and dies, the shooter is presumed to have intended to cause the death. That’s the necessary mental element for the crime of murder.
Second, as you mentioned, provocation can reduce murder to manslaughter. But for that to be under consideration by the jury, * they must have already concluded that the accused committed murder.* Provocation is an exculpatory factor, but only for murder. If the jury is considering provocation, they’ve already concluded that the accused committed murder. The provocation analysis is to consider whether there are factors that society recognizes as reducing the accused’s culpability, in spite of the intentional unlawful death.
Third, provocation is defied by s. 232(2) and (3), and those definitions mean that provocation would not be available on the facts of this case. Section 232(2) provides that provocation is only available if the victim’s conduct “would constitute an indictable offence under this Act that is punishable by five or more years imprisonment…” In this case, the victim had not committed an offence. He was sitting in his own home, minding his own business, eating a bowl of ice cream. That is not an offence under the Criminal Code. Section 232(3) confirms this point: “… no-one shall be deemed to have given provocation to another by doing anything he had a legal right to do…”, like sitting peaceably in his own home eating ice cream. Take those two together, and provocation would not be available to the accused on the facts of this case.
Fourth, s. 232(3) provides that whether something is provocation is a question of fact. That is an objective test, one of fact, not a subjective test, not based on the accused’s mindset. That means that before ever the jury considers the mental effect on the accused, they have to decide if the actions of the victim amounted to provocation, namely was the deceased committing an indictable offence and did not have a legal right to do what he was doing. It’s not a subjective test of what the accused thought. The accused doesn’t just get to say “I thought he was a burglar!” (Which is an indictable offence carrying more than five years imprionment.). The jury first has to be satisfied that the deceased did in fact commit an indictable offence carrying five years imprisonmuent, and that he didn’t have a legal right to do what was alleged to be provocation.
Only if all those steps are met does the jury have to consider provocation, namely whether the actions of the deceased met the test of provocation, and that the accused acted on sudden impulse, before the passion caused by the provocation had cooled.
Here, there was absolutely no evidence that would support the defence of provication. The deceased was not committing an indictable offence that carried five years imprisonment. He had every legal right to sit in his own home and eat ice cream. The accused isn’t able meet the basic requirements of provocation, so the judge would not leave it with the jury.
So we’re back to the starting point: the jury has evidence of intentional homicide. If believed, that’s murder.
No.
She was convicted of intentionally killing another human being.
Unless you’re a true blue psychopath, it’s be impossible not to feel sorry if you were in her position.
What I find interesting is that despite wrongly invading a neighbour’s home late night and killing them outright (in a drowsy surge of misguided righteousness)…her sorrow didn’t compel her to plead guilty and throw herself at the mercy of the court. IOW, she thought she could beat it. That she wasn’t legally responsible for killing him. Her defence even included putting blame on Jean for not listening to her.
All of which was her right to argue, but it does show that her sorrow had limits.
Big nope on both of these. She was convicted of murdering a man with no justification, waiting to kill him would not have solved the problem. She heard noises in an apartment that wasn’t actually her own, broke into it, and shot someone. You can’t actually claim self defense if you’re in the middle of committing another felony. The idea that she was just a bit ‘trigger happy’ or that she resorted to deadly force ‘too quickly’ when she broke into a man’s home and shot him while he was on his own coach eating ice cream is divorced from reality.
She claimed under oath that she believed she was justified in murdering her victim, and only started the waterworks and “I’m so sorry” after it was clear that the justification defense wasn’t going to get her out of trouble. I don’t believe a one of her crocodile tears, and think her sentence (of less than a quarter of what a black guy who killed a police dog got) is a joke. Pretty much anyone who’s not a basket case will claim remorse when they lose a trial.
10 years is a fucking joke, they should have given her the maximum sentence. If someone “mistakenly” walked in a cop’s apartment and shot them you know their ass would have been nailed to the wall.
And this is why Texas-style castle doctrine law bears partial responsibility for Jean’s death. She clearly could have withdrawn to safety without confrontation as soon as she saw the door ajar and suspected an intruder. Her belief that she was at her own apartment door, in combination with her knowledge of what the law then allows her to do with impunity, led her to make the choice to enter and confront the “intruder” when there was absolutely no need to do so even if it were her own apartment. Laws that weaken the primary responsibility to retreat to safety when it’s an easily available option are a horrible idea. They go beyond the reasonable entitlement to defend yourself and your property, they endorse attack - vigilante action.
28 years would’ve been about right, seeing that Texas law allows for release after serving half of one’s sentence on a murder conviction. This way, Guyger can be out in as little as five years.
Hugs all around!! (((((()))))) :dubious:
The argument that a trained police officer can rely on the defence of provocation when he shoots someone dead is very problematic.
Provocation isn’t just about the acts of the dead person prior to being killed. It’s also about the effect those acts have on the mental state of the accused. Those acts have to be so serious as to temporarily rouse such passion in the accused that he lost control and over-reacted, killing the other person.
Police officers are entrusted with guns and the lawful authority to use deadly force because of their training, both in firearms and personal self-control. We as a society entrust them with deadly force because we trust them to keep their heads when all about are losing theirs; to assess the situation carefully; to only use deadly force if warranted.
The idea that a police officer, with all their training and that public trust, can shoot a citizen dead and then say: “He provoked me by his criminal actions and I just lost control of myself. In the passion of the moment I killed him before I regained control of myself.” That’s an extremely troubling analysis and I doubt a jury would accept it.
I think I already responded to this in my earlier post, but just to be clear: s. 232 makes the question of whether provocation exists a finding of fact for the jury. Before the accused’s arguments about losing control in the passion of the moment come into play, the jury has to have found that the victim of the killing had been committing an indictable offence with five years imprisonment, and had no legal right to do what he was doing. There was no basis here for those conditions to have been met, so the accused’s testimony about losing control are irrelevant. (In fact, that testimony might be seen as inculpatory, as the accused is admitting she lost control and was reckless.)
The reason I’m coming back to this issue is that provocation is not an easy defence to make, for good reason. Society says that if you intentionally kill another person without lawful excuse, that’s murder. In very rare circumstances, society accepts that a person may have lost control in a way that we are willing to see as a mitigating circumstance. But it’s not meant to be easy to prove.
This is very pedantic, but could we get a mod to add an “s” to “kill” in the thread title?
It’s been bugging me for a year.
I’m very patient, but there are limits. 
She’s only sorry she didn’t get away with it.
Moderator Action
Done.
At SDMB, pedantic is our middle name.
thank you. I was almost at the provocation stage. 
One of Jeans neighbors, Joshua Brown, a witness at the trial has been shot & killed.
Oh, that’s fucked up. Could be coincidental, could be unrelated. But still suspicious timing.
Oh, thank you!
Joshua Brown’s death is probably a coincidence. None of the neighbors witnessed the shooting. They only heard the shots and looked out into the hallway afterwards.
That’s horrible. I watched his testimony. He was just a kid. At least to someone as old as me. I remember his wore some sort of t-shirt with a cartoon on it when he was on the witness stand… He had probably never been in a court room before.