Diallo Trial

[NanoByte]

Did the jury have only the choice of murder 2 and not manslaughter to decide on, as to the four defendants? If so, why? (Not up on NY law / criminal procedure, or CA same on serious crimes, for that matter.)

Ray

[system]

Hey, Ray, here are links to several other threads discussing this case.
http://boards.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum5/HTML/000717.html
http://boards.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum7/HTML/001342.html
http://boards.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum7/HTML/001332.html

this or this.

Sue from El Paso

Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
[Note: This message has been edited by Nickrz]

[NanoByte]

MajorMD:

“They”'re going to a lot of trouble to not answer it, right?

Read my question – and it’s a question, not one side of a debate or a BBQ rant.

I asked the question because the newspapers (SF Chronicle and NY Times) said nothing about manslaughter.

The “bowels” of this board, in two of your links to them, do mention manslaughter, but at most, only asked what about manslaughter. The implication in them is that such issue was never before the jury, or ever even thought to be charged by the prosecution, but the absence of such charge, from any aspect in this case, in papers I read pretty much implied this. I wondered if I had missed something in the case that had explained some explicit reason to banish manslaughter from the case from the start, or at some later date.

I don’t think you read my questions, which included a ‘why’ if the jury had only the choice of the one charge. If you did all the proper reading on this, and found out something explicit somewhere, that answers my questions above, OK, don’t put that info here; just state “Yes, you did.” or “No, you didn’t.” And then I’ll use my cyberspatial lie detector and poster-mind-reading system to evaluate same.

Ray

[system]

I’ll quote from the 2nd “this” link above which takes to to an MSNBC article.

But the Albany jury, seated after an appeals court ruled that finding an impartial New York City jury was impossible, acquitted all four on counts from murder to reckless endangerment.

And, yes, this includes manslaughter charges.

Here are other quotes from the threads I cited that at least alluded to this issue:

They should NOT have been charged with murder in the first place. That was purely a politically motivated charge. Manslaughter, okay. Reckless endagerment, sure. But not
murder.

I would have convicted sean carroll for man 2 and found the other three guilty of reckless endangerment.

What the cops did was horrible, but I can understand how a jury might not find the
criminal intent needed for a murder conviction. Why they didn’t convict on a lesser charge puzzles me, but they – and not me – were the ones who heard all the
evidence.

Wasn’t the jury allowed to consider lesser charges? I can understand the self-defense
argument for murder, but you can’t use that for manslaughter or reckless endangerment, right?

Wrong, I believe. I read that self-defense was applicable to all counts, and also that in New York State law police have wider self-defense coverage than civilians (ordinary civilians have an obligation to attempt to retreat if possible before using self-defense, police are not required to do so).

[Note: This message has been edited by Nickrz]