Wouldn’t the most relevant statistic be robbery, not burglary?
In that case, Texas has a higher rate than Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. And higher than the national average.
Still, DC is 7 times higher than the average, and about as anti-gun as a US jurisdiction can get. The story might be much better told in terms of poverty rates and urban versus rural population.*
*Yes, I know that crime in general is as high per capita in rural places - but robbery, specifically, face-to-face stealing - probably survives better in places where there are more people. Just like you wouldn’t be a sidewalk musician in Bumfuck, so you probably wouldn’t set up your mugging operation there.
Found a interesting bit of information in the Local Television News coverage linked to by Levolor the Blind back on page 2. Cant’ tell if it’s supposed to be a transcript of witness/defendant’s testimony or an interview after the fact, but it could be a very compelling piece of evidence if it’s true and backed up by a medical examiner’s report
This, to me, reads as if the young woman was hit by a ricochet, or a fragment of a bullet after a ricochet broke it up. If, as the statement implies, the bullet entry points were all near the tires/wheelwells and only fragments of bullets penetrated the passenger cabin after ricocheting, that could be considered when weighing the truth value of his claim that he was trying to stop their escape with his property, instead of trying to kill.
To a certain extent it’s splitting hairs, the law would protect him if he were firing to kill or firing to disable the vehicle. As long as the jury found the actions of Ms. Frago and Mr. Perkins constituted theft, then Mr. Gilbert was not committing a criminal act to use deadly force to stop their escape with his property.
But I can see a class of Juror, who would convict him if he were firing to kill but wouldn’t convict him if they believed he was firing to disable the vehicle, being swayed by evidence the injuries to Ms. Frago were a result of ricochets or fragmentation of the bullets. Does a guy who is trying to shoot out tires deserve a murder conviction?
In the eyes of the law, he paid her to hang out with him for the evening. She did. If he thought he was paying for sex (as opposed to merely companionship), he’s the lawbreaker in this scenario.
It doesn’t matter what I think. It matters what the contract in force requires in exchange for the $150. Clearly “sex” is not included therein; contracts to commit a crime are null and void.
Ys, I have also thought of the possibility that part of what’s at work is that some of the jurors bought the argument that the law protects any action of Party A trying to “stop Party B from getting away”, and never mind if he was trying a particularly reckless way to “stop” them, and based on that the defense created enough doubt in them as to the intent and what was he expecting to happen. That the defense argument made it plausible to jurors that he sincerely intended to just take out the tires and that if his actions were protected, so were unintended or unexpected consequences.
Now, ISTM that a reasonable person would find that having fragments or ricochets injure or kill the occupant of the vehicle is a foreseable consequence of the action of firing “just” to stop/disable (heck, if you are using deadly force’, it’s a foreseeable consequence of the action if someone does die). Maybe you’re not up for Murder I but some form of homicide happened. But that’s just me.