Just watched the film Eadweard about the life of the 19th century English photographer Eadweard Muybridge. In 1874 while living in California he shot and killed his wife’s lover, was arrested and tried but acquitted by the jury, ignoring the judge’s instructions, on the grounds of justifiable homicide.
What I find puzzling is the claim made in the film that this was the last such verdict rendered in the history of American jurisprudence. Is this true? I thought people like George Zimmerman and others were acquitted on those grounds.
See jury nullification, in which the jury delivers a verdict contrary to the weight of the evidence. Legal experts here will hopefully chime in and indicate whether this appropriately describes what happened in the Muybridge case, but I suspect it does; the only conceivable justification for justifiable homicide would be #5, the “heat of the moment” defense, but Muybridge evidently spent some time tracking down his victim before shooting him to death, so that’s pretty thin justification.
Re: the George Zimmerman case, the jury evidently had mixed feelings: some believed it was case of justifiable homicide (justified by self-defense), while others felt there wasn’t enough evidence to convict Zimmerman of what they believed was murder.
p.s. For those wishing to avoid jury duty in a criminal procedure (which you really shouldn’t), just ask “What is this thing called ‘Jury Nullification’ I’ve heard of?”.
Why would the words “justifiable homicide” even come up?
AFAIK, IANAL - Juries don’t typically give a reason (in court) they just render a verdict. It may be patently contrary to the facts presented, but the jury verdict is either Guilty or Not Guilty (or the jury fails to reach a decision).
In interviews later, a juror maybe might explain his reasoning…
Jury nullification has a bad rap because it was the typically means of enforcing the unwritten American law “a white man cannot be punished for murdering a black man…”
I dunno what drugs the filmakers were one when they made that claim.
Indeed justifiable homicide is a term used to apply to self defense killings.
However, this seems not to fit into any modern usage of* justifiable homicide*, instead the jury more or less seemed to think that Muybridge had a fair beef against Major Harry Larkyns .
For a while, a man could (especially in Texas) get away with murder if he killed the man who was screwing his wife. I doubt if Muybridge was the last case like that.
Most interesting, DrDeth. That book on murder trials on the Texas Frontier looks fascinating and I shall definitely treat myself to it come the end of the month.
