Specifically, the jury convicted them of second degree murder without a weapon.
That part confused me. There seems to be no argument that the father was bludgeoned to death in his bed with a baseball bat. That sounds to me like there was definitely a weapon involved.
Can anyone explain how such a verdict is possible?
[sub]Note: I’m not sure how long links to CNN stories are valid, but I hope it is long enough for the purpose of this thread.[/sub]
I think the difference may be semantic. Perhaps the jury convicted them of second degree murder without the weapon in evidence. Was the bat recovered? Did it burn in the fire? That is different than them having killed without a weapon.
Another possibility is that something that is not desiegned to be a weapon, baseball bat as opposed to a gun, is legaly defined in some jurisdictions as a deadly instrument if it is used as a weapon.
I don’t want to get too far off the subject via hijack, but the idea that the forty year old “friend” of the kids was found not guilty on all charges was…quite frankly appalling.
Prosecutor David Rimmer pointed to the jury’s decision not to include the weapon in their verdict, even though the boys’ original statements had said they used an aluminum baseball bat and the victim’s injuries supported that.
The jurors “know good and well he was killed with a weapon,” Rimmer said. “That’s a jury pardon. That’s OK, I don’t have a problem with that.”