But, according to Forcillo, he honestly believed that after the first volley he saw Yatim beginning to sit up, knife still clutched in his hand. Therefore, in Forcillo’s mind, the threat remained.
We know now, from the autopsy, that with his spine severed, Yatim sitting up, or even moving as if to sit himself up, was physically impossible. Forcillo, of course, did not know that, making it conceivable, I suppose, that he did think he saw him begin to sit up, or move the knife, etc.
So, basically the jury is saying, “Forcillo, you’re fucking lying about him trying to sit up!”
But I don’t believe it’s possible to be certain that, in fact, it was the first volley that killed him (even with the autopsy results). Or perhaps the fist volley would kill him, but had not yet done so by the time of the second volley.
So there is a non-zero possibility that Yatim was still alive at the time of the second volley. In fact, barring a head shot in the first volley (of which there were none, IIRC), he would almost certainly still be alive at the time of the second volley. After all, it was, what, a second later? There hadn’t yet been enough time for him to die from the first.
Bottom line is that ‘attempt murder’ as a charge (in relation to the second volley) is not wholly illogical or bizarre.
So a lawyer who is carrying out the duty to defend an accused, thereby protecting the accused’s right to a fair trial and the presumption of innocence, is a “typical slimeball”?
Defence counsel have a crucial constitutional role to play in the system, and should not be criticized when they fulfill it.
I don’t get this either. I’ve heard of the “year and a day rule,” but a two minute rule? Why would attempt even be in the jury instructions if the victim was dead? Was there differing evidence on the cause of death?
I’m not sure what led you to your bizarre conclusion that I have some huge problem with the entire system of justice as practiced in all modern democracies.
What comes to mind here is George Clooney’s character as a divorce lawyer in Intolerable Cruelty, where IIRC the client asks if he can sue his ex-wife who has done absolutely nothing wrong while he himself is a philandering serial adulterer, and the lawyer replies with a smile, “it’s a challenge!”. Since most of us don’t labor under the impression that every criminal lawyer who has ever defended a miscreant does so because he honestly believes that his client is as innocent and pure as the driven snow, it follows that a good deal of hypocrisy and sometimes unsavory tactics are sometimes a necessary part of the business.
So, getting back to the topic, the cop’s lawyer is going to do and say everything he can to get his client declared innocent and, failing that, to get him the minimum possible penalty. That’s how the system works and that’s how it should work. I, on the other hand, have the right to call the lawyer’s arguments bullshit and refer to his tactics as “slimeball” if that’s how I see them, because they often are. Apologies to all lawyers present, and one of my own dear relatives is one, and appreciates lawyer jokes as much as anyone. But this is the world we live in.
So again, I presented a rationale for why the jury – who as I said listened to two and a half days of instructions from the judge – may have reached the verdicts they did, and it strikes me that the feigned astonishment of some defense lawyers is something of an act.
I see I posted in this thread over two years ago, but failed to respond to Mr. Pepper. Let me correct this discourtesy now.
Should a choice to commit suicide be a death sentence?
[/QUOTE]
Which part of “not think rationally” do you have trouble understanding? I hope your point isn’t that someone’s stupidity is just cause to murder him – in that case, based on your posts in this thread you’re fair game.
What’s your point? That police officers’ time is valuable? (They were not under threat.) Let’s do the arithmetic. The police force evidently needed about 20 cops to cope with the despondent teen and his small knife. At $50/hour each that’s $1000 wasted per hour waiting for the supervisor to show up with the taser. Assuming the supervisor takes 30 minutes to show up that’s $500 of taxpayer money wasted.
I guess $500 is the value of the teen’s life in your view.
Is that because he didn’t have a knife? If he had a knife, Bang bang bang! No need to worry about medical care for the face.
In America, I thought cops are trained to keep firing until the suspect is dead. Are you saying Canadanian cops have a lower standard?
In fact, I have a certain admiration for the views espoused in that essay. But I have great trouble connecting that “virtue” to murders (“attempted murders” ha ha) like this one in Toronto, or the glee with which Dopers defending the killing of petty burglars. The gun idiocies we see these days show neither manliness nor virtue, but cowardice and contempt for life.
A criminal defense lawyer who only defends clients who he believes are innocent will quickly be out of business. But the idea that a lawyer defending a likely-guilty client must adopt hypocritical or unsavory tactics shows that you do have a problem with the criminal justice system.
Since that’s not actually what I believe, would you care to quote the exact words which prove my contempt for the entire justice system in the modern world?
What was it about my statement that “sometimes unsavory tactics are sometimes a necessary part of the business” that led you to the conclusion that I believe “a lawyer defending a likely-guilty client must adopt hypocritical or unsavory tactics”? See the difference in the highlighted words? Do you wish to claim that criminal defense lawyers never do these things? Ever heard of F. Lee Bailey or Johnny Cochrane or millions of their lessers who follow in their paths?
Once again, to try to contain the hijack, I find no inconsistency in the two jury verdicts for the reasons I stated.
For anyone not familiar with the incident, HERE is the ‘best’ video of the shooting itself. The link I posted at the bottom of page 2, in post 96, was wrong.
No, stupidity alone isn’t just cause to shoot a guy; if you’re unarmed and harmless, stupidity is irrelevant. But, as the jury apparently decided in this case, being given a reasonable number of warnings means you’re fair game if you’re a grown man with a weapon who irrationally advances on someone with a gun.
As far as I can tell, they found the shooter not guilty of anything for firing the first three shots; the problem was the shots fired after the knife-wielding maniac went down and stopped moving. Sounds about right; that’s probably how I would’ve voted, had I been on that jury; is that how you would’ve voted?
What? No, that doesn’t seem true; evidently, the police force just needed 1. (Who, evidently, just needed to fire 3 bullets; if he’d stopped there, all indications are that the situation would’ve been resolved legally and acceptably.)
Hey, I’ve said I think it’s a real shame they didn’t have a taser on hand with which to shoot said maniac with said knife; and I think we should spend the money to equip and train cops so they (a) don’t have to wait for the guy with the taser, but (b) can just be the guy with the taser. And that’d cost more than $500, but it’s worth it.
But cops are there to protect and serve. Specifically, they’re there to protect and serve me. Specifically, they’re there to protect and serve me by shooting armed and irrational people like the knife-wielding maniac in question: a man who got warned, and got warned again, and again and again and again, and again – and upon being told what’s what, he gripped his weapon and advanced. I’d have shot him too.
Now, you raise a fine point by noting that, shucks, even a brainy and decent guy like me could be mistaken for that sort of threat to society – so, again, I sure want the cops to give fair warning; and, again, I sure wish they’d had the option of shooting him with a taser after he irrationally disregarded the first six warnings.
But in the end, I want them to shoot: I want them to warn, of course, and I want them to threaten, and I want them to shoot with a taser if one is at hand – and I want that taser to be at hand. But, like the jury, I can’t fault a cop for shooting a knife-wielding maniac who can’t be reasoned with; I can but pay him to do it.
Remember that attempted murder is a crime of deliberately trying but failing to do something. It does not require that pulling it off was not possible.
What are the elements of the offence of attempted murder? I don’t know (I think I tossed my annotated criminal code and my Blacks after the Great Flood of 2012 turned my office into a canoeing school), but my guess is that they are something along the lines of what is commonly used in our southern colonies (State v. Stewart, Mo.App., 537 S.W.2d 579, 581 State v. Stewart, 537 S.W.2d 579 | Casetext Search + Citator):
An intent to commit murder,
An overt act toward its commission,
Failure to of consummation, and
The apparent possibility of commission.
Now let’s apply the fact at hand:
Here are three vids of the shooting from three different perspectives: https://youtu.be/lG6OTyjzAgg?t=35shttps://youtu.be/65hIoeMXe00?t=4m17shttps://youtu.be/THQbEHCZD-c?t=3m55s . The victim only had a knife and had been disabled by the first volley, so there was no need for the second volley, and the cop thought for six seconds before firing the second volley. That indicates that there was an intent to murder the victim by firing the second volley,
The cop in fact did carry out the act of firing the second volley,
Firing the second volley failed to kill the victim because
a) the victim was already dead, or alternately,
b) the victim eventually died from the first volley but not the second volley, and
After the first volley, the cop thought the victim was still alive, or else he would not have shot more bullets into him after the six second delay.
That suffices to meet all the elements needed to convict on a charge of attempted murder (if I am correct about the general elements – I really don’t recall if they are the correct ones in Canada or not).
Think of it this way: if Bubbabundyite of sound mind and strong opinions starts running across the White House lawn firing a Rambo fetishist’s hand held machine gun in one hand, and dragging a sack of grenades in the other, all the while screaming “I’m going to kill you, Mr. President unless you give a bird sanctuary to a sumo wrestler,” in the would-be assassin’s mind there is a possibility of success, but in reality, there is no possibility of success because of (1) the Secret Service will chop him off at the knees before he reaches the door, and (2) the President is not at home because he is still trying to get back from the airport in a winter storm without snow tires. (Congress and Senate, stop being so tight and get your president a set of snow tires, seriously https://youtu.be/inNSLuyWX7M?t=12s .)
So for what would the would-be assassin be charged and convicted? Attempted murder et ali. It is not relevant that in fact there was no possibility of pulling off the crime of murder. What is relevant is that apparently it was possible in the mind of the mentally competent would-be assassin.
The question then in the Toronto streetcar shooting is whether it was proven that the victim either died prior to the second volley or died during or after the second volley.
Based on the facts presented to the jury, I expect that it decided that the victim died prior to the second volley, and by making that decision found the cop guilty of attempted murder, which in turn saved him from being convicted for murdering the victim with the second volley.
What “indications” are those? The indications I see is that he was charged with murder for the first three shots. If everything had subsequently played out exactly the same way but he had not fired the second volley, he would have been tried for murder but eventually acquitted. So, no, everything would not have been just peachy if he had only fired the first three shots. He would have been arrested and charged with murder. The kid would still be dead. Which is not peachy or “acceptable” at all to anyone involved.
Police shootings occur from time to time, and there are always investigations – by the SIU in Ontario – but rarely are police charged with murder. And had there been different lawyers involved, a different jury makeup, or a different judge, who knows what the outcome might have been on that first charge. The jury took six days to resolve both charges, and they weren’t spending the time playing tiddlywinks.
Investigated thoroughly until the cop is cleared, as witness many past examples of cop shootings in the UK (guy carrying the table leg, for example). The UK can’t claim any moral high ground in this area.
And, in our debates about proper police procedure, a jury’s ruling is not decisive. Do you claim that if a jury acquits of murder, it follows that proper procedure was followed? :smack: Even if we trust the jury 100% to assess the facts and reasonable doubt, the conclusion does not follow. The burden of proof for murder and improper procedure are so different as to [checks forum] make your suggestion stupid.
So, too lazy to wait for supervisor to bring the taser they just murdered the guy. Remember, the cops were in no immediate danger. If the guy charged them with hsi knife shooting would make sense. But he didn’t.
And “maniac” ? Make up your mind. Was he suicidal or a “maniac”? Or just a teenager who’d broken up with his gf or something and was temporarily deranged? (And, BTW, teens are often more irrational than adults. You don’t even know that?)
But I’m sorry to pick on you specifically, Mr. Pepper. My anger is also directed against the dozen or so other Dopers with their irrational love of guns and police over-reach.
It’s basically an adaptation of the “double tap” method. The first brings him down (stops the guy), the second removes all possibility of medical survival/revival. One might be able to argue the cop’s justification for the first volley (not me, its a kid alone with the small knife), but the second volley was clearly to guarantee that the suspect will not survive.
So the jury played it safe and only prosecuted the second volley. Since the first volley was the lethal one, all you can get of the second volley is attempted murder.
No. My point was – as I specified – that, had I been on that jury, I would’ve likewise voted to acquit him of murder; and that I’m curious as to whether other posters in this thread would’ve likewise voted likewise. I’m not saying it’s the right decision because the jury reached it; I’m saying the jury reached the right decision.
Well, (a) I disagree that it was murder; and (b) I disagree that he was too lazy to wait. As far as I can tell, he was perfectly happy to wait; if the man with the knife had waited instead of escalating the situation, maybe he’d still be alive.
Or if he’d dropped the weapon. And so on.
I don’t ask folks to wait until they’re in immediate danger; that’s a good way to get good people killed. I don’t ask that of myself, and I won’t ask it of the police.
The first dictionary definition I see for ‘maniac’ is “a person exhibiting extreme symptoms of wild behavior, especially when violent and dangerous.” If there’s a better way to describe the behavior of a guy committing suicide by cop, I’d like to hear it.
But you have a point: I don’t know what was going on inside his head. I know he was acting irrationally while armed. I know he was, if you will, acting like a maniac. I know he was acting like someone I want the police to shoot. I know he was acting how I’d act, were I (a) a maniac, (b) committing suicide by cop, or (c) both.
I don’t care why the armed man was acting irrational and deranged; I care that the armed man was acting irrational and deranged. Given an armed man who acts like Yatim acted, I would’ve shot him like the cop did – or voted to acquit said cop, like said jury did. Would you have voted to acquit, if he’d stopped at three shots?
(But shooting him when he’s not acting irrational and deranged, well, see, that’s a completely different thing; after all, I don’t want the police to shoot me when I’m not acting irrational and deranged.)
No, they were. The suspect was alone, isolated, and clearly unstable. If the officer couldn’t handle the situation he should’ve let another take charge (it was a circus of police by the time the shooting happened). He lost his cool. And he killed a kid. Completely unnecessary.
It’s my understanding that the “kid” was old enough to vote: old enough to be tried as an adult, and old enough to serve in the military – and old enough to serve as a juror, ruling on whether a cop who shoots an armed and clearly unstable adult acted legally by doing so. By a strange coincidence, I’m old enough to vote; old enough to be tried as an adult; old enough to serve in the military or on a jury – and old enough that I’d have ruled those shots weren’t murder, because I’m old enough to know what happens when you act like Yatim did after getting the warnings Yatim got.
Remember, the cops were in no immediate danger. If the guy charged them with hsi knife shooting would make sense. But he didn’t.