In a Pit thread, we were discussing the shooting of Jordan Davis (in short, Michael Dunn admitted to shooting Davis in a car at a gas station, claiming that Davis pointed a shotgun at him – in contrast to testimony from the other witnesses in the car with Davis, the absence of a shotgun or any other evidence supporting self-defense, and with testimony from Dunn’s girlfriend, and Dunn was found guilty) – and poster Steophan asserted that if the accused claims self-defense, the jury must disregard conflicting testimony and find him not guilty, at least if the witnesses were close to the deceased. (example post here – there are many)
To me that’s totally ludicrous, and would make it trivially easy to get away with murder. It seems obvious to me that juries should have the opportunity and power to hear witness testimony and evaluate whether its believable, or the accused’s testimony is believable, beyond a reasonable doubt. Can Steophan or anyone make better sense of this argument? Am I wrong that it would make it trivially easy to kill someone?
The Dunn conviction was not based solely on witness testimony that could be biased.
As I stated in the Pit thread – this argument means that anyone on earth could shoot my wife in front of me and get away with murder as long as they claimed my wife pointed a shotgun at them. According to you, the jury must disregard my testimony, even though I was there and witnessed it.
Do you concede that the Dunn case was not based solely on witness testimony that could be biased? There was physical evidence and the testimony of Dunn’s girlfriend which told a different story than he did.
So all witness testimony should be disregarded, then, apparently, according to you.
This would probably save a lot of money – no need to transport witnesses to the trial any more, and shorter trials with no pesky witness testimony and questioning!
So why accept Dunn’s testimony that he was being threatened by Davis and was acting in self-defense? Isn’t that just as biased as the other witness testimonies?
No, there isn’t. Dunn was incorrect about there being a shotgun. That says nothing to whether it was reasonable for him to believe that he was being threatened by one.
You have the (moral) right to use lethal force to defend yourself if you’re in fear of imminent death or serious injury, and if a reasonable person in your position would be in such fear. It is morally wrong to punish anyone of any crime if it is not proven beyond reasonable doubt that the crime was committed. That includes proving beyond reasonable doubt that either he wasn’t in said fear, or that no reasonable person could have been.
Any law that disagrees with that is bad law, and that law needs to be changed, and any ethical juror would vote to nullify in such a case.
If you disagree with this, you either disagree with the right to self defence, or the right to be presumed innocent of a crime until proven guilty. These are not points I care to argue about, as far as I’m concerned they are axiomatic.
The other witnesses’ testimony, and the testimony of Dunn’s girlfriend, say plenty about this.
It’s reasonable for a combination of witness testimony, physical evidence, and the testimony of Dunn’s girlfriend to add up to this reasonable doubt in the view of the jury (as it did). If someone shot my wife in front of me but said she pointed a shotgun at him, the lack of a shotgun in addition to my own testimony might reasonably (depending on the nature of the physical evidence and the nature of my and the accused’s testimony) consist of evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.
I disagree. And I’ve never heard of any person on earth that agrees with you. Can you produce a single lawyer, legal scholar, blogger, Doper, or anyone at all that feels this way? At least then I’ll know it’s not just you.
No – both of those things can exist if juries have the power to evaluate witness testimony. In fact, both of these rights are harmed if juries can’t evaluate witness testimony as part of a collection of evidence.
The way I understand it is that it’s up to the shooter to make a reasonable case that it was self defense, the prosecution does NOT have to prove that it wasn’t beyond a reasonable doubt.
As a matter of public policy, we do want people to use some restraint when applying self defense.
The Defendant has a right to confront the witnesses against him…to challenge their testimony, usually through cross examination, for accuracy, bias, etc. The jury then determines whether the testimony is credible or not. If they think the witness is lying or mistaken, they are free to ignore the testimony, but if they believe the testimony is true and correct, they are entitled to consider it in light of the other evidence to reach a verdict.
It doesn’t sound like Dunn’s claim of self defense was credible to the jury and that there was not a reasonable doubt as to his guilt based his testimony, the testimony of the other witnesses, and the physical evidence. What’s the problem?
This is why we have juries, to determine fact (and law - but let’s not hijack this thread). If juries were just machines that accepted all claims as reasonable, no one would EVER be convicted of a crime because the jury would have to accept EVERY innocence claim of each criminal as creating a reasonable doubt. Right?
I don’t agree with the poster that no witness testimony should be accepted, but I think the courts do tend to put too much emphasis on it. Witness testimony is notoriously unreliable, and has led to some pretty severe miscarriages of justice. And the legal system discourages people from telling the truth and saying “I’m not sure what I saw” or “I’m pretty sure it was this, but it was dark out”. I mean, IDing suspects is really hard, especially when you’re a victim of a crime by a stranger: you’re scared and high on adrenaline, and probably aren’t looking real closely at the perpetrator. One of my favorite law sites is doing a series on eyewitness testimony right now. We recently had a thread about someone feeling that the police was trying to get him to ID a certain suspect when she wasn’t sure about it. And yet, having a victim point to a defendant and saying “it was him” is one of the the most persuasive arguments to a jury, where any objective analysis would definitely not rate that as super tight evidence, even assuming everyone is acting in good faith.
In this case, I think the testimony that there was no shotgun is pretty persuasive, coming from multiple parties who would have actually been in a position to know.
There was a shotgun and Dunn saw it. He was justified in defending himself.
There was no shotgun, but Dunn thought he saw something resembling a shotgun. He was truthful but misguided.
There was no shotgun, and Dunn was lying in order to claim self dense for what was a shooting based on rage, impulsiveness, error, racism etc. he was blatantly lying to save himself.
Somehow how we need to distinguish between case 2 and 3. It’s very difficult to prove what is or isn’t in someone’s mind. The other witness testimony (that there was no shotgun and no one else saw anything resembling one) goes to Dunn’s credibility. The evidence could not support what Dunn was claiming and his testimony was found not credible.
If juries could never discount claims of self defense based on misunderstandings (case 2) then people could lie all the time and no one could make a judgement on it.
Do you think there is a defense attorney anywhere that does not know about the problems with witness testimony? They are very well versed in it. That is what cross examination is for.