- Note to self: if QS ever comes to Denver, a day at the range does not count as funtimes *
The guy was only following Joe Biden’s advice on self defense.
News report sourced to the coroner on her being shot with “no evidence of close range discharge.”
A Disctrict Attorney said that she knocked on a locked screen door and there were no signs of forced entry.
Also lots of stuff to be explained before he’s declared a self-defense hero.
And it is “hanged,” not “hung.” Criminals are hanged, I am hung.
The homeowner better start packing his bags for prison. There’s no defense for shooting someone on your porch. Unless theres clear evidence they are trying to force open a window or door.
This case has no connection at all with the Trayvon Martin shooting. He was beating the crap out of someone that defended themselves.
If you’re safely behind a locked door. Call 911. If the person kicks in the door and starts to enter, then you can justifiably defend yourself.
Charges were filed.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57612553-504083/renisha-mcbride-update-theodore-wafer-mich-homeowner-charged-with-second-degree-murder-manslaughter-in-teens-shooting-death/
<golf clap>
News article says he was convicted of murder and manslaughter. IANAL, but I thought a murder conviction required evidence of intent to kill, and manslaughter is what you get charged with when you didn’t intent to kill (but death was a predictable outcome of your actions).
How can he be found guilty of both?
Possibly as a backstop against the murder two charge being thrown out or appealed.
The jury gets charged with both – there’s always a chance they will say that he didn’t have the requisite mental state or intent for murder, but he was criminally negligent, so not guilty for murder but guilty for manslaughter.
When the jury finds guilt on both offenses, they merge into one for sentencing purposes.
I understand why a defendant might be charged with both murder and manslaughter for a single act, but I’m still not seeing the answer to my question: how can he be found simultaneously guilty of two charges that would appear (to me at least) to have mutually exclusive characteristics (intent vs. lack of intent)?
To simplify greatly, it’s sometimes less that you must have lack of intent to be convicted for something like manslaughter than that in order to be convicted of the greater charge you must also have intent. It’s certainly possible to be convicted of manslaughter in circumstances when you meant to kill someone and in circumstances when you did not mean to kill someone. It is not, however, possible to be convicted of murder (in most jurisdictions, barring something like felony murder) without having intended someone’s death.
The concept of lesser included offenses (of which manslaughter is one in this case - as are, for example, assault and battery) just lists off all the behavior an accused criminal is at least arguably guilty of. Someone who beats someone else to death may be guilty of both battery and manslaughter. If they meant to kill them, they may also be guilty of murder in addition.
So here’s what happens when the jury renders a set of verdicts that seem inconsistent. You first need to look at the elements of each crime.
Second-degree murder in Michigan
[ul]
[li]Accused caused the death of the victim[/li][li]Accused either intended to kill, or intended to do great bodily harm, or knowingly created a very high risk of death or great bodily harm knowing that death or such harm would be the likely result of his actions[/li][li]The killing was not justified or excused[/li][li]The killing was not done under circumstances, such as provocation, that would reduce it to a lesser crime[/li][/ul]
Manslaughter in Michigan
[ul][li]Accused caused the death of the victim[/li][li]Accused either intended to kill, or intended to do great bodily harm, or knowingly created a very high risk of death or great bodily harm knowing that death or such harm would be the likely result of his actions[/li][li]The killing was not justified or excused[/li][/ul]
Second-degree murder has all the elements of manslaughter, plus an additional one. So we’d say that manslaughter is a lesser-included offense of second-degree murder.
The verdicts aren’t actually inconsistent. It’s just that second-degree murder includes an extra element. If you prove all of manslaughter’s elements, AND you prove no circumstances like provocation, you’ve proved second-degree murder.
By those standards, he’s definitely guilty of 2nd degree murder. The jury got it right.
This happened about an hour from me and l’ve been following the story. I am so glad the jury made the right decision…l hope Mr. Wafer gets the maximum sentence possible.
Thanks to Bricker for succinctly explaining the elements of the crime.
[pedantic]From the linked article:
Nope. Pellets, not bullets, but it doesn’t sounds as bad.[/pedantic]
Interesting? The child and mother were black; the shooter white.
It’s almost hard to remember that whites shooting blacks is considered criminal in U.S.A. Was the Wafer conviction an aberration caused by high publicity?
WTF are you talking about? Did you read the article Karrius linked to? It announced the conviction of a white guy shooting a black kid.
Or are you inferring a vast collection of cleverly hidden cases in which white folks shot black folks without any justification whatsoever?
No; a vast collection of not-hidden-at-all cases where “white folks shot black folks without any justification”, and got away with it. This stands out because the guy was actually convicted; that’s unusual. Generally you can practically kill black people for sport and get away with it.
He plainly refers to the conviction and says it’s an exception. Other than the Zimmerman trial I can’t think of another example of a recent shooting that went that way, but unfortunately killings like this seem to happen fairly regularly to people who look a certain way. (Yes, adding in killings by police may confuse this issue.) The unfortunate implication here is that this grows out of our attitudes about crime and race as well as police tactics.