…so you agree with my statement that murder requires intent, then?
Murder requires the intent to kill. It does not require any specific kind of motive. There’s nothing about this intent requirement that makes police killings substantively different from any other kind of killings.
Intent to kill is motive. And yes, there is- Police officers quite often have to kill as part of their duties (this is rare in any one officers career, of course). Thus the DA has to show “WHY” this is* not* a legal police shooting, as in showing motive.
You said “bullhonkey” and then didn’t say anything about motive. If you think motive is the same as intent, see above.
[QUOTE=DrDeth]
It is when the possibility that the defendant had a perfectly legal reason to shoot is there, such as nearly all police shootings. " intent to kill" is part of most murder laws.
[/QUOTE]
When the cause of death is repeated bullets to the everything, the only question about intent to kill is whether the gun malfunctioned. You point a gun and pull the trigger, you intend to kill the thing on the round end of the gun; even I know that’s gun safety 101. This has nothing to do with motive. You’re mistaken about this.
The “possibility that the defendant had a perfectly legal reason to shoot” is always there. The fact that self-defense is an available affirmative defense doesn’t mean that the state has any obligation to prove a motive in order to prove murder, though. It means that if the defendant proves that he was acting in self-defense, the shooting wasn’t unlawful. There’s a huge difference between the defendant being allowed to prove that his reason for shooting was something that gets him off the hook and the state being required to prove that his reason for shooting was a particular bad motive. No reason is good enough.
Under the law, intent is one of the types of mens rea and there are several types of intent that fall under the mens rea category of malice aforethought. Motive is something completely different and it is not an element of proving murder.
Well, that’s your theory but it fall apart in light of repeated Police officers being found not guilty and Grand juries not finding even enough evidence to indict.
*The officers acted reasonably based upon radio traffic that police were being shot at, he said.
“It is Brelo’s perception of a threat that matters,” O’Donnell said. “Brelo was acting in conditions difficult for even experienced police officers to imagine.”*
http://www.khou.com/story/news/local/2015/04/20/former-pasadena-officer-involved-in-2011-shooting-found-not-guilty/26072515/
“Well, in these kinds of cases it’s very difficult for the state to disprove self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt,” Prosecutor Julian Ramirez said.
“Officer Clark’s actions on that night complied with Texas law concerning the use of deadly force by a law enforcement officer,”
The issue is- was the use of force justified? Did the Police Officer have a Motive for the killing?
This is a circular argument.
These two are questions are not the same thing. You’ve basically set forth a non sequitur:
“Means, motive, and opportunity” is not a standard found in the law. They are not the legal elements of any crime, let alone murder.
DrDeth, I’m not taking sides in this debate, but I really think you are mixing up “intent” and “motive.”
If I hit you in the head with a baseball bat, one can infer from my action that I had the “intent” to cause great bodily harm to you.
My “motive” however would be the underlying reason why I acted out my intent to cause you great bodily harm – perhaps you slept with my sister and never called her back, or you used legal terms incorrectly in the presence of a pedantic extremist. 
All we need to do is imagine the scenario where there’s literally no reason at all.
If a police officer, or any regular human being, is walking down the street in Ohio and pulls out a gun and shoots another person walking down the street, totally out of the blue, and that goes to trial, does the state need to prove why they did it? Of course not.
It’s also not a theory, and not even really all that nitpicky. The standard for murder isn’t “prove they woke up that morning planning on killing a brown person.”
True, the two have separate legal definitions. :smack:
In any case, motive is a critical part of any murder trial, even if it is not actually technically required. The jury will want to know “why”, I know as I have sat on one.
Most non-police shootings are *not *justified. Most police shootings are justified. As a DA, you will need to show this police shooting was not justified or the jury will not turn in a guilty verdict. You need to show some motive or at least be able to imply it- racism is a good one, and has been used successfully. I realize that “self-defense” is raised by the Defense, but even tho technically it’s something the Defense usually has to show, in police shootings it’s the other way around.
Except that the jury assumes that the Police officer “had a perfectly legal reason to shoot” and in effect the prosecution must show otherwise. Like it or not, that’s the way juries think.
Then those juries have been improperly instructed.
I’m not sure I agree with you, Acsenray.
The jury should start with a presumption of innocence. As they sit down, before they hear any evidence, they must believe that the accused is not guilty.
Now, if the accused admits to the shooting, that presumption of innocence compels the jury to believe that the accused had a perfectly legal reason to shoot. And that’s generally consistent with the rule that the prosecution must disprove self-defense.
The problem with this entire discussion is that it’s grounded on the idea that the jury is considering an element of fact that’s not an element of the crime.
As a general rule, juries do like to hear motives, and it’s for precisely the reason mentioned above: it’s part of the whole story, and can make a implausible act plausible. But everyone gets to start with a presumption that they acted legally, and it’s always the prosecution’s job to disprove that presumption.
You specified “malice aforethought”, and you were wrong. If you’re admitting that that was incorrect, and now you think it’s intent (which has a different meaning in legal terminology), then fine.
That’s all well and good, but it’s different from what you’ve been arguing.
The difference here is between saying, on the one hand, “this doesn’t meet the definition of self-defense,” and saying, on the other, “this is why, in the privacy of his own mind, the cop wanted to shoot a [black] person.”
If a case like this goes to trial, like you say, in effect, the state has the obligation to disprove that it was a shooting in self-defense. But that is not at all the same thing as saying they have to prove what his motive was. He may not have had a “reasonable motive,” the way you’ve been talking about. “He is bad at his job and not qualified to be making life-or-death decisions and thinks he’s entitled to make them anyway and he shot the gun because of it” isn’t a motive, but it’s also not self defense. An officer can intentionally - purposely, by design, with malice aforethought, etc. - kill a person without an interesting narrative motive (like greed or love or hate) and without it being a justified killing. The reason that’s important, and the reason I keep saying it, is that it’s also what most of these cases seem to come down to.
I agree with you. Malice aforethought requires intent.
*Malice Aforethought
A predetermination to commit an act without legal justification or excuse. A malicious design to injure. An intent, at the time of a killing, willfully to take the life of a human being, or an intent willfully to act in callous and wanton disregard of the consequences to human life; but malice aforethought does not necessarily imply any ill will, spite or hatred towards the individual killed.
West’s Encyclopedia of American Law, edition 2. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
malice aforethought
n. 1) the conscious intent to cause death or great bodily harm to another person before a person commits the crime. Such malice is a required element to prove first degree murder. 2) a general evil and depraved state of mind in which the person is unconcerned for the lives of others. Thus, if a person uses a gun to hold up a bank and an innocent bystander is killed in a shoot-out with police, there is malice aforethought. (See: malice, murder, first degree murder)
Copyright © 1981-2005 by Gerald N. Hill and Kathleen T. Hill. All Right reserved.*
Everyone here agrees that murder requires intent. But we’re talking about somebody taking a gun and shooting bullets out of the gun and blowing someone’s body apart. We all agree this is an act of intent.
If I understand the distinction you are making, should it matter?
That is to say, suppose a cop shoots a black guy and claims self-defense. At trial, the jury assumes that it was self-defense until the prosecutor proves otherwise beyond a reasonable doubt.
So the prosecutor shows that the cop is unqualified or racist. However, the prosecutor does not disprove that it was done in self-defense. That is, the cop is a member in good standing of the local White Power Racist party, has been cited for stupidity twice in the last three years, and is generally an asshole.
However, there are no witnesses, the cop says the guy reached into his waistband suddenly, and a loaded .45 was recovered from the scene with the guy’s fingerprints on the magazine.
AFAICT the prosecution has not disproven self-defense, and the cop walks.
Is that what you are talking about?
Regards,
Shodan
Can you first state whether or not you agree with the statement, if true, before you try to argue around it?
You meant “can’t successfully sue”, right?
But I think your objection is unwarranted. We’re talking about changing the law, not what the law states. Yes, a soldier is a soldier for now, and a cop is a cop* for now*. I see no contradiction to state that we should change the rules so that cops are forced to protect citizens in addition to whatever else they do
Might be something to think about. In the wake of the FG riots and indictments there has been a big increase in non-police shootings, as police are thought to have backed off in response.
http://www.startribune.com/baltimore-residents-fearful-amid-homicide-spike/305286391/