First degree? That seems overly harsh. How could it possibly be premeditated, unless they think he planned the robbery of his store to happen in advance? This is the freaking definition of a “crime of passion.”
Premeditation occurs when you shoot a guy, chase another out of the store, walk around for a bit, put down the gun you’re holding, go to retrieve another, and then empty it into an unconscious body.
How much time is required to cross from passion to premeditation? More than a few minutes, surely. The police hadn’t even arrived yet.
That’s what juries are there to decide. This one decided. They are the deciders.
Excellent, I’d meant to post this news today, also.
I would not have been at all surprised, in this state, to see Ersland walk. I was happy to see that they got him for murder.
I got no real problem with shooting a guy in the head, if he’s in your face waving a gun around. That’s self-defense. We’ve had that legally forever.
But when you leave, come back, wander around, get a different gun, and shoot a guy who’s been laying on the floor that whole time? Murder.
I mean, come on, at one point the defense was trying to claim that Ersland shot him again because he still felt threatened. Then they turned around and tried to claim that the kid was already dead from the first shot so it wasn’t murder to shoot him again.
Of course, now they’re trying to pass a new law to make it pretty much legal to kill anyone who’s robbing you, no matter how outrageous your actions are.