Culpeper shooting

[ProShooter]

sorry pro, based on your own post's comments, you apparently are not actually qualified and therefore, not capable to dismiss my example about the aeroline pilot's mental health as only another pilot would of course have the appropriate understanding to judge the mental aspects of other pilots!

ipse

and with that post, I give up.

The damage has been done.

 

[marshaul]

YES! Great example. If you had to use your gun in self-defense, don't you want your actions judged by 12 people who also had to use a gun in self-defense? Aren't they most likely to understand the reasonableness of deadly force?

Yes. And I'm sure serial killers would prefer other serial killers to sit in judgment of their crimes.

I think you make it fairly clear that the average citizen is better equipped to judge the justice of a cop's actions than is another cop.

You grossly overestimate the value of expertise, and under-appreciate the effect of bias.

 

[Citizen]

Yes. And I'm sure serial killers would prefer other serial killers to sit in judgment of their crimes.

I think you make it fairly clear that the average citizen is better equipped to judge the justice of a cop's actions than is another cop.

You grossly overestimate the value of expertise, and under-appreciate the effect of bias.

And, there is a false-premise in his statement that [only a cop is qualified to judge another cop's actions], the false-premise being that other human beings are incapable of learning the relevant criteria and applying them to the case at hand.

Mas Ayoob makes it clear in several articles that, while laymen on a jury may not know enough to correctly judge, they can learn it. That's a part of his message: the jury doesn't know, so its up to you and your counsel to explain it to them.

 

[sudden valley gunner]

Yes. And I'm sure serial killers would prefer other serial killers to sit in judgment of their crimes.

I think you make it fairly clear that the average citizen is better equipped to judge the justice of a cop's actions than is another cop.

You grossly overestimate the value of expertise, and under-appreciate the effect of bias.

An appeal to authority applied to jury?

Can we all get this deal?

 

[Maverick9]

That's right, you don't know what happened. You weren't there and you didn't see it. Neither did I, for that matter, nor the members of the jury. And the judge refused to allow me to put the witnesses on whom I'd subpoenaed to be there to testify about the stalking. So you can make stuff up until the cows come home and it won't make a spit's worth of difference.

Perhaps the judge thought it was irrelevant. She could have made Charles Mnson look like a Sunday school teacher. But her actions, that day, were simply a parking violation. Had she not been in the car it would have gotten a ticket.

Bear in mind this a discussion forum. It's not a grand jury. Comments are comments. We learn on discussion forums how to examine issues, behavior. That experience may be more-or-less useful, completely hypothetical or somewhere in-between.

I do now one thing. I don't want cops shooting people. I want them bringing people in for trial. I wouldn't want them shooting Jeffrey Dahlmer, I want him tried.

If it matters, I'm willing to hear anything exculpatory. Stalking children? How do you do that? How does that even matter to something that was simple tresspassing, I don't care about what was in her mind. If she was preparing to strap on C4 and go into the classroom and abduct someone, it doesn't matter - it's thought crime at this point.

 

[Citizen]

An appeal to authority applied to jury?

Can we all get this deal?

<chuckle>

I think you're angling for a particular former carpenter on your jury under the "peer" doctrine. Which innocent person wouldn't want Him on their jury for an appeal to authority?

 

[Maverick9]

<chuckle>

I think you're angling for a particular former carpenter on your jury under the "peer" doctrine. Which innocent person wouldn't want Him on their jury for an appeal to authority?

Residents of Arimathea are exempt, no?.

 

[OC for ME]

I haven't heard of that situation, but I don't like the sound of it either. If cops are exempt from that while using their on board computer, then that is a terrible law and should be changed.

Here is one report of the incident.

Also, a doctor is not a analogous to what a cop can get away with. Cops have exemptions in the law. A doctor is not so protected for unlawful conduct. As to changing the law, I agree. The real question is, why was/is any exemption placed into any law that we are subject to.

The travesty that is our current governments is that cops get these exemptions and we do not. Cops enjoy QI, we do not. Cops get the benefit of the doubt simply for being a cop before the facts are known. We do not enjoy a arbitrarily extended benefit of the doubt.

 

[sudden valley gunner]

<chuckle>

I think you're angling for a particular former carpenter on your jury under the "peer" doctrine. Which innocent person wouldn't want Him on their jury for an appeal to authority?

:lol: Hehe, didn't cross my mind. The guy who admonishes not to cast stones would be a great juror to have.

 

[Grapeshot]

:lol: Hehe, didn't cross my mind. The guy who admonishes not to cast stones would be a great juror to have.

Only those w/o sin. Who amongst us qualifies?

 

[user]

You may have expected to win because you may be correct about the law. The law may very well be written to allow cops to do what he did.
However I'm glad you realize now that people may indeed vote to "fry em!" when they do something so egregiously deplorable even if the law may technically allow it. It may certainly keep me off of any jury ever but you'd not find me willing to vote in a way I think morally wrong even if I was myself convinced it was technically correct.

What I said was that "fry 'em, regardless of the law" is the thing that jurors may not elect. That's lynching, it's immoral, and illegal. One of the problems in this case, in my private opinion, is that there were three jurors who had every intention of going in on the case for the specific purpose of voting to "fry" Dan Wright, and that they lied during voire dire in order to effect that purpose. And I cannot rule out the possibility that they were selected for the jury pool with that intention. I think jury pools should be selected by an independent statewide entity under the Judicial branch. As it is, with the sheriff of each locality having the power to yocky-fooch the jury pool, there is a high probability of "the appearance of evil", if not the evil itself.

 

[user]

Since the jury got it wrong then Harmon is/was not a "dirty" cop. Though, dirty is the wrong term. How about law breaking cop? Many citizens, none that I know of, enjoy QI. I do not enjoy exemptions in the laws for cop misbehavior. Case in point, the California cop who ran down and killed a cyclist due to he being distracted while using his cruiser's laptop computer. No criminal charges for distracted driving cuz, no criminal charges for vehicular homicide, in CA cops are exempt if they are distracted while conducting official business and then injure or kill a citizen. Free passes are built into the law. Free p[asses are buttressed by case law.

So, for example, you feel that every time a cop arrests someone for DUI the cop should also be indicted for abduction and battery of the citizen whom he handcuffed and put in the back of the cruiser?

 

[user]

No, they are not. They would be the most likely to understand that the actions of police should always be excused.

A recurrent, and I think serious problem with a lot of the stuff people have said here, is the failure to distinguish between the cop as a private individual and the cop as an officer acting as the personal representative of the sovereign. When I sign someone else's name to a pleading and file it in his name, that's his act, not mine, even though he had no part in drafting, signing, or filing. When a corporate president signs the company's name to a contract, that's not his act, but that of the corporation. When the husband goes to another state because of a job relocation and leaves wife a power of attorney to sell their house, that gives her the power to sign his name to a deed, and when she does so, it's his act, not hers.

It's really important to understand who the real actor is, and the somewhat abstract concept that one person can do things on behalf of someone else, and that when he does so, he's got no part in it, himself. So the law (as should have been implemented in this case) doesn't give cops a "free pass", it holds them fully accountable for what they do on their own behalf; but when they're acting as the sovereign, it makes absolutely no sense at all for the sovereign to hold them criminally liable for an offense against the dignity of the sovereign. That's paradoxical and hopelessly recursive, like the idiot who goes around pointing to himself all the time. If, in this case, there had been evidence that Dan Wright was acting on "a lark of his own", or in any way unlawfully (e.g., trying to shake down the driver for drugs or cash), then he'd have been guilty. But there was no such evidence, and there was never any evidence that he wasn't acting at all times in his capacity as a police officer, and the clarification of the law that should have been provided to the jury in judicial instructions was excluded.

I'm telling you, in this climate of throwing out the baby with the bathwater, which I see as the destruction of civilization, I wouldn't be a cop under any circumstances, even if I were young and fit enough and needed the money. So what's that tell you about the quality of police you're going to get as a society? Some cities and towns in Virginia are already scraping the bottom of the barrel in my opinion, with cops who are psychologically and intellectually unfit going in, and whom the localities won't pay to train properly. I'm thinking in particular of a case in the City of Richmond where a cop stole a man's gun from him during an unjustified detention (his crime was standing in the yard adjacent to his own apartment, enjoying the evening and smoking a cigarette). We had to file suit to get the gun back, and the cop was never charged with the robbery. The cop was acting as a private security guard at the time, not as an "on-duty" police officer. This cop, and some of those "backup" officers whom she called to the scene, are loose cannons on deck in my opinion, but the City of Richmond doesn't seem to care. By the way, I have full audio of the incident, which, if I can get permission from my client, I will be happy to distribute.

 

[OC for ME]

So, for example, you feel that every time a cop arrests someone for DUI the cop should also be indicted for abduction and battery of the citizen whom he handcuffed and put in the back of the cruiser?

No, I "feel" that a cop should follow, and be subject to, the same laws that I follow and am subject to.

No QI, no exemptions in the laws for cops. If a cop is doing his job in accordance with the laws I must follow, exemptions and QI are not needed. Policy must not be the primary concern for any cop doing his job.

 

[user]

sorry grape, et al., but Pro specifically mentioned:
1. doctors who cause a loss of life... quote Who would best understand the circumstances and reasons for doing what he did better than another doctor? unquote

2. police officer who cause a loss of life... quote anyone with a LE background, who was in that officer's shoes can agree that although tragic, his actions were not out of line with what he was presented with and what his training and experience told him to do. unquote

quote: a person who belongs to the same age group or social group as someone else unquote http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/peer

therefore, it appears, Pro is still of the opinion the ONLY people who can affect a viable decision on guilt are those individuals who are within their sphere of peers! all I was pointing out other hyperbole instances I am sure as Gutshot's post was intended.

ipse

Interesting analysis, because, in Virginia, if you want to sue a physician for malpractice, the case has to first be considered by a "medical review board", most of which are doctors, and you can't get a final resolution without experts who are practicing physicians.

 

[user]

And, there is a false-premise in his statement that [only a cop is qualified to judge another cop's actions], the false-premise being that other human beings are incapable of learning the relevant criteria and applying them to the case at hand.

Mas Ayoob makes it clear in several articles that, while laymen on a jury may not know enough to correctly judge, they can learn it. That's a part of his message: the jury doesn't know, so its up to you and your counsel to explain it to them.

I just wish I'd have been able to give the jury the information it needed, and the fact that I was prohibted from having done so is one reason the case is still on appeal.

 

[user]

Perhaps the judge thought it was irrelevant. She could have made Charles Mnson look like a Sunday school teacher. But her actions, that day, were simply a parking violation. Had she not been in the car it would have gotten a ticket.

Bear in mind this a discussion forum. It's not a grand jury. Comments are comments. We learn on discussion forums how to examine issues, behavior. That experience may be more-or-less useful, completely hypothetical or somewhere in-between.

I do now one thing. I don't want cops shooting people. I want them bringing people in for trial. I wouldn't want them shooting Jeffrey Dahlmer, I want him tried.

If it matters, I'm willing to hear anything exculpatory. Stalking children? How do you do that? How does that even matter to something that was simple tresspassing, I don't care about what was in her mind. If she was preparing to strap on C4 and go into the classroom and abduct someone, it doesn't matter - it's thought crime at this point.

I didn't understand any of this at all. It sounds like you thought the judge was illegally parked, and that has something to do with her judgment about Charles Manson. Sorry, not sure where you're coming from with all this. What it sounds like is that you feel that if a cop was involved, then the cop is automatically guilty of a crime unless he has exculpatory evidence, and the real problem with this case is that the Commonwealth didn't offer evidence of guilt, but the jury voted for a conviction anyway, notwithstanding the presumption of innocence. Tell me, how do you feel about the Bloomberg followers who think that anyone carrying a gun all the time is automatically guilty of a crime because the mere act of carrying a gun means they're looking for an opportunity to kill someone?

 

[marshaul]

A recurrent, and I think serious problem with a lot of the stuff people have said here, is the failure to distinguish between the cop as a private individual and the cop as an officer acting as the personal representative of the sovereign.

No. I simply reject the distinction as a legal fiction unworthy of consideration.

 

[marshaul]

Interesting analysis, because, in Virginia, if you want to sue a physician for malpractice, the case has to first be considered by a "medical review board", most of which are doctors, and you can't get a final resolution without experts who are practicing physicians.

Criminality is utterly divorced from mere tort. The former is far easier to demonstrate to a layperson.

 

[scouser]

0ne of the problems in this case, in my private opinion, is that there were three jurors who had every intention of going in on the case for the specific purpose of voting to "fry" Dan Wright, and that they lied during voire dire in order to effect that purpose. And I cannot rule out the possibility that they were selected for the jury pool with that intention.

I'm inclined to agree with your being unable to rule out the possibility, having my own private opinion of at least one jury pool member in another trial that the defense was 'forced' to use one of their vetos to remove. A State-wide selection pool would offer a better chance of an impartial jury in my opinion