Strange American Verdicts

[Seth]

If you want a pair, a mobster was acquitted of paying a bribe that a judge was convicted of taking.

are you thinking of f theAleman case?

Whatever, it illustrates the faults with the double-jeapordy rule.

Sounds like the mobster got to the jury as well.
If you can't be re-tried after an acquittal, it's a gift to mobsters.

No, double jeopardy is a great rule, especially for regular guys like you or me. If you doubt this, then you've never gone through an exhausting and stressful trial that will decide the rest of your life. When you are finally acquitted, it would be insane to put someone through that again. We should be lucky we have that rule. Remember, 10 guilty men going free is worth 1 innocent man being exonerated.

This is absolutely true, IMO, but even more because a government is ALWAYS going to have the resources to grind you down to powder in the process. A private citizen can't compete with the resources of a nation to defend themselves endlessly, and from a humanitarian and fiscal standpoint it would be insane.

And that's precisely why the rule is in our Constitution, because that's exactly what Mad King George did to people...along with a good many other British monarchs.

[Seth]

Black woman attempts to stand her ground. However, warning shots are illegal, you have to shoot the guy.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162- ... er-ground/

That is an entirely different case, and like the Zimmerman case does not involve "Stand Your Ground" laws at all.

Are you really advocating a society where someone would be lawfully entitled to go retrieve a gun from a car (while he is not being attacked) and return and fire shots, unprovoked, in the direction of his wife and children (or her husband and children, as the case may be)?

I think people need to look to the actual facts of the cases they're talking about...

Well, yes actually, sort of. She did go to her car and get her gun and return to where her violent ex was, and she did fire a "warning shot." Everything up till the shot was entirely legal and within her rights. Evidently where it fell apart were the facts surrounding whether or not she was entitled to use lethal force in self-defense. I guess the jury found she didn't. Still, 20 years seems excessive, particularly since if she'd just been standing there and negligently discharged the weapon I don't think they can bootstrap a "using a gun in a crime of violence" if the discharge of the negligent discharge of the gun is the offense, such as "illegal discharge of a firearm." That seems to defy reason.

[Daedalus]

Black woman attempts to stand her ground. However, warning shots are illegal, you have to shoot the guy.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162- ... er-ground/

That is an entirely different case, and like the Zimmerman case does not involve "Stand Your Ground" laws at all.

Are you really advocating a society where someone would be lawfully entitled to go retrieve a gun from a car (while he is not being attacked) and return and fire shots, unprovoked, in the direction of his wife and children (or her husband and children, as the case may be)?

I think people need to look to the actual facts of the cases they're talking about...

Well, yes actually, sort of. She did go to her car and get her gun and return to where her violent ex was, and she did fire a "warning shot." Everything up till the shot was entirely legal and within her rights. Evidently where it fell apart were the facts surrounding whether or not she was entitled to use lethal force in self-defense. I guess the jury found she didn't. Still, 20 years seems excessive, particularly since if she'd just been standing there and negligently discharged the weapon I don't think they can bootstrap a "using a gun in a crime of violence" if the discharge of the negligent discharge of the gun is the offense, such as "illegal discharge of a firearm." That seems to defy reason.

You think it's legal to retreat to a vehicle, retrieve a gun, re-enter the residence, and then shoot at someone? You're quite the legal scholar...

[mistermack]

It's hardly surprising that, in a country full of guns, some pathetic loonies are going to let them off, when they get all het up.

What IS surprising, is that an equally pathetic loony got to be made a judge.

[Coito ergo sum]

In England, it's illegal to deface or mock the portrait of their monarch, and it's an offense to imagine the death of the queen (or king). LOL.

“No person shall by word of mouth or in writing spread reports likely to cause disaffection or alarm among any of His Majesty’s forces or among the civilian population” - Defence of the Realm Act of 1914.

It is an offense in jolly old England to write or publish anything that advocates abolition of the monarchy. Punishable by up to life in prison.

In 1981 Marcus Sarjeant was convicted of the crime of "alarming the sovereign." Sentenced to 5 years.

[Coito ergo sum]

It may be illegal for a monkey to smoke cigarettes in South Bend, IN, but it is illegal to die in the British Parliament.

[Arse]

The strange American verdicts, (or any country's verdicts), that bother me aren't where someone is acquitted but where someone is convicted. Alot of dodgy evidence seems to convince gullible juries to convict - look at the Ryan Ferguson case, convicted because his friend had a dream that they committed a murder together.

[mistermack]

The strange American verdicts, (or any country's verdicts), that bother me aren't where someone is acquitted but where someone is convicted. Alot of dodgy evidence seems to convince gullible juries to convict - look at the Ryan Ferguson case, convicted because his friend had a dream that they committed a murder together.

That reminds me of Lizzie Bordon ( is that right? )
She had a great uncle, or some such relative, who was executed on the evidence of someone who dreamed that he killed his wife. That's going back a bit though.

[En_Route]

It may be illegal for a monkey to smoke cigarettes in South Bend, IN, but it is illegal to die in the British Parliament.

]

Under ancient Estonian law, it was iilegal to publicly boast of having sex with a walrus. However , it was not illegal to actually have sex with a walrus, and indeed the practice was actively encouraged in some rural areas.