I have seen the future.

There's some of the state of mind!

I think her conviction is justified. She should have known that - with his history of violent and abusive behaviour, and access to a weapon, he was likely to do this. Thus, involuntary manslaughter - same as if someone started punching a driver in the back of the head, and the car veered, struck, and killed someone.

Given the fact that the gun was in his vehicle, the prosecutors would have difficulty using that to prove premeditation. Maybe they're waiting for him to say or do something stupid. Remember: it was a grand jury that declined to try him. he can always be re-indicted and tried later.

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> I think her conviction is justified. She should have known that -
> with his history of violent and abusive behaviour, and access to a
> weapon, he was likely to do this.

Great. Next up, you'll have women on charges when they try to leave their abusive husband and he beats up a police officer or a shelter worker on the way to teach her a lesson.

She is not responsible for his behaviour.

He is responsible for his behaviour. He is not a car. He is not being beaten while in command of a motor vehicle. He is having his entitlement fucked with, and if he didn't learn how to cope with that without trying to kill people before he was let out of kindergarten, it is still not her responsibility.

You are apparently fuzzy on the concept of personal responsibility, here.

Edited Date: 2008-05-06 04:20 pm (UTC)

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kafziel.livejournal.com

... justified how? Because she knows her husband is a violent nutjob, she's criminally liable when he shoots her boyfriend for being her boyfriend? Infidelity isn't a crime.

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zastrazzi.livejournal.com

That's an unqualified travesty. The man should be locked up and barred from owning weapons. Jesus.

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No, I'm not. She is responsible for her behaviour. If she shouts fire in a crowded theatre, it's still involuntary manslaughter when someone is trampled and killed - as an adult, she should know the likely consequences of her actions. Her attempt to cover her behaviour by claiming rape and her later testimony goes to her knowledge and her state of mind.

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If you undertake an action that you, as an adult, know is likely to cause others to behave violently or, cause them to have a state of mind that lacks /mens rea/ and behave violently, and you know that a crime is likely to result from that action, you are inciting to a crime. She behaved in a manner that she knew would cause her husband to behave in a manner that was
A: violent
B: lacking in /mens rea/

thus, involuntary manslaughter. It is very similar to shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre, and the accompanying involuntary manslaughter charges that would accompany that action if someone were killed in the trample/press/stampede that a reasonable adult would know would result from that action.

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Yes, he should.

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Hey, Mr.-brilliant-reading-comprehension, did you miss the bit where she only claimed she'd been raped *after* her husband had already shot the guy?

She was kissing someone else. This does not make it acceptable for her husband to murder that someone else. And it is his responsibility if he does so.

Edited Date: 2008-05-06 04:37 pm (UTC)

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You may find the article on /mens rea/ helpful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea

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peristaltor.livejournal.com

Well, that certainly changes everything.

Everything.

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kafziel.livejournal.com

He doesn't seem to care. By cheating on her husband, she should have known that her husband murdering her boyfriend was a likely consequence. Thus, she's guilty. That's the "reasoning".

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autobotsrollout.livejournal.com

This is crap. Involuntary manslaughter requires a direct causal link between the action and the resulting action of a reasonable person.

Yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre will naturally cause alarm in a reasonable person, and thus if someone is trampled and killed it is from the natural course of events a reasonable person would take.

Conversely, a reasonable person would not, upon discovering his wife having sex with another man, blow that dude away. That the man in question has a history of violence does not make his history of violence reasonable, and there is no reasonable causal link here.

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You know how you like to be called on your condescending sexist behaviour?

I'm calling you on it. Because "Oh, she totally shouldn't have been kissing someone else because she's responsible for her husband's behaviour and there's no way he's responsible for murder if he sees his wife with someone else" is incredibly condescending, puts all sexual guilt on the woman, and assumes the man is inherently brain-dead in the presence of pheromones.

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geminiknight.livejournal.com

Yep, all kinds of travesty of justice there.

Hell, if the guy should have shot anybody, it should have been the wife. I've never understood blaming the other man/woman instead of the person cheating on you. Of course, in this case, sounds like the husband was an asshole who deserved to be left.

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Indeed. "Goddamn, how dare she not be clear on the fact that she's property, and get a real (male) person killed as a result of that?"

I could spit.

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Yes, I caught that. It goes to her state of mind and knowledge of her husband's nature.

I don't have the entire transcript. I wasn't in the courtroom. I do know, however, that her actions as reported meet the criteria for knowingly and recklessly and criminal negligence with or without the timing of when she claimed to her husband that she was being raped. That transposes culpability of the act to her. I know that in order for her to be charged, tried, and convicted, the prosecutor had to determine to the satisfaction of the jury that her husband lacked /mens rea/ - a guilty mind.

People who enter a particular state of mind are incapable of reasoning and incapable of controlling their actions - it is a legal concept that keeps people in dire situations from being charged with crimes for actions performed while desperate.

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She /knew/ that he was - as you say - brain-dead in that situation.

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No, no, no, you're still missing it.

Chronologically:
Step 1: She's fucking another guy.
Step 2: Her husband shoots that guy.
Step 3: She claims she was being raped so that her husband won't shoot her.
Step 4: She's convicted of negligent homicide because her claims of rape caused her husband to kill the guy to "protect" her.

Do you see the problem, YET?

She can't *possibly* be guilty of negligent homicide on the basis of her rape claim, because in order for that to hold water, she would have to have made the rape claim BEFORE her husband killed the the guy, and her husband would have had to BELIEVE her rape claim.

Neither one is the case.

The *only* way you can get her on negligent homicide in this case is to claim that *by fucking the victim*, she was endangering him.

Which immediately criminalises *any action that may upset your psycho stalker*.

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Pretty much. You *can* get a reasonable causal link between "he's raping me, help" and the armed man you asked for help shooting the guy on top of you.

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sparkindarkness.livejournal.com

*sigh* provocation is a mitigating factor in sentencing, I'll garee. But I refuse to believe it is sufficient not to bring charges against him at all.

She looked like an utter villain in the last piece, now she looks more the abused victim - claimed she was raped to save herself from the gun toting man who just shot her lover? And she was convicted for manslaughter?

Aie aie, isn't it amazing how reporting it differently can change all the facts

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Ah, of course, so because your stalker threatens to kill himself if you won't go out with him, you're up for MURDER if you refuse and he does it?

Because your violent husband might hurt someone you're dating on the side, you're liable for anything he does?

Because your violent husband might kill a shelter worker who helsp you get away from him, you're liable for leaving him and "forcing" him into that situation?

Bullshit.

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