How's this for a verdict?

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I'm on the fence with this one. Here's the Cliff Notes version of the story. Teenager wearing a mask enters a pharamacy wielding a gun. Pharmacists pulls a gun out, and shoots him, and the teenager falls to the ground. So far, so good. No excessive force yet. Then, the pharmacist goes to the back, gets another gun, comes back out, and shoots the teen who's still lying on the ground and unconscious five more times. A jury convicted him for murder and he was sentenced to life in prison, because his life was no longer in danger when he went into the back to get another gun.

I don't know enough about the case to really make a determination. I mean, if he really was unconscious and not moving, then clearly he was no longer an imminent threat. OTOH, is it not possible that the first shot was already fatal and therefore you cannot kill someone who is already dead?

Linky.

 

Supposedly the initial coroner's report suggested that the kid was still alive after the first shot. Then the coroner's reputation became questionable somehow, but a followup (autopsy, presumably) reached the same conclusion.

This is one of those I wasn't there so I don't know deals, but from the look of the video, the pharmacist could and should have secured himself and the staff somewhere safe after the initial shooting (I assume there was a door to a back room or something like that somewhere that could have been locked), called police, and waited for them to arrive. After the kid was down, he only would have been an imminent threat if he was pointing the gun at the pharmacist, and based on the pharmacist's body language in the video, that wasn't the case. (e.g., if the kid was moving around and the gun was in his hand or nearby, he may still have been potentially dangerous but not imminently dangerous. In that circumstance you should retreat.)

The pharmacist also shouldn't have been chasing anybody around outside the store. That's the police's job. When the other guy left, he should have just locked him out.

 

I started writing this post by saying that I thought the verdict was justified, because I couldn’t see an argument for self-defense when there is nothing to defend yourself from after the first shot. But Aldeth’s point that it may have been the first shot that killed the kid bothers me. Is it possible to test for that? If not, or if so and the results came back at least inconclusive, then assuming that the pharmacist was justified in taking the first shot (debatable in my mind, since there were 2 robbers, and he shot the one who didn’t have a gun, but nobody seems to suggest that he wasn’t justified), that should place reasonable doubt as to whether the first shot was the fatal one, and since you need to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, he should have been found not guilty. (How’s that for a run-on sentence?) OTOH, if it was proven that the first shot wasn’t the fatal one, then a guilty verdict is completely justified IMO.

 

According to the defendant (if you watch the video Aldeth linked), the robber was "still moving on the floor" after being shot, so we know he wasn't dead. Shoot the guy, call 911... keep a gun on him if you need to... but the 5 additions gunshots does turn this into an execution in my mind. I support the murder ruling.

 

That one's easy. It's a case of self defence excess.

Self defence is the necessary defence against an ongoing attack against life or property. The first shot was undeniably justified as self defence. Since the kid's attack had ended with him lying on the ground unconscious, what followed was (at the very least) deliberate manslaughter. If the first shot was fatal, then it is desecration of a corpse, but that was apparently not the case. The verdict makes sense.

It would be murder under German law as well.

 

I think this REALLY illustrates that if you have a gun you damned well better be ABLE TO AIM! The first round should have killed the robber and no additional shots would have been necessary to finish the job.

This does remind me of a case where a wife shot her husband. The husband had a history of abuse and came after her with some sort of weapon in hand -- she responded by shooting him ... six times. Her attorney tried a "crime of passion" kind of defense ... the expected "emotion from all the years of abuse" stuff. The defense might have worked except she used a Derringer ... a small double-barrelled pistol with one round per barrel ... she reloaded ... twice.

"If at first you don't succeed...."

Edit: This could also be a case for having a convenient switch to turn off a video recorder ... the pharmacists should have turned off the video recorder when he went to get the other gun.

Edit2: No ... I'm not going to feel sorry for the dead hoodlum or his family.

 

Reload. And if that doesn't work (or even if it does), reload again! Yes, that's the old adage isn't it?

 

I have a tough time drumming up sympathy for an armed robber being killed. Personally, if I was on the jury it would have been very hard to convince me to convict the pharmacist. I acknowledge that my sense of justice doesn't always jive with what the law says.

 

I agree with Gaear. But I think the sentence is kind of steep considering the situation, if he gets life.

 

To repeat what I said in my first post, he wasn't armed.

http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/3e991839536a459a83e47a01fc0c551f/OK--Pharmacy-Shooting/

 

I, for one, cannot make sense of those three statements. First, when one gets shot in the head, you're most likely stone dead. But let's just say, for the sake of arguement, that he was only "unconscious". How can one still move if one is unconscious? It seems like trying to have it both ways. If he's moving around, OK, maybe he's still a threat - he could have a handgun in his pocket or somesuch. Unconscious people don't move though. Dead people definitely don't move. After being shot in the head, I'd think you'd be at the very least unconscious, but more likely dead.

 

I've heard of "involuntary reflex movement" after a head wound. He could be still moving and not be a threat.

The issue of "no gun" is really not an issue in an armed robbery -- that Parker did not have a gun visible does not mean he did not have a gun, and would have been a dangerous assumption on the part of the pharmacist. It is reasonable to assume the "unarmed" robber was just slower on the draw than his partner in crime. Could the pharmacist have shot the other kid and then held a bead on Parker forcing him to lie on the ground? Possibly, but it's equally likely shooting at the other kid would have allowed Parker the time to draw a weapon and fire at close range.

 

I agree with T2. I believe in the eyes of the law if one guy has a gun they are all considered to have a gun. I can't think of what the legal term is, but it is similar with how the getaway driver can be convicted of murder even though he/she wasn't even present when the shooting happened, but was a part of the entire operation.

 

Not really ... don't you have a 'Bullet Head' or two in your town?

In strict legal terms, the kid who got shot may have been technically considered armed simply due to the fact that his partner was armed. If, for example, no one had been shot and the two kids had robbed the store and later been caught, they both would have been charged with armed robbery, whether they were both armed or not. Accomplices of guys who murder people but don't actually do the killing themselves get charged with murder all the time. For example, a police officer and a robber recently had a shootout and killed each other, and the robber's buddy (who was there but did not do the shooting) was charged with murdering the cop because he was complicit with the crime that led to the shooting.

Expecting somebody to have the keen discernment to know exactly who's who and what their threat level is in the span of a couple seconds in a sudden crisis is really asking a lot. Realistically, all the pharmacist probably knew at that moment was GUN TWO GUYS, and he probably didn't think consciously about it at all. (The latter stuff, not so much.)

Anybody who thinks they're going to be absolutely on top of everything in a surprise emergency situation is fooling themselves. Even people who routinely train for it rarely are.

[ninja'd by Snook]

 

Snook,
what is so difficult about "Self defence is the necessary defence against an ongoing attack against life or property". With the kid on the floor with a bullet in his head, gun or not, the attack was over and no more defence necessary.

Even though it may be necessary to kill to stop an attack that is not an entitlement. Self defence is a justification for having to inflict otherwise criminal harm to fend off an attacker. It is not an entitlement to kill ... lawbreakers. It doesn't matter whether the kid perhaps in some people's minds deserved to die for attempting a robbery or that he had it coming - that was not the shop owner's call to make.

The man was justified to stop the attack. If he had to kill the kid in the process and left it at that, well, too bad. Self defence allows for that. But what he did went well beyond self defence. He unloaded on what was by then a helpless victim who posed no more threat to neither him nor anyone else. The verdict is in tune with the law. More, it is called for. It was murder. Period. To not sentence the man would mean setting a precedent for vigilantism. Unacceptable.

 

Although the "slap him in the face with your glove" challenge to duel is really, really old-skool, I can't fathom what other purposes the combination of wearing a mask and storming the place with gun(s) withdrawn could have than just that. Whether you're yourself carrying a gun or not doesn't matter much as long as you're in the same squad of morons.

Too bad the challenged shop owned was better at handling his gun. So IMHO the Darwin Award on the challengee was well deserved.

 

I would point you towards Gabby Giffords.

I get your point. But I wanted to point out that Parker may still have had a chance to survive, although it could have been slim. It's hard to imagine him being much of threat to anyone though.

 

It wouldnt matter if the kid was dead after the first shot, by leaving the scene, getting another weapon and then repeatedly shooting the body on the floor shows the intent to kill an already subdued criminal - thats murder.

if he had fired multiple shots in his first exchange, then it could be justified.

 

Perfectly sensible verdict. Also, if you are really good at handling a gun T2 shouldnt you be able to shoot to disable instead of killing? That must be the optimal outcome? The aim of self defence is to eliminate the *threat* not the person posing the threat. There is a difference.

 

Shoshino, if the kid was dead (and it could be proven) follow-on shots could not be considered murder.

Sadly, joacqin, not in the US. A wounded robber/assailant can file suit in a civil court -- and the victim often ends up paying. In the military it was shoot once, center of mass (shoot to disable), and then assess the situation. In the civilian world it's shoot twice, shoot to kill (double-tap).