Another Mad American With A Gun !

[mikey4444]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2705005/Homeowner-makes-astonishing-TV-boast-shooting-pregnant-home-invader-dead-pleaded-mercy-police-say-ACCOMPLICE-charged-murder.html

He shot her, despite her telling him she was pregnant. He shot her in the back, she was unarmed but he still hasn't been charged by the Police !

[gness]

She is dead because she was there....imagine the shock and panic he must have felt.....and anyone who has been attacked and injured by two younger and fitter people will know that shock and panic don't instantly disappear and give way to reasoned thought when the attacker turns away.

Whether he should have a gun is another matter.....but burglars in America are aware that many householders are armed....

[mikey4444]

Can I make it perfectly clear that I am not defending burglars, either here or in the States. This woman and her accomplice were clearly up to no good and were committing a crime. Of that there is no room for doubt.

My purpose in making this thread was to discuss the rights and wrongs of not charging the man who killed the woman but instead charging her accomplice, who cannot possibly be guilty of murder. Guilty of assault and burglary but not murder.

[Sqad]

"I'm pregnant"......"I'M PREGNANT!" what has that got to do with the immediate situation.

I am only guessing how i would respond....but...

I am 80 years old and i come home to find someone trying to open my safe. First thing is to deter them and secondly, perhaps more importantly, DISABLE them.......in simple terms, make sure that they can't hurt me.

A gun is clean and impersonal....the first shot shatters their collar bone, they turn and run, but are you sure that they wont retaliate?
No.....give them a second blast to make sure....the back, the spine.....anywhere.

Then...perhaps i would feel...safer.

[Sqad]

mikey

\\\\but instead charging her accomplice, who cannot possibly be guilty of murder\\\

Not so, at least in the UK.....I am not sure about USA.

[slaney]

I think it may be something called the Felony murder rule , abolished in the UK ..
. ..."it makes any participant in such a felony criminally liable for any deaths that occur during or in furtherance of that felony."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_murder_rule

[pixie373]

I'm not entirely sure why the accomplice is being charged. The woman is an adult and presumably made her own decision and took her own risk.

[pixie373]

Cross-posted slaney. That explains it.

[mikey4444]

Evening Sqad ! ...very, very hot here in Wales this week...not as hot as you normally experience I expect but 31 degrees is not nice. Yorkshire Wolfhound and I are knackered by lack of sleep.

Derek Bentley was sentenced and hanged a few weeks before I was born in 1953. He was another one that couldn't possibly have shot and killed the Policeman, as he was in the custody of another Officer at the time. It took over 30 years for this miscarriage of justice to be finally sorted out and he was given a Royal Pardon, followed by a quashing of his conviction for murder. Different times and different legal regimes of course.

But I repeat that if this chap is not charged with anything, how can we be sure that justice has prevailed ? That is all I am asking.

[Canary42]

America still lives in the days of the Wild West - Baddie shoots Goodie, string him up, Goodie shoots Baddie, no charge.

[mikey4444]

But what colour hat did that girl have on canary ?
In my day, all the baddies wore black hats.

[Svejk]

and don't you think that's the right way around, canary?

[THECORBYLOON]

SQAD, I agree that if I found a burglar in my house I would try to defend myself but if the burglar ran away from me and I chased after him stabbing him to death 60 yards from my house, would that be self-defence still?

[DTCwordfan]

It has to be on your property in the States; off the land and it becomes the responsibility of the police to plug them.

[THECORBYLOON]

The same question applies if I chase the burglar 60 yards down my garden and stab him to death.

[jno]

Canary, i think that's rather harsh on the old West: there aren't many reports of outlaws boasting about shooting pregnant women in the back. It was perhaps more likely to happen when the US Cavalry raided Cheyenne villages and the like.

[Svejk]

corby, anyone can 'say' what they would or wouldn't do. I doubt any of us know what we would, actually, do in similar circumstances.

[Sqad]

Corbyloo.....I don't know......it is not a situation that I am qualified to deal with in a rational way.
I don't know how i would react.

[Sly,Duck]

She was not pregnant and this couple of low life SCUM had robbed the old man twice before.One thing they will not be doing tonight is going out robbing and beating up old people.

[Eve]

It has been on Sky News that she wasn't pregnant:

http://news.sky.com/story/1308048/burglar-killed-by-homeowner-was-not-pregnant

Her accomplice has been charged with "burglary and murder because of his alleged involvement in a felony that led to death".

[agchristie]

Ah,Sly duck,that changes the perspective of this protracted discussion.So,with hindsight,who agrees that the 80 yo saved others from misery?