Author Topic: Defense: Man who shot teens 'scared in own home'  (Read 2885 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline 240B

  • Lord of all things Orange!
  • TBR Advisory Committee
  • ***
  • Posts: 25,960
    • I try my best ...
Re: Defense: Man who shot teens 'scared in own home'
« Reply #50 on: April 30, 2014, 11:04:41 pm »
Oceander quotes Minnesota law above:
[[ "All the time needed for premeditation or deliberation is that required to form the intent to kill. Thus, the following instruction was sustained in State v. Prolow [98 Minn. 459, 461, 108 N.W. 873, 874 (1906)]:  "The `premeditation may be formed at any time, moment or instant before the killing.  Premeditation means thought of beforehand for any length of time, no matter how short.  There need be no appreciable space of time between the intention of killing and the act of killing. They may be as instantaneous as the successive thoughts of the mind.' ]]

The intent to kill is not illegal. Anyone who shoots anyone has an ostensible 'intent to kill'. It is similar to calling something a 'hate crime'. All crimes are hate crimes. This is no such thing as a 'love crime' except the one Jeb Bush just made up. How could anyone argue, "Yes, I killed him. But I did not 'hate' him at the time of the crime." That is even worse!
 
In that sense, there is not anyone who shoots at anyone without a 'defacto' intent to kill. How could anyone argue, "Yes, I shot him. But I did not mean to hurt him." Under this law, all shootings everywhere are 'premeditated murder', if the person happens to die from it.
You cannot "COEXIST" with people who want to kill you.
If they kill their own with no conscience, there is nothing to stop them from killing you.
Rational fear and anger at vicious murderous Islamic terrorists is the same as irrational antisemitism, according to the Leftists.

Offline Luis Gonzalez

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7,621
  • Gender: Male
    • Boiling Frogs
Re: Defense: Man who shot teens 'scared in own home'
« Reply #51 on: April 30, 2014, 11:19:19 pm »
Agreed. But then, the law and judicial system is left to sort it out.

Yeah... I agree.

The problem is that it can't get sorted out and judged from the perspective of having been robbed several times previously, and facing the situation under the amount of adrenaline that one who is actually making the decisions at the time of the killing was experiencing.

I'm not sure what I would do faced with the same circumstances.
"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, i have others." - Groucho Marx

Offline Luis Gonzalez

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7,621
  • Gender: Male
    • Boiling Frogs
Re: Defense: Man who shot teens 'scared in own home'
« Reply #52 on: April 30, 2014, 11:22:32 pm »
Oceander quotes Minnesota law above:
[[ "All the time needed for premeditation or deliberation is that required to form the intent to kill. Thus, the following instruction was sustained in State v. Prolow [98 Minn. 459, 461, 108 N.W. 873, 874 (1906)]:  "The `premeditation may be formed at any time, moment or instant before the killing.  Premeditation means thought of beforehand for any length of time, no matter how short.  There need be no appreciable space of time between the intention of killing and the act of killing. They may be as instantaneous as the successive thoughts of the mind.' ]]

"An instant before the killing" seems to try to blur the distinction between "premeditated" and a "spontaneous crime of passion".

I see a challenge here in the federal courts -- the law is simply too vague.

So, in Minnesota, if faced with a similart charge, one's defense should ALWAYS be "I aimed for the knees, but they squatted"?

Does that sound about right?
"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, i have others." - Groucho Marx

Oceander

  • Guest
Re: Defense: Man who shot teens 'scared in own home'
« Reply #53 on: April 30, 2014, 11:49:44 pm »

The intent to kill is not illegal. Anyone who shoots anyone has an ostensible 'intent to kill'. It is similar to calling something a 'hate crime'. All crimes are hate crimes. This is no such thing as a 'love crime' except the one Jeb Bush just made up. How could anyone argue, "Yes, I killed him. But I did not 'hate' him at the time of the crime." That is even worse!
 
In that sense, there is not anyone who shoots at anyone without a 'defacto' intent to kill. How could anyone argue, "Yes, I shot him. But I did not mean to hurt him." Under this law, all shootings everywhere are 'premeditated murder', if the person happens to die from it.

Intent coupled with one or more actions taken to carry that intent out is illegal.  That's called attempt.

You're more than welcome to start tilting at the deeply-established concept of premeditated murder, but you'll soon envy Don Quixote.

The difference here is that he didn't just fire off a couple of additional shots, he carefully considered what kind of shot he was going to fire.  That is a pretty good illustration of the difference between first degree murder and premeditated murder.

More generally:  if an argument escalates to violence and one person gets so angry that he yanks out his firearm and shoots at the other person, that is not premeditated murder.  On the other hand, suppose that person knew the other person was a hothead and that he would yank out his bowie knife if he got mad enough.  Suppose that this person instigated an argument and pushed it to the point where he knew the other person would pull out his knife, so that he could then shoot that other person and claim self-defense, that is premeditation.  Even if the plan forms half-way through the argument, there was premeditation.  It's sort of like the difference between general intent and specific intent.


Offline EC

  • Shanghaied Editor
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 23,804
  • Gender: Male
  • Cats rule. Dogs drool.
Re: Defense: Man who shot teens 'scared in own home'
« Reply #54 on: May 01, 2014, 12:03:52 am »
There are times when premeditated is not only legal but condoned.

I take a team out on a run - we are not going out to give hugs and kisses. We are also not doing anything wrong, legally.
The universe doesn't hate you. Unless your name is Tsutomu Yamaguchi

Avatar courtesy of Oceander

I've got a website now: Smoke and Ink