FAFO of the day
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Link to video
Group of teens bullies middle aged guy, guy cuts his way through them, killing one and injuring lots of others. Now he's on trial for murder 1, but hopefully will be exonerated, if the telling of the story is accurate here.
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Definitely would like to hear more. Something seems weird. If I lost a cell phone, and went up to a group of people and asked if they had seen a cell phone and "do you mind if I take a look around", seems like most people would help to look especially in a situation where it is daylight, obvious public place, lots of people around ,etc.
Something is missing to the story from one side or the other.
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I haven't watched the video above but I have scene the unedited video taken by one of the teenagers. Certainly without more context, I can tell you he was absolutely getting bullied and slapped and pushed into the water when he brought his knife out and stabbed a few times. Seems like self-defense to me, but again... I haven't followed the story for all the facts. Maybe I'll even watch the video above when I have a few minutes.
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Andrew Branca is a lawyer who specializes in self-defense cases. He knows a lot about firearms, of course, and became prominent during the Kyle Rittenhouse trial.
He is following this trial, and so far, we're up to day six.
Here's day one of the trial.
Link to videoIt's a long video - each day is about 3 hours of video, but you can skip through the crap (and self-promoting ads), and get a gist of how things are presented.
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I sped through this video.
Couple of interesting points.
Branch goes into the 5 criteria for self defense.
Then he plays the opening statement by the DA (which I didn't listen to).
Then the opening statement for the defense.
Of note:The deceased football player's blood alcohol was 0.219 - almost triple the legal limit. Also, this picture:
The dead kid has his hands on the defendant's throat. Seems like there's a reasonable case to be made that he was in fear for his life. A 50-something overweight guy is attacked by a drunk football player....
This will be a fun watch.
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I just watched the first part of the video, and maybe it is just my personality, but if I was (hypothetic) drunk, and someone came up to me and a group of friends, and said they may have dropped their phone and wanted to look for it, I dont think I would start bullying them.
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The points that the attorney who specializes in self defense makes are that to qualify as self defense 5 criteria need to be met:
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Innocence - You can’t start the fight. That’s the first element—you can’t have been the initial aggressor, and then justify your use of force as self-defense.
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Imminence - The law allows you to defend yourself from an attack that’s either happening or about to happen very soon, meaning within seconds. It’s not intended to justify vengeance for some past act of violence, nor to “stop” a speculative future attack that you have time to avoid by other means.
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Proportionality - The law puts any use of force into one of two buckets: the non-deadly force bucket, or the deadly force bucket. What qualifies as deadly force? Legally, deadly force is more broadly defined than only force that kills. Force that can cause death is part of the definition, but deadly force also includes force that causes serious bodily injury, like maiming injuries, as well as rape.
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Avoidance - Could you have safely avoided the fight? That’s the question the fourth element addresses. A minority of about 13 states impose a legal duty to run away, when you can do so safely, rather than fight. These are called “duty-to-retreat” states. The large majority of states do not impose such a legal duty to retreat, even if you could have done so with complete safety. These are the “stand-your-ground” states.
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Reasonableness - I like to call this the “umbrella” element because it overlays the other four. Everything that you perceive, decide, and do in defense of yourself or others must be reasonable and prudent, given the circumstances you faced, the information you knew, and your abilities (or disabilities). Mistakes in self-defense are allowed, and a mistaken use of defensive force can still qualify as lawful self-defense. The bad guy’s “gun” turned out to be a toy? That’s not a problem for your defensive use of force against the apparent gun if perceiving it as a real gun was a reasonable belief under the circumstances. Bottom line: We’re not required to make perfect decisions in self-defense, just reasonable ones.
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One of the issues mentioned by the lawyer-streamer is that the jury instructions may have been flawed. The state added many OTHER charges after all testimony was delivered. The judge agreed. This action made it impossible for the defense to anticipate and address the added charges (I'll have to look up what those were). I wonder if that's grounds for appeal.
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FAFOer: guilty of being dead.
It's clear that 99% of people in the defendant's situation wouldn't have ended up gutting several kids and killing one. Whether he was within the bounds of the law, I guess that's what the jury got paid to decide. I hope his appeals are heard with some detached objectivity.
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Link to video
He was found not guilty of the original charges but guilty of the "reckless" charges added AFTER the parties had presented their cases.
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I chuckled at the Roadhouse scene where rowdy patrons were pulling knives on the newly trained bouncers, and the bouncers just threw them out. Never saw an attempted murder treated to jovially. Anyway, golden rule of real fights seems to be, don't actually hurt anybody, or your life may be forfeit. All the stories you hear on the internet of people willing to get physical over this or that, are the ridiculous posturing of imbeciles.
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I chuckled at the Roadhouse scene where rowdy patrons were pulling knives on the newly trained bouncers, and the bouncers just threw them out. Never saw an attempted murder treated to jovially. Anyway, golden rule of real fights seems to be, don't actually hurt anybody, or your life may be forfeit. All the stories you hear on the internet of people willing to get physical over this or that, are the ridiculous posturing of imbeciles.
@Horace said in FAFO of the day:
I chuckled at the Roadhouse scene where rowdy patrons were pulling knives on the newly trained bouncers, and the bouncers just threw them out. Never saw an attempted murder treated to jovially. Anyway, golden rule of real fights seems to be, don't actually hurt anybody, or your life may be forfeit. All the stories you hear on the internet of people willing to get physical over this or that, are the ridiculous posturing of imbeciles.
Or the remembrance of a time when a tussle out back often settled issues. These days that’s considered assault, and as long as it’s assault, you may as well get your money’s worth…
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@Horace said in FAFO of the day:
I chuckled at the Roadhouse scene where rowdy patrons were pulling knives on the newly trained bouncers, and the bouncers just threw them out. Never saw an attempted murder treated to jovially. Anyway, golden rule of real fights seems to be, don't actually hurt anybody, or your life may be forfeit. All the stories you hear on the internet of people willing to get physical over this or that, are the ridiculous posturing of imbeciles.
Or the remembrance of a time when a tussle out back often settled issues. These days that’s considered assault, and as long as it’s assault, you may as well get your money’s worth…
@LuFins-Dad said in FAFO of the day:
@Horace said in FAFO of the day:
I chuckled at the Roadhouse scene where rowdy patrons were pulling knives on the newly trained bouncers, and the bouncers just threw them out. Never saw an attempted murder treated to jovially. Anyway, golden rule of real fights seems to be, don't actually hurt anybody, or your life may be forfeit. All the stories you hear on the internet of people willing to get physical over this or that, are the ridiculous posturing of imbeciles.
Or the remembrance of a time when a tussle out back often settled issues. These days that’s considered assault, and as long as it’s assault, you may as well get your money’s worth…
The opposite happens. The more damage you do, the more you pay.
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@89th said in FAFO of the day:
Jury: Guilty of homicide.
Interesting. I watched some of Branca's analysis of the testimony and evidence. I have to disagree with the verdict.
According to his criteria:
1 - He didn't start the fight.
2 - He was assaulted (from behind) and thrown into the water while being outnumbered 13 to 1.
3 - He was being dunked under the water and pulled the knife to get the people off him.
4 - He had no duty to leave. Should he have? Probably, but from a legal standpoint, he had no such duty.
5 - It seemed clear that he was in fear for his life. Surrounded by 13 drunk teenagers, several of whom were football players. -
Would have been so easy to walk away at most points prior to the stabbing part. I guess that's what got him convicted.
@Horace said in FAFO of the day:
Would have been so easy to walk away at most points prior to the stabbing part. I guess that's what got him convicted.
Yes, but he's under no legal obligation to do so. He was surrounded on 3 sides, and the only retreat was downriver. Once he's pushed into the river, he could be in fear for his life.
