- A 17-year-old flexes his rights during a traffic stop. Two years later his parents get a $2.4 million settlement. Not clear whether the killer cop will have to pay a dime of it, though.
- When I first saw this, I thought, “If you so disapprove of ‘white DNA,’ why don’t you do the world a favor by expunging from your body all the DNA you share with us evil ones?” My second thought was, “You have your right to free speech, but why should the poor Texas taxpayers have to finance it?”
- Leave it to the Mormons to come up with this. If you’re in Salt Lake City, you can now buy a goat or a chicken for someone in a third-world country. Or school shoes or an eye exam for a kid in need. From a vending machine.
- Let all us bloggers be glad we’re not posting in Vietnam. Brave writers, though. I wish them well and hope the Vietnamese people shame the government into freeing them.
- Awful as the acquittal in that San Francisco “undocumented immigrant” murder case may have seemed, Scott Greenfield makes a compelling argument that that the verdict was the right one.
- This has nothing to do with anything. It’s just one of those strange, sad mysterious cases you hear about now and then that stick in your mind and make you want to know the life stories behind them.
- Woman says goodbye to her dog in a series of touching illustrations. Have your hankie ready.
- How to provide for your pet in your estate plan.
Another take on Garcia Zarate’s acquittal is that it was a case of jury nullification by a “sanctuary city jury”. Only in the land of the fruit and the nut… 🙁
Wow – just think how well those vending machines would work in a free-market community!
Scott Greenfield got it right – and so did the jury. The prosecution was stupid and emotional, and the public defender was smart. I do feel badly for Steinle’s family, however; I’m sure they feel betrayed by our legal system. (But as Greenfield said in the last comment, “The legal system is about law, not whatever vague notions of “justice” pop into the heads of the clinically insane before the meds kick in.” Which should make us all re-think, “What is justice?”)
If there was ever a Declaration of Hate, Rudy Martinez of Texas State University wrote it. As the song says, “You’ve got to be carefully taught.” But how much “hate” was taught in the home, and how much has been brain-washed in the schools?
RV — I agree that it’s bizarre that the jury didn’t at least go for involuntary manslaughter. Even if you believe the claims of the perp’s own defense, that’s what it was. I can see why they didn’t go for first-degree murder, though. It does seem to have been a mistake by the prosecution even to attempt that charge, let alone push so hard for it.
I’m right with you on this, Claire, and there was prosecutorial overreach (can you tell that I watch Law and Order? 🙂 ) with the first-degree murder charge, but the jury not convicting for involuntary manslaughter gives us good reason to believe that this was a case of jury nullification.
I think the verdict shows that the jury does not know how guns work. The guy claimed “it just went off”
And we know that evil guns randomly kill on their own (when not held buy police/military/government)
It had nothing to do with the guy pulling the trigger
I am not particularly enthusiastic about conspiracy theories but I do wonder if the overreach in the Zarate case was deliberate. Instead of piling on charges and settling for a plea bargain down to manslaughter, they prosecution pursued the *weakest* case.
1) Re Traffic stop murder: Why would Sturmmann Jonathan Frost turn off his body cam unless he didn’t like what it would show? Every time some Nazi oaf in a blue authoritah (as in “respect my…”) suit kills a peon with no good reason we hear about how bad the killer robot feels about it. Why would they be bummed out about getting away with murder? I wonder how long he spent j@cking off before the b*ner he got from the shooting went away.
2) Re White DNA: The blubbering Uentermenschen should STFU unless they wish to separate themselves from all those Satanic White inventions like airplanes, cars, television, antibiotics, etc. If America sucks so bad why don’t they find some welcoming 3rd world utopia?
RE:Zarate case: Keep in mind this is the same city that let Dan White off with involuntary manslaughter forty years ago
I don’t even play a lawyer on TV, so I might be wrong, but I don’t think the jury could render a verdict of involuntary manslaughter when that was not the charge from the prosecution. The prosecution would have had to put forth that charge in the beginning. So the jury could only vote on the charge it had before it. Somebody cannot be tried twice for the same offense, so he cannot be tried now on a different charge (involuntary manslaughter) for the same offense that he committed.
Myself,
That was the “Twinky Defense”. Might what to keep it in inventory. Precedent and all.
Jim Brook,
Neglegent discharge manslaughter anyway. First degree murder? DA is a politician?
And here in the USA, you can be charged again, because federal law charges too.
IMHO justice should mean that Garcia Zarate’s never walk a street in the US again where he might discharge a firearm at the very least.
Can’t wait one day to hear of a sanctuary city for those fleeing unconstitutional gun laws too.
Comrade,
Try any city in Alaska
I can think of no fitting punishment for a shitbird like Frost who murders a kid on the street and then hides behind his badge. Anything I can imagine as appropriate to the offense is so heinous I couldn’t administer it and still live with myself. I just hope he gets killed shortly, so he can’t do it again.
My white DNA gets so tired of hearing all this white privilege BS, cuz no matter how they try to dress it up as free speech in ‘academic patois’, it’s still just plain race hatred from minority racists. All I do in response is to buy more ammo.
david,
Do not play pawn to that narrative. Why let other frame idea for us?
No Play!
They tried George Zimmerman for 1st degree murder too, for which there was no evidence. They’ve tried I don’t know how many killer cops with 1st degree. They’ve all walked out free. I’m not sure I buy into the “public rage will accept no less” theory. I think they’re attempts by prosecutors to nail that Big Case, with an eye towards a career in politics (as the “Law & Order candidate, of course). It’s sickening.
The jury could have found Zarate guilty of involuntary manslaughter. It is a “lesser included charge.” But it seems that the prosecution did not make that clear to the jury, and wanted a 1st degree murder conviction. The facts just didn’t support any intention or planning by Zarate.
“So it would not surprise me at all if the prosecutor didn’t really forcefully and in detail make the “even if it was accidental it was manslaughter” argument, out of fear it would encourage the jury to choose that instead of murder.” Ken White at Popehat twit.
“Jury instructions are complicated, especially lesser-included instructions. If you don;t walk the jury through them really thoroughly and hit hard your argument for why a particular one applies, they may not get it. That’s why lesser-included strategy is complex.”
The prosecution blew it. They wanted Zarate’s head on a platter, and didn’t press the manslaughter arguments.
Zarate’s not walking. The jury convicted him of “felon in possession of a firearm,” and the feds are making noises about charging him.
The actions of the “sanctuary city” policies of San Francisco won’t bear much scrutiny here.
“Mr. Garcia Zarate had been homeless at the time of the shooting and had multiple felony convictions. He had been set free from jail only months before the shooting, in defiance of requests by federal immigration authorities, who had asked that he be held longer so he could be deported again.”
“That Garcia Zarate was here at all is another matter, not because he was an undocumented immigrant but because he was a convicted felon who had been deported and illegally re-entered.” And then this convicted felon was set free by San Francisco authorities. If he had been detained and deported, he couldn’t have been on the pier at that moment, and Ms. Steinle would be alive today.
I was not aware of that “lesser included offense” legal doctrine. Like I said, I do not even play a lawyer on TV. It sure looks like the jury could have gone for that, if they were aware.