Those who believe this guy is almost a lock to get convicted of murder have a surprising amount of faith in the system. I hope you all are correct. My guess is that this guy will somehow end up spending less than 5 yrs in prison (possibly far less). He is a white cop shooting a black dude in South Carolina. Despite the video, convicting him will be an uphill battle.

system is ****ed. it's not this ****ed. 5/1 on murder. ********** is going down.

0.01%
The policemans mother was on UK t.v 2nt, ofc she was careful what to say & basically said nothing but sad eyes & tragic for all involved.

That's why I asked if he can plead temporary insanity. His wife is like 8 months pregnant. He can probably say something like he was up all night taking care of his poor pregnant wife, didn't get enough sleep and "snapped" when Scott ran and wouldn't stop. There has to be at least 1 sympathetic grandmother on that jury who will feel bad for the baby and mother. Especially if he sniffles and says he's sorry.

As a psychologist I'd say that an insanity plea would seem like a super Hail-Mary, desperation play at jury nullification, in an environment right now where very few people are offering any type of public support for him.

Doesn't matter. The video is pretty clear cut. The prosecutor can easily make the case that he caught up with the suspect once after he ran away, he could have easily done it again. Basically he got pissed that he had to chase him and decided to just **** it all and kill him cause he didn't think anyone was watching. I think the fact that he was acting professionally at first during the traffic stop is a testament to dash cams and that we should have body cams on every policeman in America.

The only difference between temporary insanity and the regular insanity defense is the duration of the insanity. Meaning, he’d still need to establish an underlining mental disease or defect that prevented him from distinguishing right from wrong at the time of the act. Typical life stressors or lack of sleep aren’t mental diseases or defects. Plus, if there is evidence that he did in fact manipulate the crime scene, that’s a clear indication of consciousness of guilt, i.e., that he was aware what he did was wrong.

Juries want to hear something. Just based on what we’re privy to, what do you think his state of mind was at the time?

i will give u action at 6-1

I would definitely take the over.

How ridiculous.

Eh, not necessarily. If the argument is temporary insanity, then realization after the fact that he had done something wrong doesn't necessarily prove that he knew that he was wrong at the time of the shooting. It's obviously something the prosecution will argue though, and might ring true with a jury.

With the qualification that I 100% think this guy is a horrible human and I want him to rot in prison (I'm against the death penalty), his defense attorneys will have some pretty strong options depending on the charges. I'll go through my (somewhat drunken) analysis of the various charges.

Murder 1: For murder 1, you need premeditated intentional killing. Someone mentioned earlier that premeditation can be a split second thought of killing before the killing takes place. True. With that said, I think the prosecution has a hard time convincing a jury that this killing was premeditated. It goes against the common perception of premeditatation, and combined with the public bias in favor of police officers, it's a tough case.

Murder 2: Need to prove intentional, but not premeditated, killing. Murder 2 seems more likely to me. It's a slam dunk if it weren't for....

Voluntary manslaughter: Intentional manslaughter is an intentional killing that's committed in the "heat of passion". I think defense attorneys can make a strong case for this if it's shown that there was actually a struggle over the taser, or some other factor that shows the officer was legitimately riled up. I'm in no state to look into case law to find out what kind of standards there are to determine what qualifies as a "heat of passion" crime, but my gut feeling is that there's a decent case for that here.

Involuntary manslaughter: No. The killing here was obviously intentional.

I think, as disappointing as it is, the most likely outcome is an involuntary manslaughter conviction.

No u.

Lol 20%. I'll take whatever less than zero is.

Yea I can see that. I am just not convinced a jury in South Carolina will find a white cop guilty of murder for killing a black man that ran away. I think there will just be too many people on the jury that will feel sympathetic towards the cop for whatever reason.

Yeah that's definitely an issue. There's a non-zero chance of acquittal for sure. I think it's lowered by the chance that the cop is offered a plea to involuntary with a recommendation of minimal/suspended sentence.

I would think any plea offer that let this guy not go to jail would be seen as a very bad idea by the public.

It’s pretty hard to argue absence of malice when you shoot someone in the back multiple times for doing something (resisting arrest & fleeing) that is well within his job description and experience. So in terms of voluntary manslaughter, it’s the difference between a guy going into a rage and killing his wife after finding her in bed with another guy, and a swinger killing his wife over the same. The former we can deem voluntary manslaughter, but the latter seems like murder to me since we wouldn’t expect someone who is accustomed to seeing his wife in bed with other men to fly into a rage. So it seems binary to me: murder or justifiable homicide.

This guy is going to be convicted of at least 2nd Degree.

The mistake people are making is assuming that just because the system does not convict cops that did not intentionally murder, means that the system wants to not convict all cops including those that did intentionally murder.

What the system really wants is to get things right. To convict the guilty and not convict the not guilty.

So some random person gets conned into thinking a not guilty cop got away with murder, and then thinks that the system doesn't work. But in truth, the system did work, the cop was not guilty, and the failure is with the random person who let himself get conned and those who conned him.

The system is working if you look at these incidents honestly. The not guilty are not being convicted as it should be, and the guilty are being convicted as they should be. That is what a working system looks like - getting to the truth in spite of whatever the public spin is.

and so the SC murderer will be convicted.

Sure he can so let's review your "reasoning" as to how this plea could stand up shall we.

LOL are you seriously offering this up as something a defense team can establish in court? First of all, there is no doubt that the defense would have to bring in at least one expert witness to explain how this could be the case with this particular case. I suppose you could claim that paying an expert witness enough money you could get them to testify to anything but I think that is a silly argument to make on many levels. But heh we can have a go at it. Second of all "snapping" does not equate to a valid case of temporary insanity. Somewhere, somehow the defendat's ability to distinguish between right and wrong factors in to an insanity defense. Of course the state with the resources at its disposal will bring in their expert witnesses to counter any kind of defense expert witnesses. Do you really believe that a defense team can make credible argument that the cop's wife being pregnant was the cause of this cop temporarily not being able to determine the difference between right and wrong?

Stereotypes are ok I guess but have little to do with what goes on in a court room and how juries function. Get a a granny on the jury and she'll hold out against all evidence and other juror arguments. Sure. BTW in order for this cop to sniffle and state his sorrow in front of a jury, he's going to have to take the stand and subject himself to cross examination where he explains how he went temporarily insane.

Dude your reasoning here is completely silly and is stunningly ignorant.

LOL wow your thinking is really dominated by stereotypes. I will tell you what, if there is no plea deal and this cop is exhonerated in this shooting I'll come back to this thread and state that you are the most brilliant poster in the history of 2+2, if there is no plea deal and the cop is convicted you'll come back to this thread and state I am the most brilliant poster in the history of 2+2, deal?

This.

The problem here is that this is a brutally shocking display of a white cop probably demonstrating his racial bigotry to the point of shooting a black suspect (I know the victim had a bench warrant for his arrest and ran) in the back, in cold blood. This pretty much validates a lot of the complaints by many that there is a serious problem in the USA with race relations between cops and black communities. It is more than a little unnerving to realize the potential for police to get by with unlawful behavior. I understand the emotional reactions but I think it is time to let the legal process work in this particular case. It is certainly time to address this issue with police forces.

Apparently SC doesn't have degrees of murder, just murder, manslaughter, and involuntary manslaughter. Seems like murder and manslaughter are both reasonable outcomes and probably what the trial will be about, deciding between those outcomes.

Thanks for the laugh. I didn't realize people actually live in a fantasy internet world where being considered a "brilliant poster" is important. That's just LOL. Do you want a cookie or something?

wtf


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