St. Louis about to go to war again?

Fixed

Reason: police officer acquitted in murder trial

Noteworthy: bench trial heard by circuit court judge, not a jury trial (why?)

planted a gun, lmao this ****ing country

The judge also said to the effect of that if the gun hadn't been planted, he would have had one anyway.

It's not known if the gun was planted. It's an accusation. He may have planted it or not. The judge has to decide if there is reasonable doubt.

It's hard to feel sorry for the victim, he did so much to escalate the violence. I think I mentioned in this thread before; If someone has a gun pointed at you (cop or criminal) it's best to do what they say. Perhaps driving your car into police car and leading on a high speed chase does not help the cortisol levels of officers, especially paranoid/hot head ones who carry extra guns in their vehicle.

I wonder what the evidence was that made them file charges? Why can it not be released?

Idk I feel like the cop walking around with a non-service issued ak-47 maybe did a little to escalate the violence, and maybe should face some consequences for killing someone. Idk tho

PROSECUTORS, yeah, prosecutors say that they heard on the dash cam footage the cop saying he was going to kill the guy right before he killed the guy. I don't care whether you feel sorry for the guy or not, this is bull****. Prosecutors don't go charging cops with murder on flimsy evidence. We live in a God damned police state and most of the people, at least most of the white people in this country seem to like it that way.

You don't have to be sorry for the victim at all to believe that the cop should be punished.

I agree. If you would have made bold the top of my paragraph you would see that there is the possibility of reasonable doubt which is what the judge found in his bench trial. So he should be acquitted, even if guilty, the burden of proof lies with the state and was not met to the judge's satisfaction.

The judge explained those words as heat of the moment things people say. We have all said something like that when someone (person or pet or computer) pisses us off. The expression is common.

Think about what you are saying; that he is not using the phrase as a matter of expression, but stating his pre meditated plans to murder someone to his partner, and knowing it's being recorded on his dash cam. Why would he do this?

There is circumstantial evidence that we wanted to shoot him and that he may have planted a gun. However it is not beyond a reasonable doubt therefore he should be acquitted. Sometimes guilty people go free. (I have no idea what his intentions were and whether he is guilty or innocent).

There are at least two prosecutors/ex-prosecutors who post in politics. I'm going to PM one of them for his thoughts.

- Dude says, "I'm going to kill him," recorded on camera
- Victim ends up dead at the hands of dude who said "I'm going to kill him"
- Dude is always convicted of premeditated murder unless clear evidence exists that dude was defending himself.

We have no idea what the judge actually thought. He may have thought that if we start convicting police of murder , whether they deserve it or not, that people will lose respect for the law and chaos will ensue. Or maybe the judge thought that it's ok because the guy was black. Or that it's perfectly reasonable to presume any black man has a gun and wants to kill you. Based on what Wookie said that seems like a pretty likely thought running around the judge's head.

Yes, I've said it too. The difference is that I didn't then go kill the person, pet or computer.

I did throw my cordless mouse at the TV once.

A couple of thoughts based on my experience:

1. This was a bad verdict. The judge's comments in his decision are troubling, particularly the comment that he found it very unlikely that there was an inner city drug dealer who wouldn't have a weapon based on his experience, especially given that as the finder of fact he should base his decisions on the evidence in front of him, and not on his "anecdotal" experience that inner city drug dealers usually have guns;

2. The DNA evidence is a red herring. Having prosecuted numerous cases where DNA testing was done, in my experience so-called "touch" DNA is rare and the lack of it is not dispositive. If you don't have someone bleeding or leaving bodily fluids behind, its rare to get a DNA hit. You have to remember that in order to get a touch DNA match, all of the following must be true: 1. The person touching the object has to shed some skins cells; 2. The skin cells have to be somewhat numerous; 3. The person swabbing the object has to swab in the area that has the skin cells and pick enough of them up; 4. The swab then has to have enough of the skin cells so that when the STR DNA analysis is done (which replicates the DNA so that there is enough of it to test) there is enough there to get a result; and finally 5. the resulting DNA profile has to be strong enough (and if its a mixture profile it makes it more difficult) to generate a result. I have had several stabbing cases where the knife was recovered, and the only DNA on the knife was the blood of the victim on the blade. This does not mean that the victim stabbed himself. So I wouldn't rely on the DNA evidence at all to conclude that the police officer planted the gun, (maybe he did, maybe he didn't) but the whole thing is irrelevant anyway to the homicide charge, other than possibly as "consciousness of guilt" evidence on the part of the police officer, which is of pretty limited value in any event.

3. The dashboard recording evidence recording the police officer that he's "going to kill this guy" should have made this case a slam dunk.

4. There has been a push in my home state of New York by the District Attorney's Lobbying group to change the law such that it requires the consent of both parties to waive a jury trial. Right now in NY (and I assume in MO), only the defendant can decide whether he is tried by a judge or a jury, the prosecution has no say in it. Defendant's in our country have the absolute constitutional right to a trial by jury, they do not have the absolute constitutional right to a trial by judge. One of the reasons for wanting this change in the law is exactly cases like these, police officers on trial often elect a bench trial, and that often makes it much more difficult to convict them. A change in the law such that both parties have to agree to waive a jury would perhaps have changed the outcome here, and I hope that cases like these give more wind to the movement to change the law in this manner.

5. Prosecuting police officers for homicide in general will continue to be an extraordinarily difficult thing to do. It is very difficult to convict a person, beyond a reasonable doubt, based on inferring what is in their head during what is generally a split second decision. It is not often that you get a case (like this one) where the officer actually makes a statement of his intent immediately before committing the act.

When you say something in the heat of the moment immediately before then taking an action that accomplishes the goal of what you stated, that is pretty damning evidence that you intended to do what you said you intended, and that it wasn't just "in the heat of the moment." Lets change the facts a little. A husband finds out his wife is cheating on him. He calls his friend and says "I'm going to kill her." 30 minutes later she is found shot dead, and he is outside the house at the scene of the crime. You don't think that's pretty damning circumstantial evidence?

I guess I got slow ponied on my last post.

By the way, here's the jury charge on intent in New York, it's pretty similar in most states:

The question naturally arises as to how to determine
whether or not a defendant had the intent required for the
commission of a crime.
To make that determination in this case, you must decide if
the required intent can be inferred beyond a reasonable doubt
from the proven facts.
In doing so, you may consider the person's conduct and all
of the circumstances surrounding that conduct, including, but not
limited to, the following:
what, if anything, did the person do or say;
what result, if any, followed the person’s conduct; and
was that result the natural, necessary and probable
consequence of that conduct.


So we have a police office who 1: Says on camera he's going to kill someone, 2: Shoots him (five?) times, and then 3: The guy dies.

Edit: I tried to pull the MO instructions but their website is behind an attorney/paywall. It's probably pretty similar, this is a pretty standard (and logical) instruction.

Thank you jman220.

Saying he's going to kill the guy isn't circumstantial evidence of intent, it's direct evidence.

We're really getting into the weeds here on a hypertechnicality that doesn't mattter to the discussion, but technically an admission of guilt by a defendant after the fact about acts already performed would constitute direct evidence, whereas a statement about what a defendant is "going to do" coupled with evidence that the thing was in fact done would constitute circumstantial evidence. That said, my state, and as far as I know most states, no longer draw any distinction between the weight of direct evidence versus circumstantial evidence and verdicts can rest entirely on circumstantial evidence.

In Georgia, circumstantial evidence is enough for a conviction but only if there is no other reasonable explanation for the circumstantial evidence.

Maybe this cop thought like "damn this guy is gonna do something forcing my hand".

Police body cams should be universally mandatory.

I haven't really looked into this case, but was there no lesser homicide charged as well?

What is the alternative explanation for the officers DNA, and not the victims, on the gun that was obviously planted?

Literally. Victim was a black dude so probably would have had a gun on him anyway, if he didn't this time it was just bad luck.

maybe defensive contact - dude pulls gun, officer scrapes skin trying to push it away

maybe contact after the shooting - officer grabs/tosses gun away from dude's body