Next time someone asks you “what’s the point of blogs?”, you can answer “well, there’s one case in the US where they might have saved a guy from being executed”.
Next time someone asks you “what’s the point of blogs?”, you can answer “well, there’s one case in the US where they might have saved a guy from being executed”.
Clear case of self – defense. Under the Howard governments’ fascist anti-gun laws this could never have happened here.
Well it’s obviously not that clear, since he was convicted and sentenced to death and was waiting on death row until Balko happened to stumble upon his case.
Should have been acquitted from the get-go, obviously, but when cops are involved nobody is ever acquitted.
Under the Howard governments’ fascist anti-gun laws this could never have happened here.
I’m confused. Do you regard that as a good thing or a bad thing?
Shooting uninvited guests in your own home is a good thing. The anti-gun laws are a bad thing.
Oh. In that case, I’m really confused.
It is precisely because the US does not have “fascist” gun control laws that this guy was able to store a gun in his daughter’s bedroom (!) and then shoot someone and wind up on death row. Here, he would not have had a gun, and while there is some argument about whether the police should have knocked before entering, the policeman would not have been dead and the homeowner would not have been dragged through the courts.
Correction — would not have been killed / would not be dead — take your pick.
Sorry. Not sure what you’re confused about. What Yobbo said – he should never have been prosecuted.
The facts of this case remind me of an episode of Picket Fences (called System down, I think). A notorious drug dealer kills two policeman under similar circumstances and the trial is moved to the town. The Tom Skerritt character convinces the jury the drug dealer acted in self-defense. (The episode had James Earl Jones in it – but I can’t easily find a synopsis on the web).
[...] But then a blog could work for the its writer, as illustrated in this US case, referred by Andrew Leigh. [...]