Speaking of the Castile Shooting...

[Joe Guy]

I know the Castile shooting has been mentioned in other threads but I didn't find any discussion about the verdict in the case. I've watched mostly CNN and MSNBC this week and listened to various hosts on talk radio and 99% of the people are saying that the verdict is a a miscarriage of justice and a racist decision.

I haven't heard anyone say, 'We didn't sit in court and see and hear what the jury did'. Instead everyone seems to think the video of the shooting was the only evidence needed.

I agree that the video certainly makes the cop look like a killer but I'd like to know what made the jury choose to decide as they did. I'd like to know what witnesses and others said when they testified in court. I'd also like to hear from the jurors but I don't know if that's going to happen.

What do you think? Do you think the verdict was wrong? Why or why not?

[BoSoxGal]

The verdict was reprehensible from the perspective of justice.

Testilying cops: "I was in FEAR for my life" = open season on 'suspects' of color. This pig actually claimed that because he smelled marijuana in the car (yeah, sure) is why he was in fear for his life. He said if Castile would smoke weed in front of his daughter (too young to even comprehend what weed is), then WHO KNOWS what he's capable of?!?! Reefer madness!!

I encourage folks to Google the recent case in Louisiana where a cop accidentally shot and killed a backseat passenger he didn't even see when he testified he was in fear for his life because the driver was positioned to run him and his partner down.

That cop went to prison for 20 years. That cop was black, and his accidental victim was white. Coincidental to his conviction? I THINK NOT!

[Lord Jim]

I didn't follow the trial, and I agree the video looks horrendous...

But one thing the video doesn't show is what Castile was actually doing in the car, vis a vis the gun...(Apparently the cop didn't have on a body cam which would have probably given a better view of this)

So without being able to see what was happening in the interior of the car, you then have a he said/she said situation between the cop and the passenger as to whether or not Castile was touching or reaching for the gun (as the cop was clearly telling him not to do)

I suspect that this is probably what the defense used to build reasonable doubt...

The jurors included seven men and five women, all from Ramsey County. Two jurors were black, and the remaining 10 jurors were white. The ages of the jurors ranged from an 18-year-old college student to someone in their 60's.

http://kstp.com/news/jeronimo-yanez-man ... e/4516050/

Since the jury decision had to be unanimous, whatever arguments and evidence the defense lawyers used they must have been effective enough to reach the reasonable doubt threshold with the two African Americans on the jury panel.

[BoSoxGal]

Never mind, I posted a mistaken assertion and hereby suck Jim's cock by forever attesting that I am not perfect and sometimes fire off a wrong response too quickly.

Lord Jim is the greatest cock of them all; never forget!

[BoSoxGal]

http://m.startribune.com/yanez-juror-ta ... 428966163/

According to this article he never even mentioned a gun in his interview. I can't imagine what strategy the prosecution was following that they didn't bring that into the state's direct case.

[Scooter]

A prosecutor making a case less than vigorously when it's a cop on trial - nah, could never imagine that happening.

[Lord Jim]

It looks like the prosecution did try to bring in Yanez's contradictory statements, but made a strategic miscalculation about how to do it that was rejected by the judge:

The BCA case file includes a conversation caught on a squad microphone which took place between Yanez and St. Anthony Police Officer Tressa Sunde within minutes of the shooting.

Yanez was recorded saying to Sunde: “[Castile] was sitting in the car, seat belted. I told him, can I see your license. And then, he told me he had a firearm. I told him not to reach for it and (sigh) when he went down to grab, I told him not to reach for it (clears throat) and then he kept it right there, and I told him to take his hands off of it, and then he (sigh) he had his, his grip a lot wider than a wallet.”

Later in the same conversation, Yanez went on to say, “And I don’t know where the gun was, he didn’t tell me where the fucking gun was, and then it was just getting hinky, he gave, he was just staring ahead, and then I was getting fucking nervous, and then I told him, I know I fucking told him to get his fucking hand off his gun.”

While jurors indicated they were torn over whether Yanez ever saw Castile’s gun or not, they never got to weigh the now-former officer’s BCA interview because the prosecution failed to bring it up during the presentation of the case. Instead, the prosecution strategically tried to bring the BCA transcript in during its cross-examination of Yanez.

The judge rejected this attempted introduction of new evidence.

More here:

http://www.citypages.com/news/interview ... /429733013

I don't know if this was just a bad strategic decision on the part of the prosecutors...

On the one hand, I can see where they would think the evidence of the contradictory statements about the gun would be more powerful if it was introduced in the process of questioning the defendant, but on the other hand, they couldn't have even known for sure that he would take the stand.

Or a bad ruling by the judge...

Since Yanez had testified that he did see a gun in in Castile's hand on direct examination:

Nearly a year later, when he took the stand during his trial, Yanez was more certain. He testified that he was “able to see the firearm in Mr. Castile’s hand,” forcing him to shoot.

http://www.citypages.com/news/interview ... /429733013

I'm puzzled as to why that wouldn't be considered "opening the door" to other statements from Yanez that contradicted that testimony to be introduced on cross examination...

But either way...a bad strategy decision by the prosecutors, or a bad ruling by the judge...

It doesn't seem to me to indicate a deliberate attempt on the part of the prosecution to "throw" the case...

[BoSoxGal]

You really come off sounding like a blanket apologist for the state, which quite clearly murdered an innocent man. Can you imagine any scenario in which you wouldn't defend the murder of a citizen by a police officer if the officer said he or she was afraid for his/her life?

This one isn't murder, but will you defend this undercover cop's reaction to being tailgated and flipped the bird?:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ttack.html

[Lord Jim]

You really come off sounding like a blanket apologist for the state

How does trying to sort out whether a prosecutor or a judge, (which last time I checked, were both agents of "the state" ) erred in the presentation of critical evidence make me a "blanket apologist for the state"?

How does trying to figure out a rationale for the verdict based on the evidence presented make me a "blanket apologist for the state"?

The only sort of person who could even remotely interpret anything I have posted about this as a "blanket apology for the state" is one who views anything other than an uncritical total embrace of their position as representing a "blanket apologist for the state"...

Apparently, no objective, critical thinking about this is to be allowed... (Much, I suppose, like failing to embrace absolutely positively every single criticism or accusation made against Trump makes one a "Trump fan"...no matter how vociferous one has been about their opposition to Trump.)

BTW, I wasn't going to mention this, but in light of your totally inaccurate characterization of what I've posted in this thread, I thought I'd let you know that I did in fact see the strange assertion that you made as a follow up to my earlier post, where you claimed that "Acquittal did not require a unanimous verdict" (obviously it did) which you shortly thereafter deleted and replaced with:

DP

[BoSoxGal]

Yes because of course I misstated - I was referring to hanging a jury. So apparently it's only appropriate to metaphorically suck your cock by making a big deal out of pointing out my mistake. Hopefully you've now satisfactorily achieved orgasm over rubbing my face in it.

Point out where I'm wrong, by all means - but I cannot recall a single instance when you've expressed outrage over the murder of a black citizen by a cop over all the many cases that have been in the news in recent years. That's the point I was making. You always find some justification for it. In my book, failure to show some upset over the completely fucked up behavior of our criminal injustice system makes you a blanket apologist. You can't even bother to comment on the very obvious unnecessary use of force video I just posted.

Whatever.

[Lord Jim]

Point out where I'm wrong, by all means - but I cannot recall a single instance when you've expressed outrage over the murder of a black citizen by a cop over all the many cases that have been in the news in recent years

Well then, permit me to refresh your memory...

I not only expressed outrage, but started a thread for that purpose about just such a case:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=16789&p=221411&hilit=scott#p221411

There are some cases where video tape in incidents like this can on their face look damning, but are actually inconclusive in some way...(important things aren't seen, there's a bad angle, some critical event isn't included, etc.)

This isn't one of them...

Regardless of the earlier "tussle" the video clearly shows the cop firing eight times in the back of an unarmed man running away from him full tilt...(By the time he fires the final shot, the guy looks to be a good 40 feet from the officer) There's no way in hell he could have been "in fear of his life"...

Then he proceeds to handcuff the dying/dead man (no effort at all to summon any kind of medical aid) and then to top it all off, he walks all the way back to where he left the tazer, and then drops it near the victim's body in a blatant attempt to make it appear that the taser tussle and shooting occurred contemporaneously with each other, (which is clearly not the case)

In fact this attempt was so blatant that the other officer who had arrived on the scene makes him pick up the tazer...(It was also a stupid attempt as well, since the autopsy and the forensics would have revealed that the shots were fired from a much greater distance...)

...It is utterly bewildering to me how even one person viewing this video could feel that they have a "reasonable doubt" that the cop was acting out of a fear for his life. It just defies all commonsense...

I started that thread just last December... (In fact you were the first one to post a follow-up)

As for this :

. So apparently it's only appropriate to metaphorically suck your cock by making a big deal out of pointing out my mistake. Hopefully you've now satisfactorily achieved orgasm over rubbing my face in it.

Rod would like to respond...


Go ahead Rod...

[Jarlaxle]

duplicate

[Jarlaxle]

I didn't follow the trial, and I agree the video looks horrendous...

But one thing the video doesn't show is what Castile was actually doing in the car, vis a vis the gun...(Apparently the cop didn't have on a body cam which would have probably given a better view of this)

No, but the cop's own words condemn him: he did not know where the gun was. He never saw it.

So without being able to see what was happening in the interior of the car, you then have a he said/she said situation between the cop and the passenger as to whether or not Castile was touching or reaching for the gun (as the cop was clearly telling him not to do)

I suspect that this is probably what the defense used to build reasonable doubt...

The jurors included seven men and five women, all from Ramsey County. Two jurors were black, and the remaining 10 jurors were white. The ages of the jurors ranged from an 18-year-old college student to someone in their 60's.

http://kstp.com/news/jeronimo-yanez-man ... e/4516050/

Since the jury decision had to be unanimous, whatever arguments and evidence the defense lawyers used they must have been effective enough to reach the reasonable doubt threshold with the two African Americans on the jury panel.

Or the prosecutor deliberately bungled the case.

[Jarlaxle]

http://m.startribune.com/yanez-juror-ta ... 428966163/

According to this article he never even mentioned a gun in his interview. I can't imagine what strategy the prosecution was following that they didn't bring that into the state's direct case.

Serious question: would it be at all tough to deliberately torpedo your own prosecution? (Note: I am not saying you would ever do so...however, you being, AFAIK, the only one here who has ever worked as a prosecutor, you seem to be the one to ask.)

[Lord Jim]

Jarl, I addressed the issue of the contradictory statements not getting into evidence in an earlier post in this thread:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=17828&p=237657&hili ... ge#p237657

I did it by looking up and presenting some actual factual information about what happened, and then giving some possible explanations for culpability based on those facts, rather than immediately lunging to a POV driven conclusion...

Which was apparently a mistake on my part...

[BoSoxGal]

http://m.startribune.com/yanez-juror-ta ... 428966163/

According to this article he never even mentioned a gun in his interview. I can't imagine what strategy the prosecution was following that they didn't bring that into the state's direct case.

Serious question: would it be at all tough to deliberately torpedo your own prosecution? (Note: I am not saying you would ever do so...however, you being, AFAIK, the only one here who has ever worked as a prosecutor, you seem to be the one to ask.)

Not tough at all, I shouldn't think. The only real obstacle to undermining a case would be if the supervising attorney was really committed to a conviction and was watching closely enough to step in and salvage deliberate (or for that matter unintentional) bungling.

In theory the prosecution should have been able to introduce that interview to impeach the officer with prior inconsistent statements during its cross-examination of his testimony in the defense's case. I would be interested to hear what reasoning, if any, the judge provided when he refused to allow it - but it's moot because the state gets no opportunity to appeal bad trial rulings following an acquittal. To my thinking, it's crazy negligent to not have introduced that interview and highlighted that fact in the State's case in chief because HOLY FUCK! it's only the most fucking critical issue for the jury to consider, whether he had a reason to actually fear for his life which is the only justification for shooting someone with a broken taillight. It doesn't make sense to me at all except as evidence of an egregiously stupid prosecution team, or an egregiously corrupt one.

The sad truth of our criminal injustice system is that prosecutors desperately need cooperative police to make convictions and achieve their ambitions, and many prosecutors turn a blind eye to misconduct and shoddy investigative practices on a regular basis. Those who don't should be lauded.

For the past year and a half, when I've finally had time to really think and reflect, I have agonized all the more over all the concerns and doubts that kept me losing sleep for the entirety of my time practicing criminal law. I have been haunted by the cases I handled as a prosecutor and second guessing whether the evidence presented to me was legitimate and not in violation of the Constitution. Obviously I handled plenty of routine cases and there are hundreds I don't give a second thought to, and I am beyond grateful to have not really had any genuine whodunnits in my caseload. But because I follow this stuff obsessively I'm all too aware of how rampant bad policing really is. I'm struggling right now to make sense of that which I dedicated my lifeblood to, and it's a very painful thing. My approach as a prosecutor was far more defense friendly than any other prosecutor I knew because I didn't want the moral stain of taking the kinds of shortcuts and turning the blind eyes that is so prevalent in the field. When I decided not to continue on as a prosecutor, almost every defense attorney I was then appearing with on a regular basis made a point to reach out and thank me for my efforts and to laud me as the best they'd ever worked with. I sent a lot of their clients to jail/prison, but I did so operating in strictest transparency and with rigid adherence to the law and I can attest it won me few friends among LEOs I worked with who only wanted to WIN no matter what, who were certain of guilt in the face of any and all exculpatory evidence. The LEOs I worked with refused to do anything about the man who was stalking me in retaliation for me not towing the line exactly as they thought I should have - a complete and total absence of ethics.

I attended hundreds of hours of prosecution CLE presented by the national organizations allegedly dedicated to prosecution ethics and quality, including the expansive career prosecutor course presented by NDAA. In all of those trainings the topic of wrongful conviction was never raised. In the career course there was some discussion of Brady requirements, but I would characterize the discussion as perfunctory and aimed primarily at presenting strategies for lawful avoidance. It made me sick. My experience as a prosecutor made me, literally, physically ill. That's why I was always so defensive. That's why I hated so much when posters here would question my competence or ethics as a way to 'push my buttons' in debate, because I was all too aware that I was one of the few truly diligent in terms of always, always trying to do things right and ethically. I'm the sort of person who should've been running or working in a conviction review unit, where that kind of attitude would be greatly appreciated rather than scoffed at. (I'm assuming so, anyway. I hope the few such units that exist aren't just going through the motions for political points.)

One good guy prosecutor out there who tried to put a bad guy cop in jail just got handed a mistrial for the second time today. I'm feeling very glum this week.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... trial.html

I want to add one more observation: an acquittal in cases like these is not, I believe, a sign that the jury all unanimously agreed that the shooting was justified. I believe that some jurors aren't strong enough in standing firm for their beliefs and cave in under the pressure of deliberations, which I'm guessing are even more intense given that some jurors no doubt are of authoritarian mindset with a more slavish devotion to the misconception that authority figures like police are largely infallible. It's a terrible shame because a hung jury would have been a much better result in terms of justice, where too many folks believe acquittal equals exoneration. These hair trigger murdering pigs should live under a stain all the rest of their lives, at very least.

[MGMcAnick]

I don't know if I'm the only one here who has a permit to carry a concealed gun or not. I have a permit, and more than one gun. (My guns do not have to be registered, and they aren't. I inherited them.) I seldom carry. Very seldom. I have handled guns since I was seven. Yes, seven years old. The parking lot at my high school always had pickup trucks with gun racks in them. The trucks may or may not have been locked. That's the way things were here, even back then.

In the day long class that Mrs Mc and I took to qualify for our permits, ONE of the MANY things that we were told was that we should ALWAYS tell an officer that we are permitted to carry, and whether or not we are carrying. Our DL and CCP are to be given to an officer at the same time. Granted I have not been pulled over in 44 years, but if I am, I will be sure to tell the officer. My permit is nearly identical to my driver's license. The number is the same. The picture is different as it was taken on a different day, as are the big red letters at the top. CONCEALED CARRY PERMIT or COMMERCIAL DRIVER'S LICENSE.

I believe that the officer in this case made a BIG mistake. I've seen the recently released dash cam video. He should not get off scott free. I understand that there is a lawsuit against him and the city. Since he has been dismissed from the police department, I'm sure the city KNOWS that it is culpable. I hope he is never hired to do ANYTHING that has to do with a gun of any sort. He flunked the class.

[rubato]

This verdict is just as shocking and just as wrong as the Rodney King verdict, and the Freddy Gray verdict. This is why black people are angry.



yrs,
rubato

[ex-khobar Andy]

Wasn't one factor that the officer thought that Castile was a suspect in some other crime? Wouldn't it make sense for the cop to call for some sort of backup if he was pulling over someone who was not thought to be just another motorist with a broken taillight?

[Jarlaxle]

I don't know if I'm the only one here who has a permit to carry a concealed gun or not. I have a permit, and more than one gun. (My guns do not have to be registered, and they aren't. I inherited them.) I seldom carry. Very seldom. I have handled guns since I was seven. Yes, seven years old. The parking lot at my high school always had pickup trucks with gun racks in them. The trucks may or may not have been locked. That's the way things were here, even back then.

In the day long class that Mrs Mc and I took to qualify for our permits, ONE of the MANY things that we were told was that we should ALWAYS tell an officer that we are permitted to carry, and whether or not we are carrying. Our DL and CCP are to be given to an officer at the same time. Granted I have not been pulled over in 44 years, but if I am, I will be sure to tell the officer. My permit is nearly identical to my driver's license. The number is the same. The picture is different as it was taken on a different day, as are the big red letters at the top. CONCEALED CARRY PERMIT or COMMERCIAL DRIVER'S LICENSE.

I believe that the officer in this case made a BIG mistake. I've seen the recently released dash cam video. He should not get off scott free. I understand that there is a lawsuit against him and the city. Since he has been dismissed from the police department, I'm sure the city KNOWS that it is culpable. I hope he is never hired to do ANYTHING that has to do with a gun of any sort. He flunked the class.

You are not the only one here with a CCW permit.

i wonder if telling Barney Fife is the best idea at this point...it got Castile killed.