In the last\nentry we discussed some elements of this controversial case. Some comments, a\nfew here but mostly elsewhere, seem to indicate some misunderstandings about\nhow these things work in court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Objective\nReasonableness <\/em>is\nthe standard for use of force established thirty years ago by the US Supreme\nCourt in Graham v. Connor<\/em>. It is essentially the police officer\u2019s\nversion of the Doctrine of the Reasonable Person which guides a private\ncitizen\u2019s use of force. In essence,\ninstead of \u201cWhat would a reasonable and prudent person have done, in the same\nsituation, knowing what the defendant knew,\u201d it\u2019s \u201cWhat would a reasonable,\nprudent, trained and experienced police officer have done in the same\nsituation, knowing what the involved officer knew?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many felt\nthat Officer Amber Guyger was unreasonable and imprudent in mistaking Botham\nJean\u2019s apartment for her own. It was directly above hers, but she had\ninadvertently wound up on the wrong floor of an apartment building with cookie\ncutter architecture. There was testimony that an amazingly high percentage of\nresidents in that building had told investigators that at some time they had\nmade the same mistake. I was surprised\nthat the jury didn\u2019t take from this that a resident unintentionally going to\nthe wrong door was neither unreasonable, nor imprudent, nor culpably\nnegligent. The gist of Guyger\u2019s\ntestimony was that as she entered the dimly-lit apartment she saw a large man\ncoming toward her yelling \u201cHey, hey, hey\u201d and that he did not obey her command\nto show her his hands, in the very brief period of time before she fired. There was some testimony as to the tunnel\nvision that occurs more often than not in such situations, which would have explained\nwhy she didn\u2019t recognize that the furniture and layout were different from\nthose in her own apartment. This supported the defense\u2019s contention that her\nmistake was a reasonable one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many\nobservers were outraged that the defense got a jury instruction on Castle\nDoctrine, which says one is not required to retreat when attacked in a place\nwhere one has a right to be. Assuming that Guyger did reasonably believe the\napartment was hers and Botham Jean was an intruder coming at her, I believe\nJudge Tammy Kemp was correct in putting the Castle Doctrine instruction to the\njury. And Castle Doctrine was a somewhat\nmoot point, since even in states which demand retreat before resorting to\ndeadly defensive force, retreat is not demanded unless it can be accomplished\nin complete safety. With Botham Jean\nwithin a second of reaching her, she could not possibly have backed up faster\nthan he could continue moving forward; she had been disarmed (of her TASER) by\na strong man a year or so before; and she entered encumbered with the police\ngear she was holding in one hand, which also accounts for why she described\nfiring with one hand only.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, we all\nknow NOW that Botham Jean was an innocent man in his own home. There is no\nreason to believe that Guyger knew that at the time she fired the two shots.\nThe law does not demand that the shooter\u2019s assessment and belief be correct,\nonly that the belief was sincere and reasonable. The shorthand version, for cop or <\/em>armed\ncitizen, is: \u201cYou don\u2019t have to be right, you have to be REASONABLE.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n One thing I\ndidn\u2019t see addressed in the trial was whether, like most cops, she had other\nguns in her home and feared the intruder was armed with one of them if he\ndidn\u2019t have a weapon of his own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Those who\nidentified with Guyger were angry that while the Texas Ranger who led the\ninvestigation testified that he thought her actions was reasonable, as did a\nretired very senior commander of her police department said the same, the jury\nwas not allowed to hear that testimony. \nThe judge was correct in ruling it out, since only the jury can\ndetermine what was reasonable. However,\nthe jury has a right to know what the parameters of reasonableness ARE in the\nmatter at issue, in this case, the proper use of defensive lethal force. Had the defense simply asked those witnesses\nwhat the training standards were in that regard, as many defense lawyers have\ndone when I was the expert witness on the stand, it has generally been allowed\nin and probably would have been in this case. The groundwork for that critical\ntestimony simply wasn\u2019t laid correctly, in my opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally,\nJudge Kemp was criticized as everything from a race traitor to a violator of\nthe separation of church and state because after it was over, she came down\nfrom the bench and hugged the defendant and gave her a Bible. I don\u2019t have a\nproblem with it. The verdict was already in, so that act in no way prejudiced\nthe outcome. Judge Tammy Kemp is clearly\na compassionate person, who unashamedly was seen to shed tears in the courtroom\nfor victim and defendant alike, realizing that the incident had destroyed both\ntheir lives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Anyone who\nwants to complain about a judge showing compassion, in my opinion, does not\nunderstand the meaning of the word Justice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the last entry we discussed some elements of this controversial case. Some comments, a few here but mostly elsewhere, seem to indicate some misunderstandings about how these things work in court. Objective Reasonableness is the standard for use of force established thirty years ago by the US Supreme Court in Graham v. Connor. It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6003","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6003"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6004,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6003\/revisions\/6004"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}