OAKLAND

And if you don't believe that then I agree with Steve, you are a fucking idiot.

I'm not saying racism was or wasn't a factor in the killings, I'm saying race (and the fact that the perpetrator was a cop) will be a major factor in whether or not the conviction will be for murder or not.

Factor positively or negatively?

Okay you are a fucking idiot.

Okay you are a fucking idiot.

So nice had to say it twice.

*shrug* one less hottentot

Sorry, I still have the pedestal for the rest of this month. Ask Steve about Feb rentals.

It's too bad ILX can't have a reasonable discussion on the merits of the various cases without the SF clergy starting a game of fantasy stone tablet tossing.

Mostly poor clergymen destroying the discussions of other poor clergymen.

No offense, but I like to have my reasonable discussions with people who've demonstrated basic reading comprehension.

I'm not the only dude on this thread if you can't get over yrself.

That's pretty much the definition of "intent to kill" right there.

Not quite. Just to quibble, what will make it murder is shooting Mr. Grant not in the leg or hand but right in the back.

^^OTM

totally lolling at dude's not guilty plea btw

"Not quite."

True. I used a bit of shorthand there.

Not quite. Just to quibble, what will make it murder is shooting Mr. Grant not in the leg or hand but right in the back.

To my non-lawyerly reading, it looks like "voluntary manslaughter" is a set of exceptions to the qualifications for murder. That is to say, it's voluntary manslaughter if it falls under the definition of murder but there are a set of qualifying extenuating circumstances.

At least according to Wikipedia.

MW makes good point but this whole case hinges on what the cop says (sorry, I can't spell his last name) under cross-examination. Until the jury hears what his thoughts were prior to pulling the trigger, everything else is speculative. That's why he resigned prior to interview with IA, then pleaded the 5th so that there is no chance of that information leaking prior to trial.

ie, no trial by media.

So the question in my mind is whether such circumstances exist.

If his defense is that he mistook his pistol for his Taser (and generally acts like a moron from here on out), he can claim involuntary manslaughter, though I can't imagine a local jury's going to buy it. His lack of remorse following this is damning.

According to the talking voices on Forum this morning, the defendant isn't going to testify. So the jurors will have to ascertain his state of mind from his actions and the testimonies of the other officers and witnesses (most of which are still not public).

I can't say I know how they knew he wasn't going to testify, tho, 'cause I joined 15 min in.

Wow, if that's the case, those three videos are pretty damning and he's gonna get 25+ years.

I'm not a potential juror unless this turns Federal, methinks, so I have no compunction saying that my prejudice is highly weighted towards a finding of murder.

Where are ILX's criminal defense lawyers when you need them?

Where are they trying the case?

What I would also love to know is if (ok, i'm going to try...) Meserhle was drug/alcohol tested upon returning to the station.

The charge I heard was 2nd degree murder, but the jury has leeway to convict on lesser counts of murder all the way down to involuntary manslaughter.

Alex, they're trying to move it out of Oakland (cf, Rodney King vs. LAPD).

I dunno where it's being tried, but if there's a single damned lesson to be learned from Rodney King, it shouldn't be Marin.

I want to reiterate the major (if not only) reason why this guy isn't going to get convicted of murder is that a) he's a cop and b) the guy he shot was black. Juries giving leeway to cop's abuses of power and letting latent racism color their verdicts is as old as time itself.

lib, no defense attorney will approach that video footage with any hope of an exoneration.

In many jurisdictions, such as in California, if the unintentional conduct amounts to such gross negligence as to amount to a willful or depraved indifference to human life, the mens rea may be considered to constitute malice. In such a case, the charged offense may be murder, often characterized as second degree murder.

Do you know examples of police being convicted of murder in similar situations, where the victim was white, Alex?

Except, Alex, the 'thin blue line' isn't likely to form around a guy who (a) was captrued committing his crime on tape, (b) never even bothered to submit to IA, and (c) essentially bailed on the whole scene. The BART cops are just as likely to be perfectly happy to throw this guy under the bus.

There's a general pro-cop bias in the SF area. No officer has been charged with even manslaughter in this area in a long, long time, if ever.

Maybe I'm just thinking of BART cops, tho.

"The BART cops are just as likely to be perfectly happy to throw this guy under the bus."

We'll see.

"Do you know examples of police being convicted of murder in similar situations, where the victim was white, Alex?"

No, do you?

I'm not arguing against you, Alex. I'm simply curious, and no, I don't know.

Well, you know they'll play at least a modicum of CYA and this is a two year vet, hardly a pillar of the force, and he's made them look like asses.

I hope you are right, but somehow I doubt you are.

Either way I don't think it pays to underestimate even without much BART cop cooperation that certain jurors might be inclined to view this cop's perspective of the threat posed by this guy/situation differently than you or I might.

Fair enough. I wonder how much the threat of civil unrest will weigh on them, too.

If the trial is moved away from the SF bay area, I don't think that civil unrest will matter one whit to the jurors.

They will certainly be instructed not to take that into account

"Fair enough. I wonder how much the threat of civil unrest will weigh on them, too."

I'm not convinced that would be a positive for conviction.

OAKLAND – BART’s initial probe into the fatal shooting New Year’s Day of an unarmed passenger by a transit agency police officer is under fire after recently released footage of the incident shows another officer punching the Hayward father in the head prior to the shooting.
On Jan. 12, BART announced it had completed its internal investigation into the death of 22-year-old Oscar Grant III. That afternoon, police Chief Gary Gee said only the shooter, former Officer Johannes Mehserle, was being investigated in connection with the incident. The other six officers on the Fruitvale station platform that morning had followed proper police procedure, Gee said.
But an amateur video clip that aired Friday on KTVU presents a different scenario, legal experts say. A second officer identified as Tony Pirone is shown punching Grant moments before the shooting in what appears to be a clear act of excessive police force, said Peter Keane, a police expert and professor at Golden Gate University Law School in The City.
Mehserle, 27, is accused of murder, but no other officers are facing disciplinary or other charges. The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office, which is prosecuting Mehserle, did not return calls for comment Monday. Mehserle is being held at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin and has pleaded not guilty.
The footage of Pirone punching Grant seems new to the case, but KTVU’s news director said Monday that the same clip has been available for viewing in full on its Web site since Jan. 6, less than a week before Gee publicly exonerated Pirone and the other officers present on the Fruitvale platform.
The question now is whether BART had missed seeing the footage of the punching incident during its investigation or had chosen to ignore it in order protect Pirone, experts say.
“If the police chief made that statement having seen this video ... the chief should be fired,” Keane said.
He also said if it’s discovered that officers witnessed the punching and chose not to report it to investigators, they “at a minimum” should lose their jobs.
“This is the most revealing of all the videos, the most damning,” he said.
Grant’s killing has sparked social unrest and led to rioting in Oakland.
Attorney John Burris, who’s representing Grant’s family in a $25 million claim against BART, said he’d “like to believe” BART investigators missed the punching incident while reviewing the available video footage.
“If they saw it, that’s a cover-up,” Burris said.
BART officials said they will conduct a “rigorous” internal-affairs investigation into Pirone’s actions. Repeated e-mails and phone calls asking whether the transit agency had missed seeing the punch during its initial investigation have not been returned.

There was a young man in the Houston area, Bellaire, that was shot in the back while he was on the ground after being stopped at his own house and falsely accused of having a stolen car. around the same time. He lived, but that was just chance.

there really haven't been any protests and it hasn't been a major media event. Here's a random article about it http://www.khou.com/news/local/stories/khou090105_mh_bellaire_shooting_meeting.4059f425.html

Sometimes it feels like what happens in Houston isn't real to the national media.

I'm not trying to intrude on your local news, or your feelings about it. I don't know what it would be like to live where protests or riots take place when these things happen. I feel bad when it just passes by down here. It's a nation wide situation. Maybe the people of Oakland feel alone with these situations. and the people of Cincinnati. all of us.

wayyyyy off this ^^^^ subject, but I found this super disappointing and this is the oakland thread:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/24/DDMH11DRSK.DTL