For murdering an unarmed, subdued man. That is it. The minimum possible sentence.
Two Years
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Two Years
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.
Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.
Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?
Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.
Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.
if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.
The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.
We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.
When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?
“But what about the lurkers?”
Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.
One way or another, he’s a liar.
Giving up is unforgivable.
When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.
Technically true, but collectively nonsense
Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?
Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.
People are complicated. Love is not.
Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.
“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.
Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.
You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.
“woke” is the new caravan.
Bnut
It is far too light yes. But dude will be a COP in prison.
JRon
And in Atlanta, 36 years for fleeing a horrific accident.
beltane
Why do you hate America?
Hamilton-Lovecraft
That’s not “murder”, period. Murder requires intent. It’s negligent manslaughter. Please don’t be any more inflammatory than you need to be.
Bnut
This can only be bad for Obama.
MikeJ
“My decisions today will not be well-received by many people. I’m sorry for that.”
Max Power
just unbelievable.
change
The latest rumor is that Olbermann has been fired.
No more SPEESHUL COMMENTZ!!! from him, I’m afraid.
Mnemosyne
@Hamilton-Lovecraft:
Shooting a handcuffed man who’s face down on the ground while another cop is sitting on his back is “negligent manslaughter”?
That’s a whole fuckton of negligence there. “Whoops, I negligently shot someone to death while he was fully restrained! My bad!”
James K. Polk, Esq.
I was just in downtown Oakland… Helicopters everywhere, police out in droves. Looks like it’s going to be a long night.
Keith G
@change: Dearest change, why do people of your ilk take to lying so easily?
MobiusKlein
@Mnemosyne: I remember when the “Twinkie Defense” was mocked by conservatives. But now when a cop gets off on the “I pulled the wrong weapon out” defense, those law and order types can’t find it in their hearts to hate the lawyers anymore.
OGLiberal
Dude had it coming to him. I mean, did you see how he was dressed? What did he expect a cop to do? If you don’t want to get shot then don’t dress like that…and for god’s sake, don’t let yourself get handcuffed face-down.
lamh34
Okay,
today is my birthday, so I’m gonna be changing my “name” to reflect that.
FYI, I guess I’m the commenter formerly known as lamh32…
Ruckus
When police shoot a man who is handcuffed and laying on his stomach in the back you can call it what ever lawyers want to call it, but it is murder. The man did not need to be tazed, with his hands cuffed behind his back and on his stomach he can not get up. He was not fighting. The video showed that.
You can dance around with the legal terms but it was murder. People die from tazer attacks as well and that would have been just as unnecessary. He took out a weapon and used it on an unarmed, handcuffed, subdued man. There were enough cops around to easily control this man. In fact they already had controlled him. Pulling a weapon and using it after all that is murder. It may not be first degree murder, but it is beyond the pale that a mans life is worth less than that of a dog fighter.
The Dangerman
Judge should have realized giving the MINIMUM allowed by law was going to cause Oakland to burn. And, I’m sorry, with time served, this guys out in 7 months. That’s an obscenity…
Jim K.
There was NO reason to be drawing your “Taser”, or any other weapon.
Really.
I watched the video over and over.
Unless its just “standard procedure” to Tas during an arrest NOW.
I better not ever be in a similar situation, I’m Tased for sure, multiple times. Or short version=Given the death penalty
General Stuck
Way too many idiots given a badge and gun, and way too much leniency when those idiots, as idiots are wont to do, do something idiot and mistake a taser for a gun and kill someone, which I have to force myself to believe in fairies and pixie dust first to believe that is what happened here.
Keith G
@Mnemosyne:
So cop dude was going to taser an already restrained citizen. Sounds to me like aggravated assault or even assault under color of authority. That should be several years in the pokey.
But wait. You say instead of assaulting the citizen with his tazer, cop dude shot him in the back instead? Killed him too? Wow, sounds like major time.
But wait….
Unabogie
First of all, buying this cop’s story took a whole boatload of suspension of disbelief. But ok, Judge, fine, he didn’t mean to shoot him…with his gun. But he did. And he killed him. So why the bare minimum? Doesn’t the dead kid merit anything stiffer than this?
Ah, to be in the post-racial society.
General Stuck
Given the facts and circumstances of this case, and the video, what I think is that this cop was a walking killer, with some kind of impulse control disorder, or something along those lines. If it hadn’t happen to Mr. Grant, it would have someone else down the road. That’s what I think.
celticdragonchick
Christ.
As the article noted, Michael Vick got more time for dog fighting.
If they want to burn something, they can start with the courthouse. Whatever it had to do with justice has been thrown away as it is.
OGLiberal
I do think that this was an accident. No way a cop – even a crazy racist, stupid cop – shoots a person like that in cold blood with that many witnesses. But as noted, is there any reason to taze a guy who is handcuffed, face-down? And for the love of pete, you’re a cop. You don’t know the difference between your gun and your tazer? I might understand in a situation where a hood was pointing a gun at your face and you had to make a split-second decision (of course, in that scenario, pulling the gun is the right decision), but this kid was handcuffed, face-down. If you feel you need to taze somebody in that compromised position, at least take a second or two to make sure it’s the tazer and not the Glock.
Because you should know better – as a cop – you should get more than two freaking years. I mean, Jesus-H-Christ, the kid is freaking dead. You’re supposed to be a professional. In the heat of the moment you mistook your gun for a tazer – and shot a kid who was incapacitated? I say 15-20 for being that stupid and irresponsible. When we give you a gun and say, “Uphold the law and keep the peace”, we expect you to be somewhat responsible. This guy was sloppy as they come.
Of course, maybe the darkie just pissed him off and he felt like shooting him because he could. I don’t think that’s the case, though.
OGLiberal
I do think that this was an accident. No way a cop – even a crazy racist, stupid cop – shoots a person like that in cold blood with that many witnesses. But as noted, is there any reason to taze a guy who is handcuffed, face-down? And for the love of pete, you’re a cop. You don’t know the difference between your gun and your tazer? I might understand in a situation where a hood was pointing a gun at your face and you had to make a split-second decision (of course, in that scenario, pulling the gun is the right decision), but this kid was handcuffed, face-down. If you feel you need to taze somebody in that compromised position, at least take a second or two to make sure it’s the tazer and not the Glock.
Because you should know better – as a cop – you should get more than two freaking years. I mean, Jesus-H-Christ, the kid is freaking dead. You’re supposed to be a professional. In the heat of the moment you mistook your gun for a tazer – and shot a kid who was incapacitated? I say 15-20 for being that stupid and irresponsible. When we give you a gun and say, “Uphold the law and keep the peace”, we expect you to be somewhat responsible. This guy was sloppy as they come.
Of course, maybe the darkie just pissed him off and he felt like shooting him because he could. I don’t think that’s the case, though.
edmund dantes
@Hamilton-Lovecraft: What is the proper term for intent to injure that results in Death?
His defense is was that he intended to inflict pain and suffering on someone by using his taser (or that is the ultimate conclusion of his defense since that is what a taser is about). As a result of his intent, he killed someone. What is that?
His intent was to create a deadly situation since one of the predictable outcomes of shooting 50,000 volts through someone is their death.
This cop is not going into normal jail either. He’ll be put in solitary I’m guessing as he rides out his short sentence.
Mnemosyne
I still don’t understand why a police officer — someone who is supposed to be trained in handling deadly weapons and in how to defuse tense situations — is held to a lower standard than an ordinary citizen. If I was trying to do a citizens’ arrest with a gun I had a permit for and I negligently shot and killed a restrained guy, you bet your ass I’d be doing more than 2 years in prison.
Catsy
@The Dangerman:
Does anyone really doubt that this officer is a marked man? If he’s already “greenlighted” in prison–a highly controlled environment–how much do you think his life is worth once he’s out in the open?
It would’ve been in his best interest to pray for a harsh sentence. I wouldn’t put good odds on him living to see the end of it.
MikeJ
What is it they always say when somebody shoots up a McDonald’s or something? Too bad there wasn’t somebody there with a guy to shoot the maniac who was murdering people?
There were people there with guns. People who get paid to stop murders. Other cops. Were they even charged?
JD Rhoades
I deal with a lot of cops in my line of work. Not one can say “yes” to the question “Do you think you could ever mistake your pistol for your Taser”?
Lysana
You left out the icing on the cake. Two years with credit for time served. Mehserle walks out in 73 days.
Way too light a sentence. And the minimum conviction I would have accepted was voluntary manslaughter. Involuntary is pig-kissing horseshit.
Cat Lady
Two years however can seem like a lifetime.
/east coast liberal
Anne Laurie
Beat me to it, Cole. I was gonna call it Zantziger Updated.
Hey, almost 50 years after Hattie Carroll’s death, the “post-racial” climate in American jurisprudence has come so far that the penalty for killing someone BITPOAPOWP (Black In The Presence of A Piss-Offed White Person) has been updated from six months to a whole two years! For a cop! Who even felt he had to say he was sorry! ! !
Baby steps, people, baby steps…
someone
Frankly, I’m surprised he got any time… has a cop ever served time for murdering an unarmed citizen before?
OGLiberal
@celticdragonchick: I hate Michael Vick and wished he spent more time in jail than he did. (in fact, if I believed in hell, it’s place in which I hope he rots…he’s a horrible human being) And there’s no way the NFL should have let him back in the league. Of course, I’m not surprised it was the Eagles who signed him and Eagles fans who gave him a standing O when he returned. (full disclosure – I’m a Giants fan who thinks Philly fans, of all sports, are about the worst in the country…and that’s coming from a guy who admits that NYC fans are pretty terrible) That said, Plaxico Burress – also an idiot but he did score a winning Super Bowl TD for my team – is serving 2 years for shooting his-fucking-self. So a dude who is not expected to be careful with a gun and who has no power over others is spending as much time in jail for inflicting a non-fatal wound on his own body as a guy who is supposed to know better who killed a handcuffed kid.
Sounds perfect fucking A-OK, right?
Mako
You really can’t run a country with out law enforcement. Mistakes will happen.
@Cat Lady:
This man in now unemployable, his name is all over the internet.
Southern Beale
Well this about sums the past week up ….
MikeJ
@OGLiberal: Plaxico shot a black guy and got two years, this cop shot a black guy and got two years, what’s your problem?
Southern Beale
Oops let’s do that again.
This about sums the past week up ….
Southern Beale
Oops let’s do that again.
This about sums the past week up ….
Mnemosyne
@Catsy:
Honestly, he’s going to be in a lot more danger in prison than out of it. As far as I know, Oscar Grant wasn’t involved in a gang of any kind, so it’s pretty unlikely that any of his friends or relatives would do anything. He’ll have to deal with a lot of threats, but I doubt anyone will actually harm him outside of jail.
Hell, given the way things have gone this year, I’m expecting California Republicans to run him for office once he gets out of prison on a “tough on crime” platform.
Joy
OT but I just saw that Gabby Giffords (D) (Ariz. CD 8) is going to be making a victory announcement in about 30 min. The latest numbers have her up about 4000 votes with most of the ballots counted. Grijalva ended up winning 49% to 45% too. So at least those of us in S. Arizona held off the crazies (barely!).
GregB
Southern Beale:
I dubbed this The Charles Stewart Strategy some time ago.
Ruckus
@Mako:
This man in now unemployable, his name is all over the internet.
WTF? The penalty for murder is being unemployable? Have we come a long way as a country or what? Dumb ass.
lamh32
This is OT, but did anyone actually watch Countdown tonight?
Also it seems that Rachel is supposed to discuss the “double standards” in cable news.
celticdragonchick
@OGLiberal:
Sounds like justic to me.
/dripping venomous sarcasm/
Anyone want to bet the cop fluffers at Patterico will think this is the very model of balance and restraint?
BH
I agree that the idea of using a taser on a completely subdued subject is a huge problem here and in other cases. There is absolutely no excuse.
Jim K.
@lamh32: NO. Why would you. Actually.
Mea Culpa?
lamh32
@Jim K.:
I just wanted to know if anyone actually watched it. I haven’t watched it since at least 3-4 months ago (first cause I didn’t have cable, 2nd cause I was really just sick of him). I was wondering what anyone who watched it had to say.
lamh32
BTW,
Today was my birthday, and I would like to change my commenter name to reflect that, but when I do, my comments never show up.
What do I do?
PeakVT
When does the guy get hired by Fox as a law enforcement and justice expert?
liberal
How many cops in Britain got sent to the slammer for the “five bullets in the noggin” incident?
PeakVT
@lamh32: Get a FPer to reset the nick/email combo.
LT
I don’t know how anyone can watch the video and not think that the guy was shocked, and in terror, that he just shot him. He puts his hands on his head, looks up, looks down – I have to say that I believe the story that he thought he was stunning him.
That said, even accidental murder, and especially with all the questions in this case – the fact that he’s a cop, that the guy was on his stomach – should get more than two years.
Fuzz
People already mentioned Plaxico and Vick but it really is amazing, the guy shot himself and he gets less time than this guy did for literally executing someone. Plus wait until Bonds’ trial starts, there’s a chance he may get roughly the same amount of time as the cop if you include time served.
4tehlulz
@PeakVT: Xe will grab him first.
The Dangerman
@Mnemosyne:
No chance; he’s going to solitary. When he takes his walks in the yard, everyone else is on lockdown. This guy won’t see anyone except guards.
Also, since Vick came up in the thread, there was at least something positive that came out of that sordid mess. Given the pet rescue stories in these here parts, that book might find some fans….
eemom
@lamh32:
dunno, but Happy Birthday!
sherifffruitfly
I’m surprised he got any time at all, actually. I mean… look at him – he’s white! Doesn’t that mean ANYTHING any more?
Gawd bless our post-racial America!
for the dim:
/sarcasm
lol chikinburd
And you who philosophize disgrace
And criticize all fears
Bury the rag deep in your face
For now’s the time for your tears
Jim K.
@LT: Thats the whole disgusting point, excessive force.
Maybe O.K. in a war, in hand to hand, do or die combat.
Not to be prescribed by our”protect and serve”, CIVILIAN/?, Police force.
Mako
@Ruckus:
Dude. It’s a platitudes thread meant to drive pageviews.
celticdragonchick
@PeakVT:
In 80 days. He will be one of the regular guest “experts” on Grete Van Sustern’s show.
Lancelot Link
This man in now unemployable, his name is all over the internet.
I bet he’ll be working for XE Security Services within a year.
Lancelot Link
Damn you, 4tehlulz!
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
I think the best explanation is that Mehserle was pulling his gun to threaten the suspect, and that all the quick-draw target practice muscle memory got in the way and made him fire. But I don’t see how that excuses anything; especially when he states the lame excuse of going for the obviously different taser on his opposite side.
Jim K.
@Mako: WOW. Just, WOW.
You know it ALL!
Any stock rec’s?
joe from Lowell
“You shot me. I have a daughter.”
This hurts.
Shade Tail
I am fascinated that people who were not at the trial are busy discussing how the jury and judge were *completely wrong*. It must be nice to be omniscient and therefore have the ability to determine, without trial mind you, what crime was committed and what sentence is appropriate.
Heck, let’s just scrap our entire criminal justice system in favor of mob rule.
Mako
@Lancelot Link:
Of course. There’s a market for these guys.
Wish I could afford a small army. And a moat. A moat would be cool. But it would probably breed mosquitoes.
Davis X. Machina
Olberman’s getting himself benched is the only story that matters tonight, people.
Try and keep up.
I honestly think we’re as distractable and shallow as the other team…
joe from Lowell
@Shade Tail: No one is suggesting we overturn the verdict. We respect the process because it’s the process, not because the outcome is always beyond reproach.
People having opinions is not mob rule.
JWL
By my lights, the most glaring discrepancy in Mehserle’s testimony was his statement that he believed his life and the lives of his fellow officers were in imminent danger. That’s why he reached for his taser, he said.
That doesn’t square with what I know about police practices. If a cop feels their life is in jeopardy, they pull a gun.
Mako
@Jim K.:
Any stock rec’s?
Jim, any sensible small investor has been in cash for several years.
Jim K.
@Mako: I KNOW. Just eliciting a way to get back in, and cover.
For a “small” investor.
Sensible, yeah.
Sly
Two years? Unless they put him in permanent lockdown, I’ll be surprised if he’s still alive two weeks after first setting foot in a cell.
Mako
@Jim K.:
Okay.
Miss Mouse
I haven’t had any contact with the police in my life except for the DARE program at school, and those guys were great- the heroes I imagined cops to be as a child.
Tonight, I just called my town’s non-emergency line after almost being run down by a car as I was taking my dog out for a walk. The car was going too fast for me to see the license plate or really any information about it. I called to see if maybe they had people on traffic duty that could keep an eye out in the area. As I explained what happened to the officer who answered the phone- calmly, but firmly (I did almost get hit, after all) the cop interrupted me – “MA’AM, MA’AM- YOU NEED TO CALM DOWN.” …”I am calm…” “MA’AM WAS THE DRIVER BLACK OR WHITE?” “He was going too fast to see but the car was-” “THAT”S NOT WHAT I ASKED- WAS HE BLACK OR WHITE?” In the end he told me to call the traffic division on Monday…
It was my first first-hand experience with police that made me feel like I was just talking to an asshole on a power trip….
And yes, I realize that that experience doesn’t even come close to what happened in the story John referenced, but it was my first time to experience any sort of that attitude myself.
UnkyT
From the article
Hate to make a funny about such a tragic story, but notice the jersey Mr. Burris is wearing in the news story from 2 years ago…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKy-WSZMklc
Shade Tail
@joe from Lowell #71:
I didn’t write that anyone suggested over-turning the verdict, I wrote that they’re suggesting the outcome was wrong in spite of their not having been involved at the trial. And that is plainly true. So many people are treating this like it was a Jim Crow “white men get off while niggers hang” trial, even though the reality is not anywhere near that straight-forward.
The rest of my post was, to be sure, sarcastic exaggeration, but my point remains. The implicit arrogance of people dictating the results of this trial when they were neither judge nor juror annoys me.
MobiusKlein
@MobiusKlein: Remembered more about Dan White , the previous ex-cop who got a reduced sentence, and was out after 5 years for killing Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Milk.
So yeah, we have seen this before out here in the Bay Area, kill a minority, smaller sentence. (I guess gays and blacks should be more empathetic with each other.)
PeakVT
@Miss Mouse: “MA’AM WAS THE DRIVER BLACK OR WHITE?”
This was the first question he asked?
chopper
@celticdragonchick:
jesus, fuck this country.
Miss Mouse
@PeakVT: It wasn’t the ‘first’ thing exactly because I had already told him the color of the car and the fact that I couldn’t make out a license plate, but yeah, I couldn’t believe that he even asked the question. It’s dark out and the driver’s going too fast to make out a license plate as he speeds away, but I’m supposed to have seen the color of his skin with the car lights shining in my eyes as I jump out of the way and try to pull my 70-pound dog with me?
And I’m in MA- that bastion of liberal blue.
Kryptik
I still don’t understand how this could happen, even by accident. The main question I have here is….do Tazers have safeties? Because the striking thing I have to think here, even accepting the possibility that it was an accidental shooting, is that he still would have had to take off the safety to shoot the damn gun, unless it was somehow a non-standard issue that didn’t have some kind of safety, or the idea that the dumbfuck leaves his safety off. Which would then lead me to believe that even accepting that it was an accident, that’s still a couple more years for manslaughter and gross negligence.
So, anyone who knows these things better than I do, do Tazer guns actually have safeties? At least in a comparable way to police-issue handguns?
Mako
@PeakVT:
You got black people up there? Always figured that for a really white state. NTTAWWT.
Davis X. Machina
@Miss Mouse: There’s a Harvard professor wants to talk with you. Name of Gates.
Mnemosyne
@Shade Tail:
I see you slept through the Rodney King trial.
These were pretty much the most egregious circumstances you can imagine: a unarmed, fully restrained prisoner who was laying face-down was killed by a cop who shot him in the back.
If that’s not worth more than 2 years in jail, then I don’t know why we even bother to put cops on trial when they beat or kill people. Just have it be a condition of their employment that they can do absolutely anything they want while they’re in uniform and save the state a lot of money on prosecutions that aren’t going to go anywhere because, hey, the cop must have had a good reason to kill an unarmed man in handcuffs who was already restrained by other cops.
mclaren
It’s really delightful to imagine this guy Shade Tail at the Nuremburg Trails in 1945:
Yep. Can’t make any judgments “unless you were there.” Pol Pot? Gotta reserve judgment, dude, you weren’t there. Andersonville prison camp? Nope, can’t say it wrong, you weren’t there. Crucifixion of slaves during Spartacus’ slave rebellion against Rome? You weren’t there! How dare you make a judgment!
Mnemosyne
@Shade Tail:
So is there any circumstance where you think a cop should be prosecuted for his actions while in uniform? Obviously, you think he had a perfectly good reason to shoot an unarmed man in the back while he was lying on the ground in handcuffs being held down by other cops, so is there anything at all a cop could do that would give you pause?
TooManyJens
@Mnemosyne:
This is it in a nutshell. We’re supposed to give them more power and less accountability. Fuck that, that’s authoritarianism.
thefncrow
@Kryptik: Tazers don’t have safeties. They do, however, have a power switch. Before you can use a tazer, you have to turn it on, and the tazer’s power switch is not at all operated the way the safety on a pistol is.
Which is why the “tazer confusion” defense is just more bullshit. You have to believe that he reached on the wrong side of his body (tazer is located on the other side of the body from the weapon), pulled his gun while never noticing that it mysteriously weighs 5 times more than the tazer, never noticing that his bright yellow tazer is mysteriously gunmetal colored, and then attempted to fire his tazer in a manner that wouldn’t cause the tazer to operate but would cause his gun to fire.
If I were Johannes Mehserle, I would want the name of the people on that jury, because once he’s out of prison in 7 months, I would like to go to each of them and tell them about this wonderful opportunity for them to own the Golden Gate Bridge.
Mike in NC
Well, ya know, if ya murder unarmed, subdued Muslims it makes you a hero in America. Ask Ilario Pantano, the maggot who fired 30 rounds into the backs of two unarmed Iraqi civilians, then rolled them over, reloaded, and fired 30 more rounds into their bodies. To make an example of them.
He ran for Congress last week after getting shitcanned by the USMC and became a teabagger celebrity. So sad the fucker lost. Can’t you just picture him in a tearful embrace with Orange Boehner on the steps of the US Capitol?
alwhite
@Shade Tail:
I thought we pretty much had that through cable scream feasts already.
That said, this sentence sounds pretty weak to me.
wilfred
We destroyed an unarmed, subdued country, for fuck’s sake and no one was punished in the slightest: as above below.
Time to look forward, I say.
celticdragonchick
@wilfred:
Nooners says to keep walking.
JWL
@Miss Mouse: I have long believed that this country would be a much healthier place if every one got hassled at least once by a King Shit Cop before their 21st birthday.
Mako
@JWL:
Heh
PeakVT
@Mako: We’re not talking about Vermont here. Pay attention.
mclaren
Oh, wait — excuse me. Made a few minor errors in that quote.
Here’s the correct quotation:
Source: “The new Jack Bauer Republicans.”
Larkspur
What do you* think a more appropriate sentence should have been? (A) In the context of the verdict as rendered – negligent manslaughter; or (B) as the result of being convicted of what you believe to be the appropriate charges?
*”You” meaning anyone who feels like responding.
Max Power
@Davis X. Machina: @
He didn’t “get himself benched”. He got benched.
Unless you buy into the “oh-no-he-broke-some-rule-which-applies-only-to-him” psych-out that seems to be so effective on the milquetoast crowd.
mclaren
@Larkspur:
Second degree murder. Since the person who committed that felony was a police officer charged with upholding the law, he must be held to a higher standard than ordinary citizens. Therefore the sentence should be the max. No parole.
That’s what the officer should have been charged with. Apparently the prosecutor chose to charge him with the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter. In that case, the feds should step in and prosecute the officer for violating the civil rights of the decedent, try the officer in a federal court, demand and get the maximum sentence for a civil rights violation. In other words, a re-run of the Rodney King travesty.
If the state prosecutors refuse to file adequate charges, the U.S. attorney must step in. We live in a nation of laws. No one is above them — especially the people charged with enforcing those laws.
Charges for alleged crimes committed by law enforcement officers and sentences for said crimes should be more severe than for ordinary civilians. Law enforcement officers are given extraordinary latitude in using deadly force against unarmed civilians, and with that latitude comes extraordinary responsibility.
Larkspur
@mclaren: Thanks. That makes a lot of sense. What a nightmare this whole thing is.
Gian
criminal law does try and punsish intent
and it has the burden of beyond a reasonable doubt
after watching the video
and seeing the ex-cops react in an easily arguable “oh shit” way
a jury found that there was a reasonable doubt that he had the requisite intent to murder.
they still found him guilty of a lesser homicide charge
and found a gun use
and the judge struck the gun use, so we really need to push for better mandatory sentences and harsher judges?
we have a system designed to walk guilty people so we don’t convict the innocent, but when that system, in your view underpunishes someone…
I mean, google Ivory webb in chino, where a cop shoots a guy – and the jury walks him (victim was an MP home from Iraq, BTW) juries like cops.
and the cites on wikipedia to news stories do indicate that the victim in the homicide was not actually handcuffed – he was prone, had cops over him, trying to handcuff him, but was not actually handcuffed.
Is it actual justice? not in any real sense. but in the proof beyond a reasonable doubt world we deal with criminals in,the jury didn’t see that burden as met…
and prosecutors don’t get to appeal jury verdicts.
Michael
Hey, can we find somebody to fund a “Guns for Badges” program? Where guys can bring in any badges they collect, and get guns in return? I’m willing to cough up some seed money.
Shite Fail
I am fascinated that people who were not at Jesus’ trial are busy discussing how Pontius Pilate was completely wrong. It must be nice to be omniscient and therefore have the ability to determine, without trial mind you, what crime was committed and what sentence is appropriate.
Mnemosyne
@Gian:
This is really the root of the problem. As several of us have said, for some reason we’ve gotten to the point where cops are actually held to a lower standard than the general public. An armed private citizen who shot a burglar in the back would have gotten much more than 2 years minus time served.
I don’t know if people are falling into the “I wasn’t there, so I can’t possibly know what it was like” trap, or if they’re scared of cops, or they’ve seen too many TV shows, or what, but it’s true that no jury will convict a cop no matter how egregious his/her behavior was. Hell, we had cops in LA who were dealing drugs and we barely got a couple of convictions.
Larkspur
@Mnemosyne:
I get what you’re saying, and I get that those we entrust with weapons and the discretion to use them must be held to a higher standard. But this jury did convict Mehserle. He did not get off. And don’t forget, they had to render their verdict based upon the case presented to them, and sometimes that looks different from what the rest of us get to see.
mclaren
Moreover, civilians are now held to impossible standards. Example: man has his house broken into by burglars and then a week later hears his door being kicked in again. Guy calls 911 to report a home invasion to the police, gets his gun out of his dresser drawer and warns the intruders he’s armed, then shoots one of ’em when they continue to advance on him.
Turns out the intruders were cops who didn’t announce themselves as police officers. Guy who shot the cop gets charged with first degree murder.
Source: “Fatal shooting of officer leaves neighborhood numb.”
What was this guy supposed to do? Let home invaders break into his home again? For the second time in 2 weeks?
“Oh, well, this stupid bastard shouldn’t have gotten out his gun when he heard his front door being broken door by people who refused to identify themselves,” you say.
Oh? Really?
Are you aware that home invaders are now posing as federal drug cops?
Catch-22. Let the unidentified intruders break down your door and maybe they’re home invaders posing as cops who will tie you up, rape you, then execute you with a shotgun blast to the head. On the other hand, if you get out a gun an defend yourself, maybe those masked men kicking in your door who refuse to identify themselves really are cops…in which case, you go to assrape prison for life.
wengler
It’s hard being a white man in America…
Just imagine what he would’ve gotten(or not gotten) if there was no video. The cops would’ve lied their asses off.
Mnemosyne
@Larkspur:
My point is that juries see cops differently, and judge them by a different, lower standard.
But the judge didn’t have to sentence the guy to the absolute minimum. That was the judge’s choice. And now he gets to watch Oakland burn and contemplate the fact that he caused it.
Larkspur
@Mnemosyne: I agree about the sentence. I wonder if the jurors do, too. I mean, they tried to underline it via the firearms conviction, which the judge threw out.
Mnemosyne
@Larkspur:
That’s what’s driving me nuts with the “well, we don’t know how the trial went down” crowd. The jury made their decision, and the judge overruled them and went with what he wanted so he could give the guy the shortest possible sentence. Did the jury and judge see two completely different trials?
thefncrow
@Larkspur: Unfortunately, the gun enhancement really was nonsense. I would have like to have seen it stick because Mehserle deserves as much jail time as can be thrown his way, but there’s no way it could, really.
The gun enhancement is applied when a jury finds that the defendant intentionally uses a firearm in the commission of a crime.
That same jury also found that Mehserle unintentionally drew his firearm and killed Oscar Grant.
If the gun enhancement were to stick, it would have to mean that Mehserle is guilty of, at the very least, voluntary manslaughter. If the jury really believes that Mehserle is guilty of involuntary manslaughter, not voluntary manslaughter, then it’s impossible to make the gun enhancement stick because they just ruled that he didn’t intentionally use his gun.
What’s more likely is that the jury wasn’t actually considering the actual meaning of involuntary manslaughter vs voluntary manslaughter, but just considered it as “manslaughter vs lesser manslaughter”, at which point they figured they could find him guilty of the lesser count and throw in the gun enhancement to find a middle ground verdict. The problem is that the verdict they rendered was complete nonsense when you put both parts together, and seeing as how they found him not guilty of voluntary manslaughter, the gun enhancement has to go.
Larkspur
Also, I am well aware of the disproportionate power law enforcement officers have. One example: I know someone whose closest friend’s daughter was murdered by a guy who posed as a police officer. She was on her way to her parents’ house late one night, and he had a police flasher-light thing, and she pulled over, because that’s what you do when there’s a flashing cop car behind you. But he was an imposter, and he abducted and killed her.
An acquaintance of his turned him in, he confessed and led authorities to her body, and pleaded guilty. Got life in prison with no possibility of parole.
So what do you tell your kids to do when they see the flashing lights in their rear-view mirror? I’d want to tell them to put on their emergency lights and drive until they get to a place where there’s other people around. But doing that – especially if you are DWB (driving while black) – could get you
tasered shotin big trouble for resisting arrest.Ah, I can’t hardly stand it. I’m going to bed.
Mnemosyne
@thefncrow:
I can’t help wondering what law school our California DAs went to that makes them incapable of winning big trials. Does Alameda County suck as bad as LA County does when it comes to that?
Here in LA County, I got stuck on a jury for five days because a junior assistant DA thought he could convince a jury not made up of cloistered monks that women always know every single item that’s in their purse at any given time so therefore there was no possible way that the defendant could have forgotten she had a knife in her purse for self-defense when she brought it to the courthouse.
When he got to that point in the trial, I was hard-pressed not to start laughing, except that this idiot could very well have ruined a perfectly respectable graduate student’s career if he had managed to find that jury of cloistered monks who had never seen a woman before.
Zuzu's Petals
What Shade Tail said.
El Cid
Police anticipate 100 – 150 arrests (primarily for unlawful protest) in Oakland tonight.
Hopefully that won’t involve tying anyone up and standing on them and then shooting them in the back by accident.
Zuzu's Petals
@Larkspur:
In this case, it sounds like they had more evidence than what the rest of us got to see.
annp23
Frankly, I don’t want to argue about the verdict or the sentencing any more. It’s done, and it sucks, and it was all pretty predictable.
And while it might be a completely pointless gesture, I’m going to take a ride to Fruitvale station tomorrow and drop off a bundle of flowers for Oscar Grant. It won’t fix a damn thing, but at least it will send a little bit of love and respect for a kid who didn’t deserve to die out into the universe.
Cermet
@mclaren: But that makes money for repub-a-thugs who own those prison companies -you get free room and board/sex for life: no down side!