It's hard to imagine it being allowed anywhere where the rule of law even semi applies.Originally Posted by blues
It could make for interesting jury speeches in the future, though. "Members of the Jury: I can tell you for a fact that the defendant is not guilty because that very night he and I were sitting in his crib planning our defense to the prior murder charge."
It could get real fun.
Jeep, I probably should have checked myself regarding NYC. Even back in the early 80's I can recall some federal judges who would allow a Rule 29 (judgment of acquittal) or cave in to an allegation of "outrageous government conduct" when it was clear from the get-go the predisposition (and overt acts) of the defendant in regard to entering into a criminal conspiracy or committing the crime for which he or she was indicted. But some judges preferred not to let the facts stand in the way of their personal politics.
In South FL...not so much. At least during the 17 years I spent in that sunny clime.
But still, Darryl's example above is a head shaker for sure.
The rule of law doesn't seem to mean what it used to. I find that unfortunate in the extreme (in most all cases).
Last edited by blues; 08-30-2017 at 04:23 PM.
There's nothing civil about this war.
Just FYI, my cases cited were in County Superior Court. Judges are elected.
Much of this is super regional. I have had weird stuff in Texas where I replaced Chris Kyle as an expert here in court. I called ahead about my firearm in court and was told I could not have it from the judge. Same as recent changes we had in California. When I got to court, I was scolded by the deputies to never leave a gun in my car at their court house nor to ever stand in line with the people coming to court and that they take LEOSA seriously. Got to court....judge had the bailiff have me place my gun in a lock box in the courtroom (which o was told might happen). After we won the case judge comes out to read me the riot act about how Federal law don't apply in his court. Told him I followed the instructions from the Sheriff's deputies and apologized with a lot of "sirs". Guy was an arrogant super cowboy jack ass. Talked to the deputies before I left and they said they were prepared for the fall out as that judge just doesn't think The federal LEOSA should apply to his little Texas kingdom. This is actually really typical of many judges. They are as diverse and as entitled as every politician I have ever been around. Like any "authority figure", there can be lots of issues.
Also...like my case with the fishing expedition judge...nobody gives a crap on one of a hundred preliminary trials with no jury on just another street level dope case. For the DA, one less case and not his problem, public defender thinks they are saving humanity, judge feels like they are keeping a balance and reigning in cops/crooks depending on their personal leanings politically, and for the cops....overtime is overtime, who cares if the judge lets some crack dealer off. Saves some liberal President from commuting their sentence later.
Just a Hairy Special Snowflake supply clerk with no field experience, shooting an Asymetric carbine as a Try Hard. Snarky and easily butt hurt. Favorite animal is the Cape Buffalo....likely indicative of a personality disorder.
"If I had a grandpa, he would look like Delbert Belton".
Ah, judges and their fiefdoms. I remember it well. One of the AUSAs I worked with closely for years was the daughter of the federal judge for whom the courthouse was named (while he was alive, no less). Few had the temerity to approach him and presume to tell him anything that his omniscience didn't already incorporate.
One particular day in one of his moods he decided to punish the government by stating that we would pick a jury and go to trial that day. I knew that the prosecutor wasn't prepared and that if the judge would just allow a pre-trial motion conference that the defendant would agree to take a plea.
I approached him with my idea in chambers for which he was ready to bite my head off...but conceivably he had a golf date and decided to grant my request with the understanding that if I was wrong it was my ass. I took the gamble.
I took the stand and once the testimony and evidence was entered before the court the defense requested the opportunity to work out a plea with the prosecutor. Everyone went home happy. (That day.)
Thanks, DB, for disabusing me of any romantic musings and notions about the "good old days".
Last edited by blues; 08-30-2017 at 07:18 PM.
There's nothing civil about this war.
1. I am not your lawyer, I am not giving legal advice.
2. I posted this sometime in 2012 on another forum so I did not have to really do any more work to post it here as I am very late to the party.
3. ssb, Mitchell and others have plowed much of this ground
Fellow [PFers], as a practicing atty for the better part of 25 years and a prosecutor for 20 of those, I would offer the following:
Not being able to find reported cases is not the same thing as the modified gun issue being a detriment to the shooter/help to the shooter issue having not reared its head in both the criminal and civil contexts.
The vast majority of both civil and criminal cases are settled or plead out. In many civil cases, there are non disclosure agreements.
Most criminal cases are resolved via plea. Most of those receive very little press and the press they receive is often mistaken regarding key issues within the matter.
Even when a case goes to trial, many of them are not appealed such that their results are not "reported". Therefore, no easily searchable legal database (Lexis or Westlaw) has the results. Even when a case is appealed, many of them are not "reported" to those same legal publishers again making finding out what happened in those cases very difficult.
In short, it is only a small fraction of civil and criminal cases that actually go all the way thru appeal and have their results " reported or published". Even in those cases, they were often selected and indexed based on other specific points of law ( i.e. search and seizure, instructions to a jury on lesser included offense i.e. manslaughter in a homicide case, errors in jury selection/composition etc, general sufficiency of the evidence etc. ) such that there may be little or no mention of how a "gun modification" fit into the larger case.
All of this to say, it behooves us to be very familiar with the lay of land where we happen to be. In some parts of the country, if you shoot a known bad guy, "who deserved to get shot", you are going to get a ride home from the police from the scene. In other places, you are going to spent the night in jail but that will likely be it. In other places, all dead body cases resulting from gunfire mandate that the "shooter" gets arrested and that the "shooter" gets charged giving a jury the opportunity to sort it out. (Further, in some jurisdictions, a defendant cannot waive a jury without the opposing side's approval as well i.e. Federal Criminal Court).
I always get a little concerned when I hear people relying on Mas re some finer points of the law.
While Mas is particularly know for the legal aspects of his training, he is not a practicing atty at all and has a relatively narrow law enforcement experience set relative to many police officers/agents. From my very limited training with him (4 hr block, Tactical Conf, Tulsa 09 or 10), much of his general advice is a good starting point but may be completely off base in your neck of the woods. At the expense of being accused of trying to gin up business for lawyers, it is imperative you talk to a experienced person from your area re your rights/responsibilities/liabilities should you become involved in a shooting.
Now for some trite tidbits
I fully understand that we have to solve the "carried by 6" problem before tackling the " tried by 12" problem.
The "odds" of the punisher in your case hurting your case may be very small, but what are the "stakes" if the punisher logo does hurt your case?
YMMV greatly,
David
www.vcdgrips.com
Why would anyone wait for the Flash? He is super fast. People should be engraving "Smile while the Flash waits for You" on their guns if they really want to have DC comics stuff on their guns.
This is a thread where I built a boat I designed and which I very occasionally update with accounts of using it, which is really fun as long as I'm not driving over logs and blowing up the outboard.
https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....ilding-a-skiff
To add a little to what vcdgrips said so well, there are key battles to win or lose in every criminal case, some of which are largely or completely outside the jurisdiction of any court: if the police never submit charges or the prosecution never seeks an indictment, no judicial authority can force them to do so. Likewise, if the grand jury "no bills" a case and refuses to indict, then the prosecution has no redress (although they can resubmit charges). If there is an indictment, the prosecution has no obligation to offer a plea, and if they choose to offer a plea it is completely up to them how harsh or lenient that plea will be. At trial, while a jury has certain legal obligations, there are virtually no checks and balances on whether they actually follow those obligations, and virtually no consequences if they don't.
The significance of all of this is that it behooves you to have as many of these key players on your side, or at least not against you, as you can. Winning by having the police drive you home with an property receipt for your gun is far, far preferable than having to stand there, shitting your own heart, listening to "we the jury, duly empaneled..."
To this effect:
I have seen the grand jury indict (on their own--recommended charges were not presented) a Border Patrol Agent as an accomplice to a negligent non-death shooting case--still-in-training Agents A, B, and C were arguing about C wanting to hook up with a girl on the side while he had a pregnant girlfriend. A and B thought this was inappropriate, and as they were arguing, A jokingly grabbed a duty weapon from one of the duty belts dumped on a counter after shift, dropped the mag (but did not clear the chamber), handed it to B, and joked "Will you shoot this asshole?" What seems like a harmless joke can get you indicted.
A close friend of mine recently had a call out where there was a fatal shooting that, while debatable as to whether it was justified under the self-defense statute, was a very clear case of justification under the state's "crime prevention" statute, which permits one to use lethal force to prevent certain felony offenses, even if there is no immediate risk of death or serious physical injury. However, she received quite a bit of push back from the panel of prosecutors reviewing the case, particularly from one individual who kept arguing that the shooter was "a bad guy" and therefore needed to be charged. I have also known prosecutors who (rightly, in my view) took simple marijuana possession cases to a full jury trial because of a defendant's criminal history, with the idea that they could at least lock up a bad guy and buy the public a year or so before he got out and resumed victimizing people. Having a cop or prosecutor who thinks you are an asshole/danger to society/bad person can lead to you getting charged.
I have had to argue with a supervisor to dismiss a case against a teenager who shot person A in legitimate self defense (no charges for shooting A), but non-fatally struck bystander B with a subsequent shot because his girlfriend dragged his arm down as he was shooting. I'm pretty sure this particular supervisor had never held a gun outside of a jury trial, and I had to explain splits to explain why he might not have been able to immediately stop shooting as a different person literally forced his gun from a legitimate target to a bystander. Having a prosecutor who isn't familiar with guns/shooting may mean that your case goes forward when it shouldn't.
I have seen a woman sentenced to an aggravated sentence in a DUI homicide, in large part due to a jail tape that became infamous where her friend made an incredibly callous, insensitive, and despicable remark about a legitimately good person victim, and she just laughed in response. Pissing off the judge, even unintentionally, can have consequences that are measured in years of your life.
I got a conviction in an aggravated assault case where a transient was harassing a teenage girl at a bus stop, and when her father asked him to stop, the transient pulled a knife. The transient claimed that the knife was closed and buried in his backpack. The arresting officer testified that the knife was open in the transient's pocketed hand when the officer made contact. One juror only voted to convict because the victim told 911 that the transient had "pulled" a knife, and said she would have voted to acquit if the victim had said the transient "had" a knife. I asked her if she attached any weight to the fact that the police officer's testimony completely contradicted the transient's story, and she said she did not. However, she clearly believed the officer because she said she would have voted to convict the defendant of aggravated assault on the officer for pulling the knife out when contacted. She was an attorney and should have understood the concept of impeachment evidence. Jurors will latch onto the tiniest details and make the most absurd decisions.
None of the situations that I mentioned here are appealable issues that will ever show up in case law, but how the different players in the criminal justice system view you can play a major role in whether you are treated as a victim or a suspect, whether you get arrested or released, whether or not the investigating officer and prosecutor pour over the statute books for an hour trying to find every possible thing to charge you with, what kind of plea you get or whether you get no plea at all, whether a jury has any interest in hearing your side of the story or not, and what a judge decides to do with you if you do end up convicted.
Whether or not a Punisher skull or similar thing on your gun is going to play a big role, a small role, or no role in the thought process of all of these players depends a lot on them, but unless your jury is picked directly from a Marvel convention, the best case scenario is that it has zero impact.
As a p.s. knowing how much legal and expert witness fees are, I have to say it is AWESOME the number of professionals who have voluntarily contributed their hard-earned expertise, experience and advice (or not advice, in the case of the not-your-lawyers), and another example of why P-F is such a great resource and community.
2012?
I now feel old. That's like...wow.
Long ago...
Awesome post!
This thread should be a sticky, so far as I'm concerned. Too much awesome information.
For the sake of discussion, let's flip the question: is there anything you could do to a firearm that would be beneficial under the scrutiny of a self-defense shooting?
Heavier trigger? FMJ rounds? 'My Little Pony' stickers?
"Sapiens dicit: 'Ignoscere divinum est, sed noli pretium plenum pro pizza sero allata solvere.'" - Michelangelo
A prosecutor or plaintiff's attorney will use anything s/he can to tell a better story. WTF were you carrying a gun in the first place? You were looking for trouble, weren't you?
That being said, a WML is fairly innocuous and has an excellent justification.
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