VT woman on video cutting cop’s throat with knife acquitted

[HCM]

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nati...icle-1.1815198

Vermont woman shown on video cutting cop’s throat with knife acquitted of attempted murder

A Vermont woman who sneaked up behind a police officer while under arrest and allegedly tried to slit his throat with a knife was found not guilty of attempted murder.
Jennifer Berube, 40, was acquitted of attempted second-degree murder and a lesser charge of attempted aggravated assault on Friday by a jury in Rutland, a city in western Vermont about 60 miles south of Burlington.
Berube and her former husband, John MacLean III, were arrested in December 2012 for trying to use a stolen credit card, the Times Argus newspaper reported.
While in police custody, Berube, who was homeless and hooked on heroin at the time, believed she heard MacLean trying to hang himself with his shoelaces in his holding cell, the Times Argus newspaper reported.

In a bid to help, she slipped a Leatherman tool out of a hidden jacket pocket and attacked Officer Damon Nguyen with it.
Surveillance footage from inside the station house showed Berube grabbing Nguyen by the neck with a 2-inch blade in her hand before getting overpowered by several other officers.

Nguyen suffered a cut near his jugular vein and was treated at a hospital.
He has since recovered and was back on the job.
It took the 12-man jury less than two hours to acquit Berube.
During the trial, her defense attorneys argued she was merely trying to scare the officer, not kill him.
"She's an RN. She knows how to use a knife. If she wanted to kill she would have plunged the knife right in," attorney Daniel Sedon told the Times Argus after the verdict.

[DocGKR]

WTF??? Was the jury insane?

[HCM]

WTF??? Was the jury insane?

I can only guess 12 man jury and attractive female defendant = acquittal.

[HCountyGuy]

Fucking bullshit.

[GardoneVT]

“she slipped a Leatherman tool out of a hidden jacket pocket and attacked Officer Damon Nguyen with it....”

-so this means she was placed into custody with a Leatherman tool? To think,James Bond only had his watch!

[WobblyPossum]

This was from a few years ago. The officer involved is a friend of mine. My understanding of the issues with the trial is that the jury waffled on whether or not the state proved intent to kill. Aggravated assault was an option but it blows my mind the jury didn’t convict in that.

The assailant has since changed her name and is regularly cited for retail theft in the community along with her boyfriend.


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[GardoneVT]

This was from a few years ago. The officer involved is a friend of mine. My understanding of the issues with the trial is that the jury waffled on whether or not the state proved intent to kill. Aggravated assault was an option but it blows my mind the jury didn’t convict in that.

The assailant has since changed her name and is regularly cited for retail theft in the community along with her boyfriend.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks for the context. I’m no doctor,but I’ve stayed at enough Holiday Inns to know a knife attack to the neck shows dedicated intent to kill.

[blues]

That's one giant WTF? Seriously. I guess "attempted" and "intent" no longer have any meaning. Unfuckingbelievable.

[WobblyPossum]

This is the VT statute for Aggravated Assault: https://legislature.vermont.gov/stat...n/13/019/01024

Subsection (2) reads: “attempts to cause or purposely or knowingly causes bodily injury to another with a deadly weapon;”

That’s not “serious bodily injury.” It’s just plain “bodily injury” which is defined as such in a previous section: “Bodily injury" means physical pain, illness, or any impairment of physical condition.

“Deadly weapon” is defined as such in the statute covering the carrying of weapons in prohibited places like court houses: “Dangerous or deadly weapon" means any firearm, or other weapon, device, instrument, material or substance, whether animate or inanimate, which in the manner it is used or is intended to be used is known to be capable of producing death or serious bodily injury.

Based on the assailant’s use of the leatherman to cut Damon’s throat, it was a deadly weapon. The cut, if it caused pain, was bodily injury. Thus, the assault caused bodily injury to Damon with a deadly weapon which is the exact wording of the statute for Agg Assault. Beats the crap out of me why they charged the assault as “attempted” and not completed and how the jury could acquit on it. I can, somewhere in the part of my mind that handles rationalizations of bad outcomes and decisions, understand how the jury acquitted on attempted murder. I can’t rationalize how they acquitted on the agg assault.


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[Shoresy]

This was from a few years ago. The officer involved is a friend of mine. My understanding of the issues with the trial is that the jury waffled on whether or not the state proved intent to kill. Aggravated assault was an option but it blows my mind the jury didn’t convict in that.

The assailant has since changed her name and is regularly cited for retail theft in the community along with her boyfriend.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm not privy to the contents of the trial or deliberations, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how they could manage that given the information that *is* publicly available.

This is a pretty solid WTF moment...