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4-Year-Old Fatally Shot By Woman Who Was Teaching Her 'Firearm Safety,' Authorities Say
(www.huffpost.com)
this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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For people who, like me, saw the gap between "teaching firearm safety" and first degree murder, the method outlined in the article for teaching firearm safety seemed to involve putting the barrel of the gun to the child's chest and pulling the trigger. The witness, the other child living in the home, says that the killer did pull the magazine before the 'safety lesson' though. Technically this might make premeditation difficult to prove and could hinder a first degree murder conviction but I also think that a jury will figure out some way to make this monster go away forever regardless of what the letter of the law says.
I mean, IANAL but I think it's pretty easy to argue that anyone with the bare minimum knowledge of firearms and intent to teach safety would know that:
You presume the gun is always loaded.
You check the chamber, even after pulling the mag. And then still treat the gun as loaded.
You don't start the lesson by putting the barrel of the gun to anyone's chest and pulling the trigger. Because you don't do that when treating a gun as if its loaded.
With those three points, which again, I would argue constitutes the bare minimum to anyone attempting to teach firearm safety, a skilled prosecutor could argue there was some sort of intent. She would have known those things, yet didn't do those things, and so behaved in a way that indicates other intent. Easier to argue manslaughter, of course, but it's just so egregious I can see why they'd push for 1st degree.
The standard for first degree murder is higher than the mens rea required for most crime. It's not just an intent to kill, it's a premeditated plan to kill.
I think they pushed for first degree because most people see murdering a child as the most bad murder you can do and first degree murder as the most bad murder charge you can convict someone of. To do any less would invite political attacks for being "soft on crime" but I think it's a lot to try to argue that this person must have intended to kill this child because no one could possibly be that stupid. Any time I've ever thought "no one could possibly be that stupid and cruel" I've been unpleasantly surprised.
Yeah, honestly I think first degree might be a mistake and she may go free for it. If they have other evidence, fine. It just seems like a stupid person who maybe has anger and self control issues. They probably shouldn't have access to a firearm in the first place though with good mental health evaluations. This girl didn't need to die.
Doesn't matter to me if you're anal but what did that have to do with anything?
I do, but that's neither here nor there unless you want to buy me a drink first
What I don't is have a license to practice law anywhere in the English-speaking world.
IANAL stands for "I am not a lawyer"