Posted on 12/20/2014 4:08:38 PM PST by marktwain
After seven hours of deliberation, the jury found Mitrel Anderson not guilty of all charges in the stabbing death of DeMario Lee. The incident occurred in Lacrosse, Wisconsin last year. Anderson did not deny killing Lee, but had always contended that his actions were in self defense.
Anderson was confronted by three men in the bathroom of a convenience store. Anderson and Lee had known each other since childhood, but the relationship had soured. Lee had publicly threatened Anderson and told him that he would kill him. From kwwl.com, the prosecutor stated in closing arguments:
"When you're getting roughed up in a bathroom you have no justification for stabbing someone in the head, none."The defense emphasized other points:
Defense attorney Elizabeth Wright brought up Lee's violent past and direct threats he had made to Anderson. "Do you not think he [DeMario Lee] would overpower you, finish you off?" Wright asked jurors.Given the defense arguments, why was the prosecution so intent on going for a first degree murder charge? I have not talked to the prosecution, but I suspect that it was primarily three things: First, Anderson fled the scene. Police tracked him down with cell phone records. Second, he refused to plead to a lesser charge. Prosecutors routinely threaten harsh penalties to pressure those who are accused into plea deals. Third, there were other people in the bathroom, and I did not read that anyone but Lee actually attacked Anderson.
"You don't have to wait until you're nearly dead if you believe your life is in danger," Wright said. In asking the jury to remember the self defense case, Wright reminded jurors that three men followed Anderson into the bathroom, that Anderson was attacked, and that DeMario Lee told another man to guard the bathroom door.
I suspect he was scared out of his wits The “disparity of force” business is BS!
Disparity of foce works for him in this case, at least that is what the defense attorney was trying to show, I think.
Three to one is disparity of force.
You don’t have the right to defend your life if “Yoos only beying Behtch Slahyapped”.
Uhm well, I don’t actually like to fight either but, I will absolutely go WWF if you take a swing at my head and if you have a history of threatening me, it’s on like Donkey Kong.
Your rules, my outcome....I live
I will ALWAYS assume that an assailant intends to kill me. I never have been a gambler.
I think the Jury agreed with you. The prosecution case must have been pretty weak for the prosecutor to make that statement.
disparity of force is not bs. it is a legal principle and in real life it is, real.
It’s the driving philosophy behind all the “unarmed” BS. There is no such thing as fair play in combat, it is no kind of game at all!
How much damage must you tolerate before you raise the bar? If you can’t define precise parameters it is bad law! The Founder didn’t much care for arbitrary and capricious anything.
what are you talking about?!? are you drunk?
disparity of force is totally valid.
if you are older, smaller, injured, disabled, ambushed, outnumbered, disparity of force works in your favor for self-defense. it allows the victim to use equal or greater force on their attackers.
you either don’t know what disparity of force is or you think victims ought to just get the sh1t beaten out of them or be killed.
have to.
This ain’t high school and all it takes is for something to go horribly wrong and the assailant may not have ever intended for the outcome but, it happens and you have a right to your life.
I should have been more clear about the disparity of force concept.
In self defense cases, disparity of force means that your assailant(s) do not necessarily have to have a weapon to be a deadly threat.
Thus, if you are attacked by a bigger man (like Mike Brown) or by a group, or by someone much younger and more agile, or are knocked down by surprise, you can still consider them a deadly threat and use deadly force against them, and be justified.
I can see how you could take it the opposite way, which is what happened in England. There they say that you may not use any more force than your attacker.
The law does not work that way here, or at least it is not supposed to.
The prosecuter was claiming that use of a knife against an “unarmed” assailant is disparate force. I haven’t had a drink in years BTW.
Prosecutor said “When you’re getting roughed up in a bathroom you have no justification for stabbing someone in the head, none.”
it very well can be. and if three were in there with two of them backing up the third, and he’s ambushed by them in the bathroom, disparity of force applies. by law he could use a knife against those armed with fists. fists kill. more people are killed by hands than guns.
or are you just objecting to the prosecutor’s descripton of the attackers being ‘unarmed’ -ie deadly hands....? either way, disparityof force is in play.
disparityof force, occurs for any number of reasons, and always in the victim’s favor.
i think maybe we’re off on the rong foot’here.
disparity of force is legal. the prosecutor may be trying to say he used excessive force and trying to frame disparity of force as excessive, but that’s never been what disparity of force has been regarded as.
disparity of force conditons favor the victim using ewual or greater force than what they perceive the attackers to have to save their lives or great bodily harm. if you are ganged up on, if you are ambushed by an attacker - a surprise attack - if you are old, disabled, injured, small, physically smaller/weaker than a huge attacker, all of these are examples of disparity of force that justify you using equal or greater force’to defend yourself.
and the prosecutor is wrong. he can’t make a blanket statement like that because there are cases where disparity of force comes into play. such as this one.
Yep, but none of they idiots running around screaming “DISARMED’ see it that way. Their argument against the 2nd amendment is in part that it creates disparity.
well then they are just misusing the term for’something not even related’to this case. prosecutor ought to know better. disparity of force doesn’t have to involve firearms
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