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Posted on 04/17/2015 2:57:40 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The woman charged with shooting and killing her Miami Police officer boyfriend lost her bid to have her case dismissed under Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law.
A judge ruled Friday that Tiniko Thompson will head to trial in the shooting death of Officer Carl Patrick. Thompson, who has claimed self-defense, will remain behind bars without bond.
"What she did, she did wrong," Patrick's mother, Lucille Patrick, said after Friday's hearing. "He was a good man, I'm proud of him in his grave today."
Thompson, 46, was arrested on a murder charge in the May 2014 death. At the "Stand Your Ground" hearing earlier in the week, Thompson's attorney argued that the shooting was unintentional, and that Patrick was to blame.
Thompson and Patrick lived together in Pembroke Pines. She said he beat and abused her and that she killed him, with his gun, while they were fighting. Thompson, then a Miami Police public service aide, claims Patrick had the gun in her mouth, feared for her life and wrestled the gun away and killed him.
"She says 'he didn't have a right to stick a gun in my face and to beat me, I was fighting for my life,' and there's nothing to refute that," attorney Rod Vareen said.
Days after the shooting, Thompson told NBC 6 in an exclusive interview that the shooting was an accident.
"She comes into the courtroom on Wednesday and for the first time says 'I had the gun and I had to shoot him because I was in fear of death or great bodily harm,'" prosecutor Shari Tate said. "That's why the prior two statements when she says she shot him were important." Thompson's trial is scheduled for October.
Under Florida's "stand your ground" law, the defendant can ask the judge to throw the case out before trial if the prosecution can't show evidence that the killing wasn't in self-defense. If the defendant loses that motion (as this defendant just did), she still gets to argue self-defense to the jury at trial.
What degree of certitude is needed to bring SYG into the picture? I’d say more than that which is had by having a story that varies like this. We can’t tell if this is a lying vengeful thing or crazy or what, so hence a trial where the prosecutor gets to try to prove it was a crime.
I know a woman currently facing trial for stabbing her boyfriend to death. Despite the fact that the boyfriend was beating her at the time, it looks like she will be convicted of something less than murder.
The prosecutor is looking at the fact that she has had some 20 different restraining orders against the guy all over the country over a 30 year period yet kept letting him come back. He’s arguing that she bears at least some responsibility for repeatedly putting herself in the situation.
Local legal analysts seem to think she’ll be convicted of negligent homicide and likely be released from jail around the time of her conviction.
I’m not trying to impress you.
You may go now.
Thank you. You are too nice to me.
Looks like she wasn’t bright enough to pick up on wo important life lessons:
-There are two codes of law. One for Caesar and his men, and one for the rest of us.
-Silence is golden.
She would have killed him in self defense if she hadn’t already killed him by accident? Or was it the other way around? I’m so confused.
Wouldn’t matter what he did. If he had her down ready to decapitate her with an axe and she shot him they would still come after her.
****************
Team blue sticks together.... we need to learn that lesson.
“What I meant was I grabbed the gun and pointed it at him to get him to stop. I pointed it at him in self-defense. But I wasn’t going to kill him - I could never do something like that. I just wanted him to stop. But then he grabbed the gun, and it just went off. It was an accident - I just wanted him to stop beating me! I didn’t want him to die!!”
(That would be my “explanation” to the judge anyways.)
If this is true, there should be forensic evidence. If there is, she should walk.
Why not? It works for Hillary,0bama,Susan Rice etc....
Never speak to the cops before talking to a lawyer. People think that if they deny any wrongdoing, they didn't hurt themselves. But once you tell a story, you're stuck with it.
Is every self defense now an evil “stand your ground case?”
Ben's brother, I assume.
What difference, at this point, does it MAKE whether she murdered him or not?
Actually it's self defense immunity. Stand your ground only refers to the lack of a duty to retreat before using force. Unfortunately the language has gotten so abused that even the lawyers sometimes call it a stand your ground hearing, but it's not.
It's "self defense immunity", not SYG. She would need to show that it was self defense by a preponderance of the evidence. That's a higher standard for the defense. At a trial she would only need a reasonable doubt. But if she won the ruling at the hearing then she wouldn't have to stand trial.
All SYG means is that in a self-defense case you have no duty to retreat before using force. In some jurisdictions you do have such a duty. All other elements of self defense are still required. SYG is not a different kind of self defense claim, and there is no such thing as a SYG hearing.
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