Posted on 04/30/2014 7:13:29 AM PDT by armydawg505
LITTLE FALLS, Minn. – A Minnesota homeowner who shot and killed two teenagers during a break-in was convicted Tuesday of premeditated murder.
Bryon Smith had claimed he was simply defending himself during the break-in at his home in the small city of Little Falls on Thanksgiving Day 2012. Smith's attorney said the 65-year-old was fearful after previous burglaries.
But prosecutors argued that Smith waited in his basement and intended to kill the teens. A total of nine shots were fired at 17-year-old Nick Brady and 18-year-old Haile Kifer.
Jurors began deliberating Tuesday morning and within three hours had a verdict: Guilty on two counts each of first-degree and second-degree murder. Mothers of the teens cried as the verdicts were read, while Smith showed no emotion. Defense attorney Steve Meshbesher said he would appeal.
The teens' killings stirred debate around the state and in Little Falls -- a Mississippi River city of 8,000 about 100 miles northwest of Minneapolis -- about how far a homeowner can go in responding to a threat. Minnesota law allows deadly force to prevent a felony from taking place in one's home or dwelling, but one's actions must be considered reasonable under the circumstances.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I’m not trying to prove anything, merely expressing an opinion.
And if you believe that what this guy did was not murder under laws dating back hundreds of years, you are not only no friend of mine, but utterly ignorant of the law. This isn’t some new law that just popped up, this has always been the law. This guy committed murder, pure and simple.
Self defense does not mean you can flat out murder someone, as much as movies like Dirty Hairy might give you an erection, that’s not how the law is or ever was. This was a case of murder, pure and simple.
Hypothetical....
There are shards of glass and pieces of rusty scrap metal embedded atop the wall surrounding your property. A criminal cuts themselves, gets an infection and loses a limb or dies. This is a “mantrap” and the property owner is guilty of murder?
A mantrap even when set up within ones own home is illegal, whether it is lethal or not. The lethal shot sealed the murder, the premeditation to do so certainly crossed the reasonable doubt threshold with the amount of effort the prosecution showed he went through to entice the break in to occur while he was at home. (leaving boxes of expensive equipment at curb to be seen, parking blocks away so no one thought he was home, etc etc etc) then when you get the audio of his actions, and his own words after the fact, there is no doubt his entire intent was to kill. Premeditation.
I don’t see any way given the evidence as reported, that the beyond a reasonable doubt threshold was not met by a country mile.
Premeditated Murder.
Could you clarify what qualifies as a “mantrap”?
He responded to an initiation of force and theft.
How he did so may not be how any of us would have done it, but with a similar result in a majority of cases.
Had it been me, I wouldn’t have “induced the moral hazard” by hiding my truck, but I also wouldn’t have failed to kill them with my opening salvo of gun fire. I’m a very good shot and do not waste ammo. Nor would I have failed to call the police until the next day, regardless of what Holiday it was.
How would the druggie thieves have been any less dead?
And keep the sexual innuendo out of this. There is no need to be perverse. Further insults along those lines will be referred to the Moderators.
But, look at the bright side. Two deserving folks were killed and a dangerous guy that might have killed an innocent, is off the streets.
the more i read, the dirtier this gets. if he was so scared, why move his truck to make it seem like nobody was home. that’s like inviting them in. and the recordings indicate premeditation.
he set a trap and shot the burglars when they entered.his remarks “you’re dead”,”you’re dying” “vermin”, etc. indicate his frame of mind, and it sure doesn’t sound scared.
i’m all for home defense and all, but this is very far over the top.
he saw the videos of them trying to break in. he could have fired a warning shot. he chose to lie in wait. those are not the actions of some one who is scared.
he was most likely not scared, but highly P-O’d and frustrated by the lack of the authorities to deal with previous breakins. he was gonna fix it once and for all.. and he did, and since that meant pre-meditation, he has to pay the price.
You left out the parts that got him convicted of premeditated murder.
Today there is an article at “Mail Online” fron the IK. The title is. “What the jury DIDN’T hear about veteran who shot burglars dead: Homeowner had befriended teens he killed in his basement - but they were part of gang that drove him crazy for a year by ‘treating his estate like a candy store’
This will chill your bones about this case. Byron Smith had never caused anyone any problems, and he had befriended four teenagers the summer of 2011. He hired the to do yardwork and other tasks for him. he fed them, and allowed them free access to his house. Then he began to notice things were were missing. At first he thought he had misplaced them, but eventually he realized that someone was stealing from him. This explains his belief that he had been burglarized many times, but only the Oct. 2011 event had been reported to the Morrison County sheriff.
While I do think Byron Smith deserved to be convicted for his actions on Thanksgiving Day 2011, I also believe a more appropriate charge would have been manslaughter.
When a person is living alone in the country, and he realizes that he is being victimized over and over again, and the authorities apparently do nothing, it is reasonable to think he may have been very frightened, especially after guns were stolen.
After reading the story from the UK, one can understand his distress when lots of money went missing and his father’s cherished watch which he was awarded after WWII was stolen (in October 2011) - he flipped his lid, so to speak. I cannot help but think that if Byron Smith had had a wife or another close relative living with him, perhaps the outcome would have been less disastrous. His distress might have been mitigated, and perhaps his plan would have been altered to include a quick call to the sheriff immediately after both kids were injured.
Frustration which built up inside him was no longer contained. Personally I believe there should have been the possibility of temporary insanity or manslaughter in this case.
Why is it allowed for a homeowner to be victimized over and over again, and the judge throws out all evidence against the burglars who were repeat offenders and drug users?
This was a good and correct verdict. Self defense DOES NOT include calmly and deliberately administering a coup de grâce to each of them after they are down.
Not only will this killer rot in prison, he will also rot in hell in the next life.
Trying to equate the actions of this man as just some home owner minding his own business and defending his property is either complete ignorance, or just a willful disregard of reality.
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I am not doing that, I am extending it to other cases.
Correction: Byron Smith befriended four teenagers in the summer of 2011, employing them for odd jobs, feeding them, and allowing them inside and outside of his home. Then over that winter he noticed several items went missing, and he thought perhaps he had misplaced them. But when he discovered more items missing, he began to suspect that someone was stealing from him on a regular basis.
In the summer of 2012, the teens again approached him for employment, but he turned them down, and that was when he noticed more things were disappearing in his home. He suspected that they were deliberately stealing because they were mad at him. The BIG theft happened in Oct. 2011, which is when his father’s gold watch awarded to him as a POW of WWII went missing, plus a lot of money and several gold coins and guns. He reported this to the sheriff.
The rest of the story takes place on Thanksgiving 2011.
The two invasive teens are white and not thuggish looking....This also hurt his case.
Exactly, the comments on this thread are disgusting.
Its ones of the those times that reveals why conservatives are utterly failing at stopping the rot in this civilization.
If the shots were fatal by themselves, then there was no need for him to drag her to the tarp (gotta protect the carpet. To hell with human life.), put the gun to her chin and pull the trigger. It’s time to call the police. Not get a bite to eat, then go to sleep, then ask a neighbor if he knows a good lawyer. The fact that he did those things shows he did not fear for his life. The attackers were not a threat to him or his property. They were dying kids. He should have called the police. But he was more concerned with executing them than actual defense. That’s murder. The verdict is correct. Hope he dies in prison.
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