Posted on 01/04/2005 2:29:19 AM PST by kattracks
NEW BEDFORD, Mass. -- A man who shot and killed another man on his property has been indicted for second-degree murder, according to prosecutors. The grand jury indicted Charles D. Chieppa, 56, for the July 17 shooting of 26-year-old Frank Pereira Jr. with a rifle.The fatal shots were fired near Chieppa's property just before dawn. By sunrise, motorists drove past Mr. Pereira's body, honking their horns and shouting in support of the shooting, the Standard-Times of New Bedford reported.
Chieppa, a Vietnam War combat veteran, lived in his parent's old home and largely kept to himself, neighbors said.
The home was next to Alfie's bar, which is known for drug dealing and prostitution. Pereira had snatched a purse from an Alfie's patron just hours before he was shot, police said.
Police had initially said the shooting happened when Chieppa confronted a burglar breaking into his home around 4 a.m. A day later, detectives acknowledged that they were investigating whether Pereira had actually entered the house before Chieppa opened fire.
[snip]
"My son didn't deserve to die the way he did, even if he was trying to break in," said Evelina Salgueiro, the victim's mother. "You don't shoot someone in the back like that. He was shot in the street."
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
If you are found innocent after having paid all that money for an attorney, does the state reimburse your attorney bills?
Nope.
The court interpretations have been very lenient in no-billing victims for incidents committed at night.
No one is going to walk out of my house carrying a TV while I just sit and watch. What kind of obsurd example is this. Maybe I am missing something here but these seems like a real exception to the times someone might have to use force to stop a robbery.
We should be focusing on the other 99% of situations where someone entering your property is perceived as a threat and how you deal with that. Sorry, if I have missed the point here.
I have a small stone engraved with the words:
Prepare the Child for the Path, not the Path for the Child.
That is wrong! If the state brings false charges, charges that are not proved, you should get your money back and be made whole.
So the alternative is to not get an attorney if you will end up broke after being found innocent, correct?
Thank you. I continue to learn.
But you don't have the right to take a life just because that person violated your property rights.
Sorry fellow but these two statements, back-to-back, just don't jive.
Your rules are localized only...they don't apply to every states laws. Albeit I won't shoot some SOB over hubcaps after dark here in Texas I can legally.....
If you shoot them, dont move them. The crime scene investigators will put you away.
A guy tried to break into our garden apartment one night in Denver while I was away. My wife yelled, I have a gun and will shoot and then called 911. The police arrived and arrested the drunken man who had broken his leg falling on the ice while running away. My wife asked the cop if she had done the right thing. He said, If he came in, shoot him and keep shooting him until the magazine is empty. Then throw the empty gun at him. That will prove you were in fear of your life. If you shoot him once between the eyes, I will have to take you in.
You obviously have no clue how the justice system works for you to make a statement like that. Did OJ get his legal fees paid back to him by California.
Furthermore, just because the DA brings charges against you, and you are lated aquitted, does not mean the charges were false. It means that he did not prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.
Malicious prosecution is hard to charge and very very costly.
What a sin. Your wife would get penalized for being a good shot!
Those little old ladies need to take a lesson from this L.O.L.:
72 year old woman defends herself with gun
Excerpt:
Zamarripa told jurors she grabbed her loaded revolver from under her bed and braced her elbow on the counter to steady her trembling hand.
Barefoot and in her nightgown, she waited with the gun aimed where she thought the intruder would enter.
Outside, she heard him prop open her storm door.
Then he ran up to and broke through the locked door, ripping the deadbolt holder out of the doorjamb.
The intruder's momentum knocked him to the ground, but Zamarripa never adjusted her aim. When he stood up, Zamarripa wounded him with three out of four shots from about eight feet away before he scrambled out the door.
"I knew if I didn't shoot him, he would have raped me," she said.
What about if it has already happeened?
What if the perp had just raped and killed your 9 year old daughter, and you shoot him in the back as he's fleeing down your street, perhaps never to be found by the police?
When I said "never to be found by the police" I mean that if you don't shoot him, he may get away and never be found by the police.
If you think it is okay for a person found to be innocent to be financially wiped out afterwards, then even if you understand how the legal system works, you are wrong.
Furthermore, just because the DA brings charges against you, and you are lated aquitted...
It is the same as being found innocent in the eyes of the law, isn't it?
Malicious prosecution is hard to charge and very very costly.
I'm not talking about malicious prosecution. That should have nothing to do with it. If you are found innocent and have incurred big legal bills to defend yourself, the state should pay you the cost of your attorney fees. The same as it is in civil matters under the English rule. Why should you be so damaged by the state's mistake?
That's nothing.
It gets even worse than that.
Some states have an obligation to retreat law.
This means if a perp breaks down your front door and then comes after you in your own house, you are not allowed to shoot unless you cannot run out the back door or jump through a window to escape.
You are not found "innocent" in our legal system, you're found "not guilty." There's a difference.
If you are found innocent and have incurred big legal bills to defend yourself, the state should pay you the cost of your attorney fees
The state will provide you a defense attorney for free, if you do not want to pay for one. However, if you go out and spend $1 million on your defense (like OJ), why should the rest of us pay for your defense?
Sorry to inform you, as an attorney myself, your thinking, although in line of what I personally believe, it not how the system works.
Of course innocent people should not be wiped out financially.
Would you agree however, that the taxpayers should have paid for OJ's lawyers? How about is Scott Peterson were aquitted?
The bottom line is that the state does not pay for your lawyer if you can afford one yourself. Additionally, there are many cases that are not clear cut instances of abuse on the part of the DA.
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