A jury has found a delivery driver not guilty in the shooting of a YouTube prankster who was following him around a mall food court earlier this year

  • Salamendacious@lemmy.worldOP
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    1 year ago

    I am not a lawyer. So everything I say could be wrong and every state is different but generally I think there’s a five point test for claims of self defense: Avoidance, Innocence, Imminence, Proportionality, and Reasonableness.

    Avoidance is moot because I think this is Virginia and I think they have a no-retreat provision. Innocence is just that you didn’t willingly engage in a fight that got out of control. So that applies. Imminence applies because it happened in the moment. I just don’t see how Proportionality applies here. I just don’t see how holding a cell phone is proportional to a shooting. Emotionally I get it that the YouTuber is a major jerkwad and may have deserved a comeuppance. But I don’t think the jury followed the law.

    I’m not a lawyer. Everything I said there could be wrong

    • Can_you_change_your_username@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I kinda waver on reasonableness for cases like this but I generally think using a weapon against an unarmed aggressor is reasonable when there is a significant size disparity or a disability or something like that. In this case the “prankster” was significantly larger and had a group of friends with him so I don’t think it’s out of the question that the use of a gun for defense is reasonable in this situation.

    • JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      If the defendant has been carrying a less lethal self defense measure, such as a taser, mace, or a baton, and had used that to defend himself, would you see that as more proportional?

    • PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      I’m happy he didn’t die over this, but I’m also kind of happy he got a little fucked up over it.

      I tend to think about these situations with small people as the initial victim. How far should a smaller person or woman let something go before they can defend themselves? If the person is way, way bigger, do you just have to let yourself get beat?

      • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        He’s still making videos, so apparently he didn’t actually learn anything from the experience

      • Salamendacious@lemmy.worldOP
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        1 year ago

        I honestly don’t know what the right answer is here. I don’t like that it seems like it’s easier to shoot someone because of a threatening feeling. This makes me think of Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman. People will say these are completely unrelated cases but both involved a shooting and a claim of self defense. Again I don’t know what the answer is.

        • PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          In that one I think ol’ zimmy kinda deserved it and I wasn’t happy with the charges/trial results.

          I don’t think it’s the same at all, though. Zimmerman was the OG aggressor. He fucked around, found out and got butthurt and killed a kid.