It's a fairly obligatory posting, but you've all heard by now of the 18 year old widow in Oklahoma who shot a stalker trying to get into her house. He had a knife and she shot him with a 12 gauge shotgun when the broke in the door. She was on the phone with the 911 dispatcher and had been on the phone with them for about 20 minutes when the goblin broke through the door.
She shot him dead. Protecting her infant child. Protecting herself.
Of course, the prosecutors in Oklahoma say that she was totally justified. The dead goblin had an accomplice and he is now in jail on 1st Degree Murder charges. It seems that if someone dies while you're committing a felony, you're on the hook for the death, even if you didn't pull the trigger. That's good law.
Some say that it's a shame that she had to wait so long for the police to arrive. From all indications, she lives in rural Oklahoma, and when you're the only deputy in a wide zone, it might take 20 minutes to get to a call on the other end of the zone.
The little lady done good. Her child is safe, she's safe, and the goblins are accounted for. One's dead, the other is in jail.
What better outcome could there be?
ReplyDeleteTo answer your question...What better outcome could there be? She could of shot both. Saved the taxpayers a ton of money. Someone should send her a box of shells for a job well done protecting her child and her self.
ReplyDeleteWhat they refer to is known as the Felony Murder Doctrine. It's not often prosecuted successfully.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a summer Park Deputy in 1976, I was sitting out a cloudburst in the Ranger shack by the main gate of Oxbow Park when the rangers and myself heard a big-block engine sound. Some guy was tearing out of the park at high speed. I left the shack and watched, and sure enough, a mid-sixties Pontiac Catalina was headed in my direction at 60+ (15 mph speed limit).
The Pontiac spun out right in front of me, and crashed in a little copse of woods by the gate.
There were three inside the car, but one had started to fall out when the car spun, and then his head was crushed in the door when the car sideswiped a tree.
The other passenger was injured, too. The driver, drunk but not injured. The crushed-head guy died in my arms while I was giving him CPR. The second passenger had a bad wound on her forehead. It turned out that she had been injured in a previous spin-out lower down in the park, and had begged the driver to let her out, but he refused.
I charged him with Felony Murder and Kidnapping. The on-scene D/A approved all the charges.
Two days later, I went on vacation, but when I returned, I learned that the County Parks Department head had gone behind the Sheriff's back and had the charges reduced to Negligent Homicide only.
It seemed that the drunk driver was a seasonal worker for the Parks Department, Graves and Cemeteries Division, and the chief thought that it would be bad publicity for the Parks Department.
This wasn't the only stupid decision this woman made, and several years later, she was terminated (for Idiocy, I guess).