Kate Steinle’s accused killer found not guilty

[Thebobo]

What charges? Did I miss the news today? All I saw was Franken resigning in disgrace.

You did? Well you missed the part where your daddy's EPA pick Pruitt said all his cutbacks in environmental regulations were science based.

Funniest shit I heard all week.

 

[Jhhnn]

In order to really evaluate the jury's verdict of not guilty of manslaughter here, I'd really like to see a transcript of the summation given by the prosecution and the defense with respect to the manslaughter charge. Understanding how the lawyers argued this point is necessary before any firm opinion can be given about the jury's decision.

Gawd. I mean, so what? It's Blackstone's formulation in action, a central tenet of our legal system. If there is to be injustice it should be in the direction of leniency & that's what we have, quite by design. Or we can get all screwed up in self righteous condemnation of decisions we can't possibly understand because we weren't party to them.

I mean, the whole thing just shows how fucked up San Franciscans really are, huh? That's really the message.

 

[Jerem]

Some simliarities to the case of Peter Liang but with a very different outcome



http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-liang-sentencing-20160419-story.html

 

[woolfe9998]

Gawd. I mean, so what? It's Blackstone's formulation in action, a central tenet of our legal system. If there is to be injustice it should be in the direction of leniency & that's what we have, quite by design. Or we can get all screwed up in self righteous condemnation of decisions we can't possibly understand because we weren't party to them.

I mean, the whole thing just shows how fucked up San Franciscans really are, huh? That's really the message.

What many people don't get is that the geographical location of a trial has less to do with the outcome than people often think. Juries in SF and Oakland usually rule against plaintiffs in civil tort cases, for example, in spite of the fact that liberals are thought to generally favor plaintiffs. Jurors bring their biases with them, but once they're empaneled and instructed by the judge about their civic duties, they tend to do their best to comply with them, because they suddenly feel like they're part of something bigger than themselves. And the ones who don't are generally persuaded in deliberations by the majority who do. Also, the most biased potential jurors are usually weeded out by challenges in voir dire and never get on the jury.

But really, this entire case simply is not as important as so many people seem to think. It's important for the victim and her family, of course. But the actual political implications are essentially zero. Whether one undocumented/illegal immigrant committed murder, manslaughter, or nothing at all says literally nothing about the 11 million undocumenteds who are in this country right now. Whatever this guy is or is not guilty of, could just as easily have been done by a documented citizen. Citizens commit violent crimes as bad or worse than this every day. Most of them we don't ever even hear about. This is just another anecdote being exploited by conservatives for populist fear mongering. Nothing more.