honor killings…
I’m here about the title.
The local jury
Grand jury.
He was immediately released
Yes, that’s how this works.
Now, bear in mind, I’m only here about the part of this from the title that I quoted. For anyone outraged by that part, no.
The way this works:
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A matter is put before a grand jury. Only evidence submitted is by the prosecutor. Nothing from the defense. The standard of evidence is “probable cause”, which is a very very low standard. Basically, unless someone screwed something up massively, there will almost always be sufficient probable cause for a case to go forward.
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If probable cause is indeed found, the case will proceed. It may eventually have a trial by jury, where both sides present their case and a jury decides - for civil matters the standard is preponderance of the evidence (i.e. majority of evidence seems guilty or not), for criminal it’s beyond a reasonable doubt, meaning it seems pretty clear and any evidence that is against seems unlikely.
So speaking generally, when indictment in front of a grand jury fails, it means one of something like these happened:
- Fundamental evidence failed “probable cause”. For example, say it resulted from a traffic stop, but it was found that the traffic stop had no legal justification. Because of “fruit of the forbidden tree”, it might be entirely thrown out
- Perhaps the prosecutors failed to get their shit together on evidence
- Perhaps, as is theorized by some in this case, the prosecutor felt they had to present the case, but threw it on purpose, sort of like a prosecutorial nullification, if you will
So again, not talking about the case (I’ve discussed/debated in other threads - this is not a new story), just the parts of the title that make it clear OP doesn’t understand the difference between a jury and a grand jury. :)
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If it really was an accident, then this is pretty clear evidence that guns do kill people. Either make it harder for idiots to get guns they don’t know how to handle responsibly, or lock up the murderer.
Manslaughter in front of a grand jury didn’t even stick. It’s like the prosecutor had vacation plans didn’t want to to reschedule.
The awful thing is that if the family is behind the alcoholic trump father since he is still alive, there is no one left to bring justice in her name. Is she just to be forgotten and swept under the Texas rug?
Imo, if it was your gun, unless it was literally stolen from a locked gun safe, anyone who dies by it is automatically your fault.
Doesn’t really matter what the circumstances were. If anyone is even in a position to be injured or killed by your weapon, it usually means you acted negligently in either handling or storing the weapon.
Texas has some insane defend your land laws.
Look them up
Imo, if it was your gun, unless it was literally stolen from a locked gun safe
I disagree, if it could be stolen from your gun safe, you didn’t secure it enough, you should still be partially at fault.
-break into someone’s house
-rob their gun safe at gunpoint
-shoot them with their own weapon
-“its their fault officer that gun wasn’t adequately secured”
No safe is impenetrable
As much of a fan as I am of gun control, expecting gun owners to have a safe that is literally, physically impossible to break into is wildly unreasonable
That sort of safe doesn’t exist there’s a dude who pops full on bank vaults in less than an hour unless they have time locks and a time lock would make no sense.
Would be a shame if someone shot him for his political beliefs. A damn shame.
Cue the “somebody should [act of violence] [non- rightwing figure]” stochastic chuds’ immediate screaming about the violent left.
“As I lifted the gun to show her I suddenly heard a loud bang,” Kris allegedly said. “I did not understand what had happened. Lucy immediately fell.”
Bullshit. This means he took a loaded gun, failed to clear it, put the barrel in the direction of a person, and pulled the trigger. Guns don’t just “go off”. All while having admitted to relapsing on alcohol. I count four mistakes there, where any one of them not having been made would have prevented this incident.
It’s almost like you’d have to intend to make that series of mistakes.
So, fun fact: Alexander Hamilton may have killed himself.
He supplied the dueling pistols for the duel with Burr, and a few things about them.
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He had them custom made with a larger, more deadly bore.
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He had modified the trigger to require a much lighter pull than most pistols would have required.
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The musical (of incredibly dubious historical value) even makes note of this, he was seen fiddling with the trigger prior to the duel, and selected his pistol first.
Accounts on Hamilton firing in to the air differ, but what is consistent are accounts of Burr seeming pretty shocked when his gun went off. Accounts also pretty universally indicate that he tried to rush to Hamilton after he’d been shot to lend aid before being escorted away.
Anyway, that’s not at all meant to refute your claim. Guns generally don’t just “go off”.
Incredibly dubious historical battle
Are you implying that the nation was not formed on the back of a rap battle my good sir?
Yeah the only guns I know of that can just “go off” either have a hair trigger that’s worn or are of exceptionally shit build quality like say the Ross Rifle.
If you take the worst gun, modify it to have the lightest trigger possible, if you don’t have it just sitting around with a round in the chamber it won’t just “go off”. It’s wild that the simplest safety precaution save a lot of lives but nope these people need their dick extensions to always be ready to go.
Oh I was just making note that there are ways for a gun to to fire by itself for one reason or another when loaded. Regardless making sure the gun is cleared is a pretty damned good way of ensuring it doesn’t do that. Or alternatively leave a Ross Rifle behind for the Germans when you leave a trench so it’s their problem.
Or they are a Sig Sauer P320… Which is of good quality but poor design.
Guns generally don’t just “go off”.
They can and do. There’s chapter and verse on gun safety - handling, cleaning, storage - to deal with the risk of accidental discharge.
If you treat a gun like a toy (and this guy’s testimony certainly sounds like he did), it’s very possible to fire it by accident.
Right, they have to be mishandled, uncleaned, and not properly stored, so like they said, guns generally don’t just “go off”.
they have to be mishandled, uncleaned, and not properly stored
I don’t see any evidence to suggest the guy was maintaining any of his kit properly.
guns generally don’t just “go off”
They can and do when mishandled, which is why gun safety exists to begin with.
“Don’t point a gun at anything you don’t intend to shoot” is Rule 1 for a reason. And if he was playing with the gun like a toy, it’s very easy to believe he fumbled it. The stories of children setting off guns by playing with them are more numerous than you can count.
Not sure what the downvoters are thinking. I was reading through this whole argument about whether or not guns can just “go off” and kept thinking a) obviously there are cases where people fire a gun they are handling unintentionally, whether because they are idiots or the gun malfunctioned. But b) it doesn’t make a difference in whether he was negligent because he already was when he pointed it at her in the first place. That’s all that should have been needed to get a negligent manslaughter charge to stick, accidental discharge or not, it hit her because he was pointing the gun at her.
Though I don’t buy it was accidental at all, given the circumstances. Heated argument about Trump just before she’s supposed to leave but first he needs to show her his gun that just happens to accidentally fire while he was pointing it at her?
Jury nullification goes both ways and that grand jury just condoned the murder of someone who opposed Trump.
Its mostly semantics. Dude is saying guns don’t just go off because of X, Y, and Z. And people are pointing out that X, Y, and Z are the result of negligence.
People neglecting gun safety is the cause. The gun goes off because of the negligence.
I interpreted their comments as saying the guy was negligent on multiple levels. Like saying he probably was neglecting maintenance to the point where the gun can randomly fire doesn’t sound like a defense of the guy to me but more like the gun going off could have occurred because he triggered it himself directly or because he didn’t keep it in a condition to prevent it from being triggered indirectly.
Though that last paragraph is the most important part IMO, because regardless of how the gun went off, if he had been following gun safety rules, it should have just resulted in an embarrassing hole in his floor, not the death of the person he was “showing the gun to”.
Some guns are just built like shit.
Laws have been passed to shield gun manufacturers from liability for faulty products.
Still, this case sounded like premeditated murder more than anything else. And that Texas grand jury, and prosecutor, were fine with it because the daughter hated Trump.
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Literally sharia law honor killings.
We have lost texas
“Unlawfully killed”
“Shot dead”
“Possible manslaughter”
It’s MURDER.
“Unlawfully killed” is some backbreaking doublespeak.
How much did you actually read about the case?
The killer claims it accidentally went off.
Even so, this is the kind of thing you need a proper trial to determine culpability. “He said it was an accident” after they had gotten in a heated argument and he lead her away to the gun room. His testimony absolutely not be taken for truth. And even if it was an accident theres definitely a case there for reckless endangerment/manslaughter. So I think the outrage at this news is justified
You can’t just load and chamber and fire a gun by fucking accident. Oh whoops the slide pulled back by accident, and I accidentally had my finger on the trigger, then I accidentally pulled all the way past the resistance of the firing pin. Nope. You murdered her.
They don’t see sharia law as evil or unjust, they see it as competition to their own authoritarianism. Right idea, wrong religion (barely lol)
Literally a drunk and completely incompetent gun owner. He should be punished and made an example of. Your statement makes this sound completely intentional. The court appears to believe the claim that her death was accidental. I don’t doubt that he had no intentions of killing his daughter.
This should be a textbook example for gun licensing and requirements of safe storage. This man’s negligence cost him his daughter and the court decided this was enough. I don’t think the court went far enough and I think this should be the basis for further legislation, but let’s not turn this case into a bogeyman about honor killings.
The court appears to believe the claim that her death was accidental. I don’t doubt that he had no intentions of killing his daughter.
If you don’t have inside knowledge on the case, “not having doubt” on either intentions or no intentions is an incredibly moronic take.
Also, the job of a court of law is to establish innocence or guilt (and the degree thereof). This grand jury failing to indict is that grand jury refusing to do its duty to the people. While Germany is also going to shits, I am kinda glad that for now, our country is civilised enough to not have juries. Although we have the next worst thing, which is laypeople judges, for some cases.
He wasn’t indicted. The Texas jury didn’t care about the murder enough to punish him whatsoever, that’s the problem.
Worth noting that indictments are laughably easy to get, because there is no defense lawyer. An indictment isn’t a conviction, it’s just the prosecution going “yeah we probably have enough evidence to bother with a trial.” The old joke is that a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich for murder if the prosecutor wants them to. The prosecutor has full control over what evidence the grand jury sees, and the rules around evidence are a LOT more relaxed than they are in court. The prosecutor could basically scribble out a “yeah I did it lol” note on a napkin and present it to the grand jury as evidence. It wouldn’t stand up in court, but it doesn’t need to if the prosecutor just wants the indictment.
The grand jury is just an arm of the prosecutor, and is used as a political tool whenever a trial would be politically inconvenient. Because the district attorney is typically elected, which means they need to pander for votes. So if it would be politically inconvenient to prosecute someone, they can simply refuse to bring any evidence to the grand jury. Because (again) they have full control over what evidence the grand jury sees.
For example, let’s say a cop murders someone in the street. It’s on video. The public is out for blood. But the prosecutor has to work with the police to do their job, and the police union is threatening to stop collecting any evidence at crime scenes if they prosecute this cop. Prosecutor is between a rock and a hard place, because they’d be torching future trials just to appease the public. So instead, they simply don’t bring any evidence to the grand jury. The grand jury is a faceless shadowy organization that can’t defend itself. It’s the perfect scapegoat. So when the grand jury refuses to indict (because they weren’t presented with any evidence) the district attorney can jump in front of the news cameras and go “I tried to prosecute them, but that big mean grand jury refused to indict. But remember, I did my best! Vote for me!” Cops are happy because the prosecutor didn’t indict, the public is placated because the prosecutor “tried” to indict them, and the cogs of the legal system keep grinding away as intended.
So with all of that being said… If he wasn’t indicted, it’s because the prosecutor didn’t want to bring it to trial.
Thank you for sharing this information.
Hey, always glad to see the MECFS guy in the wild. My wife is suffering from major chronic fatigue, (it’s seriously life-altering), so I wanted to let you know that your posts don’t go unnoticed.
And yeah, the whole “jury vs grand jury” and “indicted vs convicted” thing is a pet peeve of mine. Because authorities prey on the public’s lack of knowledge about the legal process, to shift blame away from themselves. Once you know the difference (and understand the relationship between a prosecutor and the grand jury) you’ll consistently see news stories of prosecutors hiding behind grand juries to shift blame away from themselves. But it’s always framed by the news as “the prosecutor brought the case to the grand jury, who refused to indict” because the news is complicit in keeping the cogs grinding.
That’s a problem, yes. That’s the main reason why this man wasn’t given any sort of punishment in this specific case.
This isn’t the first time someone has shot a family member without the intent to kill, and it won’t be the last. Something needs to be done about it at a fundamental level. I realize that isn’t going to happen, especially in Texas. But that doesn’t change the fact that we need common sense gun laws in this country. This is a fucking travesty and a miscarriage of justice. It’s doing nothing to deal with this specific scenario nor the larger problem that too many idiots have too much access to deadly weapons.
Ya when people say Dems have a chance of winning Texas. Call that person a moron and go on with your day
If we had 100% voting population Republicans would never win again anywhere, especially in texas. That is why Republicans are so eager to disenfranchise voters. They’re trying to take away voting rights of women by making voters who change their name ineligible. They love the apathetic idiots who never vote.
Right now trump seems to have killed mail in voting for this year. Unless something changes the new usps system is sure to disenfranchise millions.
Like nearly all the US, the cities are heavily blue and the rural parts are heavily red. The only difference between blue states and red states is which side of the halfway line it’s tipped towards. And nearly every state is close to the halfway mark—including Texas.
Texas has more dem voters than some states have people.
We have loads of left-leaning people who are eligible to vote. If more of them would actually vote, we’d get somewhere. Fortunately, the primary turnout numbers this year look good. More Democratic voters than Republican in the Senate race, and pretty close to even for the Governor. Compare to 2024 when over 2/3 of primary ballots cast were Republican. Polling looks better than 2018 with Beto v Cruz.
And yet not once have they even been close to winning
Beto came pretty close against Cruz. But that was basically it in the last 30 or so years. Every other time has been a route basically. The Texas Democratic party is beyond incompetent.
You aren’t even close to being right about that
It’s a perfect storm for Dems this year in Texas. They have a good candidate for that state - a likable, charismatic young man who talks about his Christian faith a lot. The Republicans are fielding a particularly bad candidate - a corrupt attorney general who was nearly impeached by his own party for fraud, whose wife recently divorced him for cheating, and who narrowly won a closely contested primary. Beto came within 2.5 points of Cruz in 2018, and Cruz was/is popular in Texas, and Republicans in general weren’t as reviled back then. It’s still no better than a coin flip, but Talarico could win this year.
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I’d rather KILL my OWN DAUGHTER then to say Trump is WRONG!
-LITERALLY Republicans!
As I say, the love they have for even their own children is entirely conditional. They will make you the enemy and kill you at a moment’s notice. If you have MAGA in your family, kick them out of what they can come to. Ostracization from family and society is the only nice thing we can do against them.
“Honor” killings: now in American flavor, 100% idiotic MAGAt approved!
Just traitor Texas things.
I hope they were immediately released if you can’t get an indictment. The reason they couldn’t get an indictment is because the prosecutor didn’t really want one. Grand juries only really hear what the prosecutor wants to tell them. That’s why it’s said you can get an indictment on a ham sandwich. If the prosecutor just said “he shot her after an argument” with no exculpatory evidence he would’ve gotten an indictment and that would’ve been okay and cool with the US supreme Court.
This is important to remember. Grand juries are simple majority. No defense is present. If they don’t get an indictment it’s because they didn’t want it.
Remember that every time a right wing darling (like a cop or maga drunk) gets away without an indictment.
It’s pretty clear he deserves prison
Coroners don’t determine whether a death is lawful or not…
Family members were in tears during the hearing at Cheshire Coroner’s Court as Coroner Jacqueline Devonish announced that she found Lucy Harrison died due to unlawful killing on the grounds of gross negligence manslaughter.
The coroner said: "To shoot her through the chest whilst she was standing would have required him to have been pointing the gun at his daughter, without checking for bullets, and pulling the trigger.
“I find these actions to be reckless.”
Yeah, still. Coroner determines cause of death and manner of death. Not what the charges are.
This is a statement from a court case though.
When called to court to testify coroners do absolutely give their opinion about the deaths.
Also reminds me of Gary Webb’s coronor saying there is a “distinct possibility” that someone could shoot themselves twice in the head. And he wasn’t even in court
I don’t understand what this is intended to prove?
Coroners can have opinions but @[email protected] is correct they don’t determine whether its lawful or not… that is literally the point of the court case.
Words mean different things in different contexts. A legal finding is different than a coroner’s findings and a coroner’s opinion is different than a judges legal opinion. A coroner saying something is unlawful is different than a judge saying something is unlawful.
This kind of thing tends to work completely differently depending upon municipality, county, and state.
And in Texas the coroner doesn’t. They determine cause of death.
A DA or jury determines lawfulness.
Okay so what point are you making? The coroner didn’t determine lawfulness, the court did. He just offered his opinion, as coroners do, about the actions that killed the woman.
They kinda do. There are five possible causes of death: homicide, suicide, accidental, natural causes, and unknown. All deaths not determined to be accidental or natural require a police investigation.
That still isn’t a determination of lawfulness. Homicide just means a person killed a person.
The DA or jury determines lawfulness.
