I've done a couple of stints on jury duty, and every case I sat on was a total waste of time. Anyone with just a little intelligence would have been able to resolve those cases in a fifteen minute conversation. In every case, the jury deliberations lasted less than five. But a trial has begun in Oklahoma City that I'm very glad I don't have to participate in.
Basically, the case is a murder trial where a pharmacist shot and killed an armed robber. In Oklahoma, if someone comes in to my home or business with a gun and tries to rob me, I can kill him. But in this case, the defendant shot the robber, chased another one, got a different gun and unloaded it into the guy he'd already shot.
The DA says that he went way beyond what the law allows and charged him with murder. The defense is that he thought his life was in danger and was lawfully defending himself. There are a bunch of melodramatic, emotionally charged, irrelevant facts to the case, but the question to be decided is, "How far does the 'Make My Day' law go?"
Everyone in my circle, without exception, thinks that pharmacist's actions are justified and that the DA is a prick for charging him. And every argument I've heard from each of them would convict the pharmacist if I were on the jury. The consolidated, paraphrased opinions of my friends go something like this:
The pharmacist had already been robbed numerous times, and was doing what he could to protect himself, push back and make a statement to anyone who even thinks about robbing him in the future. His adrenalin was off the charts in the moment of his actions, and he wasn't thinking about anything except stopping a potentially lethal attack. If he overreacted, it was only because he was scared, frantic and mad as hell.Hmmm. I agree with my friends totally, and don't think the pharmacist should be punished. The kid that died bought his fate when he went into the store. If someone doesn't want to die that way, she should probably try to avoid committing armed robbery.
But, the argument above in totality is not what the 'Make My Day' law is about. We are not allowed - nor should we be - to kill someone because we're scared, frustrated over past events, frantic or pissed off. If the guy was under the influence of something similar to road rage, and dumped a whole gun load of bullets into the kid he killed, he's absolutely guilty of at least manslaughter and maybe murder.
Part of carrying a concealed weapon is to be level headed and sensitive to your surroundings when you use that weapon. And if you can't do that, don't carry a gun. What if, in his manic rage and panic, he had shot an innocent customer who was just in the store to buy Advil?
"Aha," say my friends. "He didn't shoot an innocent bystander, he shot a perpetrator - on purpose with intent."
Well, they just made the "guilty" verdict inescapable, no matter how much I feel for the pharmacist.