Pharmacist shoots robber - found guilty of murder. People outraged.

The problem with this argument Joe is that it holds no water.

One could easily say the same thing about the pharmacist.

For all we know he's killed before. He could have 8 buried teens in his backyard.

C'mon.. if you're going to argue at least bring up something valid.

And its you whose putting faith into the pharmacist.. not me towards the youth. As I am not defending what the youth did... I'm responding to the situation.. you're responding to your emotions.

 

Read up on self defense laws state by state. In MD for instance, you do not have the right to shoot someone in your house. You are supposed to try to flee, and if you have an exit to flee, you are to take it. MD, it is always against the law to discharge a firearm at a person. Only under circumstances of the law of self defense. called against the wall, do you have this right.

Ok has the castle doctrine and you have the right to self defense in your business, car, or house until the intruder is dead. This is why this is so contraversal.

We are taught this in every self defense class there is. If you pull the gun, plan on killing, not wounding.

It tests the castle doctrine in that state.

 

So a pharmacist with limited firearms/tactical training is supposed to slow his brain down from a primative fight or flight state to one of tranquility within seconds? He is not a SWAT team member with decades of experience dealing with stressful situations that require an ability to ramp and lower one's emotions. He is on 100% adrenalin and his body and brain is reacting. Heck the guy is 59 years old and probably fears "if I don't get them they will get me, where is the other guy, is he coming back to kill me, maybe I should kill this other robber because my mind doesn't know what is going to happen next".

It seems like this guy is being judged harder than the scumbag criminals that use temporary insanity, racial bias, "self defense" , and hard upbringing arguments to support their defenses.

 

I have no problem with the guy's initial act of self defense.

I have a problem with him walking directly by the neutralized threat, obtaining another weapon, then proceeding to kill a person who no longer posed a threat.

 

Well that's exactly what you got. The other robber is about 16 now and more than likely he's on the street while the pharmacist is on his way to prison for life. However, I bet if you ask the other two victims in this robbery who they would prefer be on the streets you'd get a different answer.

How anyone could premeditate a murder in one minute under extreme stress is beyond me. Manslaughter I could see, first degree murder not a chance. If he were thinking clearly the perp would have ended up dead without the second gun ever being involved and we would'nt even be talking about this 2 years later because there would have never been a trial.

 

While I am sympathetic to the pharmacist for being in that situation and successfully defending his & the 2 others lives, he executed that kid.
Yea I understand you can say the kid got what he deserved, blah, blah, blah. and I'm sure the emotions of the guy were pretty high, but he spent all that time outside, came back in, stepped over the kid, went & got another gun and then executed him. Emotions (of us, the onlookers) aside that is murder.

 

Here is the kicker. If in the middle of that robbery one of those guys would have killed that pharmacist, they would have not received a 1st degree murder sentence b/c it was not premeditated. But the pharmacist receives it because he was placed in that situations by those two dirtbags. His mind was not on planet earth guys, trust me. He should at most receive a couple of years, NOT life.

But I can see this being a racial issue as well. Redneck pharmacist kills a black teenager. The town wants "justice" or else....give me a break. If the races were reversed I don't see the verdict going down like that at all.

 

Well we can't see the perp on the ground and he very well could have been squirming or moving or who knows. In the famous words of Mortal Kombat...Finish Him!! I doubt I would have went and obtained the second gun but I feel like the end result would have been the same, piss on that Armed Robber. Sorry if that sounds harsh but oh well.

 

He was obviously neutralized by the way the pharmacist calmly walked right past him to go get the other gun.

A squirming person poses no threat.

 

In your opinion, you weren't there nor was I so I tend to side with the law abiding citizen who was at work doing his job when he was put in a situation where his life and the lives of the two women he worked with were threatened.

 

I think the inherent problem here is that people are getting too emotional and missing the point. This isn't about whether he deserved it or whether he should've throught about the consequences first. Those are subjective opinions - not the law.

The kid wasn't killed while in the act of committing a crime or threatening someone's life. He was killed after he had already been shot and there was no longer an immediate threat to anyone's life - including the pharmacist. He had plenty of time to escape danger and actually left the store entirely at one period in time. When he returned he deliberately and thoughtfully choose to retrieve another gun and shoot, at point blank range, a man who was not posing an immediate threat to anyone. That, in its very definition, is murder.

It's no different than if he would've waited until he was in the hospital recovering from his head wound, then walked up and shot him at point blank range.

 

Great points, like I said earlier I just can't see this as pre-meditated first degree murder.

 

This has to be a joke.

There is not "duty to retreat" in OK, as there is in your state or mine. They have a castle doctrine in place. This case tests that. And failed.

 

It is entirely different, he was in an armed confrontation with two robbers that they initiated. He shoots one who falls, he runs past after the other guy, comes back in (we have no idea wht the downed guy is doing) he rearms himself and shoots the guy again. He did not pre-meditate those events(the entire situation was like 40 seconds), he made a bad decision under extreme diress(sp?) where his life and the lives of others were threatened by armed robbers. Manslaughter.

 

He knew exactly what he was going to do with the gun when he went in the back to retrieve it.

 

It's a sad commentary on how weak we've become that some don't see a problem with sending someone to jail for life for something like this. The DA who pushed for a 1st degree murder charge is the idiot.

Here a petaphile could stalk down and systematically kill every IL member of this board by breaking thier arms and legs, burning their eyes out, force feeding them their own genitals, sodomize them with knives and then finally kill them slowly by scooping out thier brains with a melon-baller; and the murderer, if convicted, might serve a life sentence. Same as the the guy who shot the assailant after being attacked. That's whacked.

The fact that the guy went to get another gun is meaningless. How did he know the attack was really over? Reloading and re-arming does not equal pre-meditated murder. Until the cops get there and secure the scene, you are not safe. Just because one or two guys ran off, doesn't mean that a dozen aren't coming back.

Does shooting the criminal while he's on the ground five more times seem excessive? Yes. But I don't know if the perp still seemed to be a threat to the pharmacist or not. Waiting until the perp can get back up and come at you again is good for juries but not such a good idea in real life.

Instead of people moving toward this pansied idea that we need to protect criminals, we should be moving the other direction. If you present a danger enough that someone needs to use deadly force against you, then deadly force it is. Back, front, sideways, reloading, melon-baller... whatever it takes.

Well, maybe not the melon-baller.

 

How do you know he knew exactly? Have you ever been so scared, and went thru a situation and look back, and seeing how you was on cruise control the whole time?

I was driving down some Ky roads when I was a kid, and had some issues with some folks, one who wanted to date my girlfriend. They lay waiting one night when I left a party, (5 of them). They chased me for miles, and then I saw a flash in my rear view and heard a bang. I was freakin. I took out my beretta 92FS, and let loose 15 rounds. without looking back. Didn't hit once. I was in cruise control the whole time. They did pull off. I felt lucky to be alive. This was in the 80's in ky, so no law enforcement was called.

I can see a shortened sentence of voluntary manslaughter. Just to appease the pansies as sister Christine pointed out. Preach it sister.

 

A decision he made under extreme diress during a life threatening exchange fueled by fear, adrenaline, and instigated by two armed felons. Like how you casually leave out the root causes that led to that decision and the fact it was all dumped on him in 40 seconds.

Imagine there was no video, how would you view the end result if you read the story "Armed Robber Shot 6 Times While Robbing Pharmacy", how bout if it happened in your home and threatened your loved ones?? Let me guess, you'd give the guy CPR? Pfffft...those guys would be graveyard dead in a new york minute and I'd sue their parents for the carpet cleaning costs.

 

the five rounds look excessive, but if i am in that situation i am going to make sure there is no chance of the perpetrator getting up or continuing in his ARMED robbery. And to say he was calm is pure speculation. One can look calm and be scared ****less, I know when i was in combat situations I was shaking inside, but had to try and maintain composure not to mention when the adrenaline takes over as well.

 

1. Robber got what was coming to him.
2. Pharmacist over-reacted since suspect was probably "disabled".
3. Pharmacist should have walked.

I'm torn on this. I agree, its a tough case but those robbers may have killed everyone in that pharmacy after getting what they wanted. Would this case be any different if they weren't kids? Oh wait...the pharmacist didn't know that since they were wearing masks.

It must suck being a prosecuting attorney sometimes.