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Originally Posted by moosenose
You seem to miss the point....You don't have to be sent to a PMITA prison to be victimized by the criminal justice system...being tried when innocent is a trial in and of itself.
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That's all you were able to tease out of my post?
I don't miss the point, you just don't agree with my points.
EDIT:
here's my point reiterated in bold: this law isn't going to result in more murders, it's not going to result in less murders. it's going to result in a vocal minority becoming agitated about a non-issue: that their right to defend themselves is at risk. That paranoid minority is going to vote for the people it thinks is defending it's non-jeopardized ability to defend themselves. That's the reason for this bill: To churn the waters so conversations like this thread will turn to gun control and gun owners wil feel persecuted by urban dwellers who live in high crime areas when they explain to them that carrying guns doesn't make them feel or become more safe from street crime.
FYI,
everyone going through the trial stage is an innocent person.
Are you seriously going to contend that all persons tried are victimized by the criminal justice system?
Regardless, grand jury indictements (which the accused does not attend) are hardly victimizing processes. All of those cases listed, as are over 90% of all criminal cases, were completed via plea bargains. If the cases were as strong as you seem to believe they were, they should have gone to trial. I should mention that a preliminary reading of the cases indicate that their probation was a result of breaking the law in some other fasion, not actually the act of defending themselves. In the first case, the man used an unregistered firearm. Now you may think it's a silly requirement and a technicality that he couldn't obtain registration, but he chose to use an illegally held firearm and ought to be held responsible for that. His and his family's life was worth enough to break the law, fair enough. He's a felon. He's alive. Decisions we make and consequences we live with.
If one member of society kills another human being, I think it's a reasonable demand to make that he or she lay out the facts and circumstances before his or her peers in order to ascertain whether the killing was justified. How else do you propose to seperate the legitimate killings from illegitimate ones?
I looked at another of your links. I can't believe you would actually use this person as your poster boy of people "victimized" by the judicial process:
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McLane has never denied shooting Roger Matthews twice -- once in the shoulder and once in the back. But he insisted the shooting was in self-defense -- saying Matthews confronted him and tried to break into his house, forcing McLane to protect himself.
Matthews and other witnesses disputed his account, saying McLane hurled racial epithets at Matthews before spraying him with Mace and shooting him. McLane is white, Matthews is black.
In his first trial, McLane represented himself after firing four attorneys. Early in that trial, he refused to wear street clothes, saying they were too small. Sometimes, he fell asleep, snoring loudly.
He often stomped around the courtroom, shouting while addressing jurors. Afterward, some admitted they were afraid of him.
In his second trial, McLane was calmer, even apologizing to jurors when he cussed while testifying about the shooting.
Still, some of his odd behavior was displayed while waiting for the jury to return. He stared at retired Covington Police Detective Charles "Bud" Vallandingham, who investigated the case, calling him names.
When his attorney tried to quiet him, McLane spoke out loud to no one in particular, demanding his right to be heard.
"I'm not going to sit here like a bump on a log," he said.
He benefited during the re-trial from the disappearance of Matthews, who could not be found to testify. Special Prosecutor John M. "Jack" Keith said without Matthews' testimony, it was difficult for jurors to get the full story of the shooting.
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The reason he was convicted was due to inadequate council, not because of rampant anti-self defense legislation. The reason he wasn't re-convicted, however, doesn't appear to be innocence, but rather the fact that the victim (the man who was
shot in the back--after being maced and verbally assaulted, testimony corroberated by witnesses) couldn't be located for the retrial. I'm reading the account of his demeanor and it doesn't substaniate what you implied--that he is just a normal citizen caught in the maw of the criminal justice system.
I'm looking through this thread and seeing a lot of disinformation. If it's not intentional, then you should re-think your position. The accused does not testify before the grand jury. The accused is not forced to take a plea bargain. People are not being locked up wholesale for reasonably defending themselves. It doesn't matter what you think of the sitation--you weren't present. The best system we have, indeed touted as the best system in the world, is a jury trial process. And reasonable is defined by what those twelve citizens think a reasonable person would do under the circumstances. If you can't live with that, don't carry and don't kill people attacking you.