One can only hope that if you are ever accused of a crime, especially one from 5 years ago, that you will be given a chance to prove your innocence before being blasted away.

Not all 14 year olds tell the truth especially when they are in trouble. Not all parents who go into a rage are justified. There are many cases of accusations (and even convictions) like this which have been found later to be untrue.

This is a pretty classic case of jury nullification where the jury ignored the law because they didn't like the result and provided their own law.

Assuming he did rape the girl (so HIS guilt isn't in question), she brought a gun (and EXTRA ammo) to their meeting, confronted him about it, unloaded a clip into him and then reloaded and continued shooting. We call this first degree murder. She planned ahead of time to kill him, and did so.

Without the reload, I'd be willing to buy an argument that she just "happened to have" a gun and got so upset about his response that she pulled the gun and shot him. That would make it a pretty easy second degree murder case.

Manslaughter is the killing of another without the intent to do so. It's not strictly an accident, but your agency wasn't designed to kill the person. If Cheney's shot had killed that dude he was hunting with, for example, we'd call it manslaughter. Nothing about this case reflects a lack of intent (or "malice aforethought") on her part. But...the juries felt bad for her so they refused to convict her of the crime she actually committed and convicted her of a lesser offense.

Count me as a vote for it being murder, and likely in the first degree. I think that the jury was WRONG to acquit her. As another poster mentioned, it is possible for the person who is doing the killing to kill the wrong person. What should have been done, is that she should have gone to the police, and got the person who allegedly raped her daughter, indicted and tried for the alleged rape. Justice is determined in a court of law, not at the end of a gun barrel.

Minor nitpick. In the US, one should not have to prove one's innocence, the person bringing the accusation should have to prove one's guilt. Burden of proof should be on the prosecutor/plaintiff, not the defendant.

No arguments with this.

I'm the parent of a young girl - and it's vengeance.

I'm not saying I might not do something similar. No one can say what they'd do under such circumstances until confronted with them.

But to coat it as something other than vengeance is just making excuses.

with the reload, its sadly more in the realm of murder- I have a daughter, and if someone confessed raping her to me, I would certainly kill him, and I think a lot of people here have said as much themselves- therefore, it tend to side with the idea that she should have gotten the manslaughter conviction, and served a little time, which is what happened- if laws reflect society, and most of the people asked what they would do would do as she did, should it be murder? the reload indicates that she was thinking about killing him, but who here would not kill that guy in those circumstances?

Reload or no, it can still be considered voluntary manslaughter. It is all based on her state of mind.

And for the record, I would not willingly kill anyone in any circumstance where there was not an immediate threat of harm. And even then, I think my killing would be unintentional, as I would not wish death upon anyone.

Then you, sir, are a better man than I. Because I promise you than the man who molests any of my children, then stands there mocking me, and threatening me, when confronted with it...will be struggling vainly, gurgling for that next breath of sweet air, until the realization hits...that he no longer can.

Is this a photo of you practicing?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/10...s/Scan0010.jpg

Can't be - BOR's ex-USAF. Don't expect him to shoot or march straight.

And as far as my kids go, I expect I'd have a similar reaction to his, although I doubt I could shoot anyone.

Even in that movie, it's just convenient and comfy feeling to ignore the fact that he was flat out guilty. Was he right? I don't know. Guilty for sure though. It's the same with this woman. Right or not, she got off very easy. I can't say I disapprove of that. In my opinion, what she did was dead wrong, but I do not think it's likely that she'll do it again. That's the point of the justice system to me, making sure that these things don't happen again. Since I seriously doubt that the girl's other uncle had been raping her (though who knows), I doubt the same circumstance could come up twice. Keeping her in prison would have just been keeping a mother away from her daughter an extra few years (though I'm not sure how old the daughter is now).

Emotional dues aside, we have police, and court systems for a reason...

-Will