Guy shoots 2 home intruders dead. 3rd robber gets homicide

[lawrnk]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071116/ap_ ... F29sRH2ocA



Wow, this is something really new to me. Race card gets played in 3, 2, 1

[WarHawk-AVG]

DOINK!!

http://www.texasshooting.com/TexasCHL_F ... hp?t=11446

[Xander]

DOINK!!

http://www.texasshooting.com/TexasCHL_F ... hp?t=11446

You do realize these are two completely different stories, no?

[WarHawk-AVG]

fine...where is the DOH smiley

Can I get a do over??

Oh..by the way in the story:

"Only God knows what happened in that house," she said. "But this I know: My son did not murder his childhood friends."

No but his actions lead to the death of them...by forcing the attacked to defend his life with deadly force

Chuck that law at alot more people and crime will come to a screeching halt!

[Xander]

Oh..by the way in the story:

"Only God knows what happened in that house," she said. "But this I know: My son did not murder his childhood friends."

No but his actions lead to the death of them...by forcing the attacked to defend his life with deadly force

Yep, I agree.

Chuck that law at alot more people and crime will come to a screeching halt!

I'm not sure about that. Longer sentencing doesn't seem to be a deterrent very often. What it *would* do however, would be to keep some of these folks off of the streets for a lot longer, which wouldn't be a bad thing.

[Kalrog]

Now that is an interesting way to play it. I can't say that I disaprove...

[NcongruNt]

What a sad display of ignorance. This poor guy and his family are attacked violently in the middle of the night by these 3 criminals. His son is beaten nearly to death and is left a vegetable (which the surviving guy played a part in), and this Rev. Amos Brown has the gall to say that the victims had no right to defend themselves? The DA decides to fully prosecute the surviving thug to the fullest extent, and suddenly it's a racial issue? I don't care what his race is, he is fully deserving of that. Had the homeowner been able to more quickly access his firearm, quite possibly all 3 of them might be dead, and he would have been fully justified in his actions. I doubt anyone would have been playing the race card then. A DA trying to bring the fullest justice possible in these circumstances is not a racial issue to me, and it's sad to see people trying to make it one.

My heart goes out to the victims of this crime and the fact that they are stuck in the middle of this nonsense while enduring such trauma sickens me. Hopefully they can start to put it behind them soon.

Here's the article for easy reference:

LAKEPORT, Calif. - Three young black men break into a white man's home in rural Northern California. The homeowner shoots two of them to death — but it's the surviving black man who is charged with murder.

In a case that has brought cries of racism from civil rights groups, Renato Hughes Jr., 22, was charged by prosecutors in this overwhelmingly white county under a rarely invoked legal doctrine that could make him responsible for the bloodshed.

"It was pandemonium" inside the house that night, District Attorney Jon Hopkins said. Hughes was responsible for "setting the whole thing in motion by his actions and the actions of his accomplices."

Prosecutors said homeowner Shannon Edmonds opened fire Dec. 7 after three young men rampaged through the Clearlake house demanding marijuana and brutally beat his stepson. Rashad Williams, 21, and Christian Foster, 22, were shot in the back. Hughes fled.

Hughes was charged with first-degree murder under California's Provocative Act doctrine, versions of which have been on the books in many states for generations but are rarely used.

The Provocative Act doctrine does not require prosecutors to prove the accused intended to kill. Instead, "they have to show that it was reasonably foreseeable that the criminal enterprise could trigger a fatal response from the homeowner," said Brian Getz, a San Francisco defense attorney unconnected to the case.

The NAACP complained that prosecutors came down too hard on Hughes, who also faces robbery, burglary and assault charges. Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty.

The Rev. Amos Brown, head of the San Francisco chapter of the NAACP and pastor at Hughes' church, said the case demonstrates the legal system is racist in remote Lake County, aspiring wine country 100 miles north of San Francisco. The sparsely populated county of 13,000 people is 91 percent white and 2 percent black.

Brown and other NAACP officials are asking why the homeowner is walking free. Tests showed Edmonds had marijuana and prescription medication in his system the night of the shooting. Edmonds had a prescription for both the pot and the medication to treat depression.

"This man had no business killing these boys," Brown said. "They were shot in the back. They had fled."

On Thursday, a judge granted a defense motion for a change of venue. The defense had argued that he would not be able to get a fair trial because of extensive local media coverage and the unlikelihood that Hughes could get a jury of his peers in the county. A new location for the trial will be selected Dec. 14.

The district attorney said that race played no part in the charges against Hughes and that the homeowner was spared prosecution because of evidence he was defending himself and his family, who were asleep when the assailants barged in at 4 a.m.

Edmonds' stepson, Dale Lafferty, suffered brain damage from the baseball bat beating he took during the melee. The 19-year-old lives in a rehabilitation center and can no longer feed himself.

"I didn't do anything wrong. All I did was defend my family and my children's lives," said Edmonds, 33. "I'm sad the kids are dead, I didn't mean to kill them."

He added: "Race has nothing to do with it other than this was a gang of black people who thought they were going to beat up this white family."

California's Provocative Act doctrine has primarily been used to charge people whose actions led to shooting deaths.

However, in one notable case in Southern California in 1999, a man who robbed a family at gunpoint in their home was convicted of murder because a police officer pursuing him in a car chase slammed into another driver in an intersection, killing her.

Hughes' mother, San Francisco schoolteacher Judy Hughes, said she believes the group didn't intend to rob the family, just buy marijuana. She called the case against her son a "legal lynching."

"Only God knows what happened in that house," she said. "But this I know: My son did not murder his childhood friends."

[frankie_the_yankee]

Brown and other NAACP officials are asking why the homeowner is walking free.

Ah, maybe because he and his family was brutally attacked in their own home, and the homeowner acted in lawful self defense?

I wonder what Brown would do if 3 people forced their way into his home and attacked him and his family?

[THE ENGINEER]

Stories like this really burn me up. If someone illegally enters a home, business, vehicle, etc and something bad happens to them in the process, no one should ever be liable but themselves. The message should be clear and simple. Stay the hell out of other people's homes and leave their property and families alone!

[Skiprr]

Hughes' mother, San Francisco schoolteacher Judy Hughes, said she believes the group didn't intend to rob the family, just buy marijuana.

Ah hah! Now it makes sense. That explains why the three young men broke into the home armed with baseball bats, and had no compunction about beating the stepson into a permanent vegetative state until the homeowner finally retrieved his gun. They were just three, friendly, innocent ner' do wells hoping to score a couple of joints.

[KBCraig]

Brown and other NAACP officials are asking why the homeowner is walking free.

I wonder what Brown would do if 3 people forced their way into his home and attacked him and his family?

Call a press conference, of course.

[KD5NRH]

Ah hah! Now it makes sense. That explains why the three young men broke into the home armed with baseball bats, and had no compunction about beating the stepson into a permanent vegetative state until the homeowner finally retrieved his gun.

Yeah, I've thought about trying this shopping technique to see if it gets faster service at Whataburger, but everybody there seems to already be in a permanent vegetative state.