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This is what I expected the outcome to be, yet I am somewhat grieved, nonetheless.

OldSchool wrote:

PeteCamp wrote:

OldSchool wrote:

philip964 wrote:In case you would like to vote on whether the shooting was justified, excusable or criminal. You have a chance.

http://www.fox5vegas.com/news/index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Its on the right side near the top, you don't need to join or anything pretty easy, they give you the results after you cast your vote.

Sorry, I have a problem with this. Example: O. J. Simpson was cleared by a jury, by rule of law. He was, however, convicted by public opinion, driven by relentless news reporting. I continue to have a bad feeling about this as mob rule (historically the cause of lynchings).

Public "voting" on one's guilt falls into the same category. We should never (an exception to "never" say "never") suffer people to be tried in the headlines (or Internet).

Oldschool....I somewhat agree with what you are saying here. However, there is a caveat. If you watch all of the evidence presented live in the courtroom, then you are effectively in the seat of the juror. And remember that this is to be a jury of your peers - you and I are peers. If we see all the evidence, exactly as presented to the jury, then we the people do have a right to decide. Our opinion and judgement carries no official weight, but is not anywhere near what usually drove lynch mobs. Research shows mob lynchings were historically the result of either particularly heinous acts, or patently unfair verdicts. That is just not the case today with televised courtroom proceedings. We should always keep in mind that rule of law, as handed down in a courtroom, does not always represent either truth or justice.

Pete, I know that this isn't what you're saying, but I just want to clarify my thought:
If the rule of law, as displayed in the courtroom at all levels, is not respected as being the final arbitration of rules in the land, then we have a fundamental problem with society, and may God help us all. The minimizing of errors in the courtroom cannot be performed in the form of replacing the courtroom decision with that of unrestrained opinion.

Also, I disagree with the idea that anyone outside the jury box are equivalent to the jury in a particular trial. By design, a juror is not to be privy to all "facts" and speculation surrounding a case. Mob rule occurs when we feel that we are better equipped than the judge and jury to dispense justice. At that point, we are no longer a functioning, nor just, society, because we have "taken the law into our own hands."

As to television: Remember that you are never seeing an unbiased nor undistorted "fact." Television, like any other kind of remote communication, is a produced entity that reflects the point of view of the device, at best (and a commentary, at worst). Indeed, anything "seen" through a camera or microphone is, by definition, distorted from the 1st person point of view. I spent many, many years in broadcasting, always trying to minimize the distortion, but finding it always there to some degree.

Just my opinion, of course.

But it must be remembered that this is not a trial by jury - it is a coroner's inquest with a jury. There is not a prosecution and a defense, with both sides having equal access to the evidence, and each having the opportunity to present their case, call their own witnesses, and cross-examine the other side's witnesses. As I understand the format, there is only a prosecutor, presenting the information that supports his conclusions. There is a proverb which says, "The first to plead his case seems right until another comes and examines him. I have discovered the value of this wisdom by having ignored it more than once, only to discover that what seemed so reasonable according to one man's argument turned out to be a significant distortion of the truth.

It would be nice if it were possible to just "present all the facts of the incident", and let the facts speak for themselves. And if there were nothing at stake, that would, perhaps, be possible, although I suspect that there is always something at stake. In this case, however, there is very much at stake - the issue of who is responsible for Eric Scott's death. Not, "who pulled the trigger", but whose decisions and actions caused the events to unfold as they did. Ostensibly, the question is, "Were the government's agents justified in shooting Eric Scott, or not?" However, the answer to this question is predicated on Eric Scott's actions, and whether or not he did anything to justify the government's agents decision to shoot him. So, the reality must be that Eric Scott is being tried, and this without representation, without the opportunity to challenge his accusers.

So this process is not the process that is guaranteed by our Constitution, and I don't see how we can have any confidence in any conclusion that places the burden of the responsibility on Eric Scott. I don't know what he did or didn't do, but if he is responsible, I don't believe it can be satisfactorily proven in a coroner's inquest.