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- Jim

Mr. White was railroaded into his unfortunate statements and he was thrown under the bus for using a gun to protect his family and "castle" in a gun loathing state

I see no evidence that he was railroaded or compelled to incriminate himself.

In any case, he made the statement; and if he's not in jail now, he probably will be soon. Maybe a better lawyer could have gotten him acquitted, but he had the lawyer that he had.

I think the same set of facts could have led to the same outcome in Texas, and not because of racism.

- Jim

duns wrote:One shouldn't form an opinion on the correctness of the verdict in this or any other case based on media reports. To have an informed opinion, one should read the actual court reports. Has anyone done that?

Of course not. I'm not going to pay for or take the time to read what might be hundreds of pages of evidence and transcripts.

The guilty verdict is a fact, whether or not it was just in the grand scheme of things. The only point that I am trying to make (as stated in my original post) is that a man who says he unintentionally shot someone incriminates himself for manslaughter.

- Jim

It's not just the prison time. Convicted felons are prohibited from so many rights and privileges, it's rare that they have any kind of future.

- Jim

I don't know if you're being sarcastic or what.

The guy talked himself into jail. He had failed to memorize

That man tried to kill me and I shot to stop him.

- Jim

Oldgringo wrote:Failed representation and racial bias leading to a mistrial kinda' jumps out at me.

If the facts that were reported are correct (always a stretch, but that's all we have to go on), the guy is guilty of manslaughter.

A mob of drunk teenagers yelling outside your house is alarming and a very real threat, but I don't know anywhere that shooting at them would be justified simply because of that.

If the homeowner had said that he feared for his life when the deceased reached into his waistband, he might be a free man today; but apparently he made that self-incriminating statement about the shooting being unintentional.

As for suing the parents of juvenile thugs, the law is unsettled about how much liability parents have for their children who are approaching age 18. On top of that, many families now have a net worth close enough to zero to make suing them futile.

- Jim

Um, it was big news in 2006 and it's big news now. A Google search for "John White manslaughter Garden City" turn up 4,430,000 hits.

BTW, speaking as a native of one, the northern big cities have a racist streak that goes clear to the bone. They just don't like to admit it.

As far as suing, I'm still not a lawyer; but my understanding is that being found guilty of a felony makes it rather difficult to file a lawsuit claiming that you were wronged. Besides, what are you going to get from a bunch of delinquent teenagers?

- Jim

I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice; but it seems to me that someone who shoots a person and then says it was unintentional is vulnerable to a slam-dunk manslaughter conviction.

A New York man demonstrated that point.

In 2006, a high-school student got involved in a cell-phone and internet feud with "classmates." (They didn't have this stuff when I was a kid.) The conflict deteriorated to the point where a group of drunk high-school students came to the home of the boy that they were feuding with. When the dust settled, the homeowner had fatally shot one assailant.

The homeowner claimed that the shooting was an accident.

He was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to 2 to 4 years in prison. Last week he lost an appeal.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/nation ... id=1256399" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

New York has a pretty solid castle doctrine, but it seems not to extend 81 feet from the walls of the home. I wouldn't be confident that Texas castle doctrine does.

- Jim