[Jetset]

(09-25-2018 08:08 PM)Repo Wrote:  

I read from several online comment chains that for this kind of case they usually start with a lighter charge because it's easier to upgrade the charge to something more serious as evidence comes out, but if they start with a heavier charge and the evidence doesnt fully support it, it's harder to downgrade the charge and theres a bigger chance of her walking. Havent had time to vet this, but maybe someone here can shed light.

It'll be up to the grand jury to get it right, guided by the prosecutor.

Look up Dante Servin and Anita Alvarez if you want to be amazed.

Servin was a Chicago police officer who, annoyed by the noise from a party in a public park, fired multiple shots into a crowd, killing an African-American woman. Witnesses said he was obviously drunk, and he claimed he thought somebody in the crowd had a gun.

Alvarez was an overtly pro-police prosecutor. At one point, she famously claimed that newly-available DNA evidence did not clear a wrongly convicted rapist, because it was impossible to prove that the DNA had not been left by a necrophiliac who had raped the victim's dead body again later.

(Will pause to let you read that twice.)

Under public pressure, she charged Servin with manslaughter.

Servin's charge was thrown out by the judge. Servin had clearly fired on the crowd intentionally. His firearm had not been discharged recklessly. It would be impossible to prove manslaughter. The correct charge, according to the judge, would be first degree murder.

Due to double jeopardy protections, the prosecution had one shot. Servin had been given a fair trial on this set of facts, and the prosecution lost. He could not be retried and so walked free of shooting somebody dead on a technicality.

To this day, many in Chicago believe Alvarez threw the trial on purpose.

Texas law does appear to be written the same way: Guyger knowingly and intentionally drew her pistol, aimed it, and discharged it into a human body. Those facts, by my reading and the commentary of a bunch of Dallas lawyers in the news, clearly support an underlying charge of murder, not manslaughter, regardless of any possible defense. Will be interesting to see what happens if they stick with manslaughter.