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6 comments

1 Bass Reeves  Apr 21, 2015 11:34:11am

I’d enjoy one of the law people to speak up on this one. It seems like the judge was saying that the state doesn’t recognize you accidentally killing someone with a firearm, but that feels wrong.

2 ThomasLite  Apr 21, 2015 1:17:46pm
(720 ILCS 5/9-3) (from Ch. 38, par. 9-3)
Sec. 9-3. Involuntary Manslaughter and Reckless Homicide.
(a) A person who unintentionally kills an individual without lawful justification commits involuntary manslaughter if his acts whether lawful or unlawful which cause the death are such as are likely to cause death or great bodily harm to some individual, and he performs them recklessly, except in cases in which the cause of the death consists of the driving of a motor vehicle or operating a snowmobile, all-terrain vehicle, or watercraft, in which case the person commits reckless homicide. A person commits reckless homicide if he or she unintentionally kills an individual while driving a vehicle and using an incline in a roadway, such as a railroad crossing, bridge approach, or hill, to cause the vehicle to become airborne.

Illinois courts have consistently held that anytime an individual points a gun at an intended victim and shoots, it is an intentional act, not a reckless one.

Bluntly put: statute was poorly phrased (at least for something that can either be pled down to or be charged as a lesser offense).
Looks legit, mostly. fortunately also very fixable.
However, as it stands an acquittal seems the correct outcome. Unfortunately.
Could be that a court of appeals will find a way to argue around this, but the plain interpretation is solid.

3 Bass Reeves  Apr 21, 2015 2:47:43pm

re: #2 ThomasLite

So therein lies my confusion. The shooter intended to shoot a different person than the person he killed. So he intentionally pointed the gun at person A, kills person B, whatever Illinois courts have consistently held doesn’t seem to fit.

4 Aunty Entity Dragon  Apr 21, 2015 4:36:30pm

Then there is no such thing as a reckless shooting in Chicago.

5 BadExampleMan  Apr 21, 2015 11:44:51pm

I haven’t seen anyone yet say the obvious: it’s Chicago. It was a bench trial. The fix was in.

6 ThomasLite  Apr 22, 2015 1:13:36pm

re: #3 Bass Reeves

So therein lies my confusion. The shooter intended to shoot a different person than the person he killed. So he intentionally pointed the gun at person A, kills person B, whatever Illinois courts have consistently held doesn’t seem to fit.

I see your point. However, keep in mind the article hardly gives an exhaustive review of the precise language in relevant case law; I would guess someone here took some liberties with the phrasing, if only to make the article flow more smoothly.

I really don’t have the time to do more thorough research on this (sorry!) but I strongly suspect a rule that seeks to hold anyone who starts shooting at someone in public guilty of murder, rather than a lesser charge, would be intended to apply equally if you hit the wrong target.
In fact, keep in mind that often (here in the Netherlands, but AFAIK in quite a few US states as well) the law simply infers explicit intent (and thus tends towards a murder conviction!) when you shoot at an intended target and hit a child in the house behind him through a wall or window, for example.
Intent, in criminal law, is absolutely a broader concept than just the literal “I now explicitly want to do this”. Quite a few things a layperson would be inclined to call reckless, rather than intentional, are deemed intentional for such purposes.

Additionally (and this is a strong indication the legal footing seems to be solid) the NAACP comments on the mentality that motivates the shooting, but doesn’t claim the legal reasoning is unsound. I can’t imagine they would let a shaky ruling in such a contentious case go by without raising at least some protest at that.

Again, this is prosecutorial incompetence in charging the wrong statute. If anything is fishy here, I would take a long, hard look at the decision-making process that led the DA to file these charges instead of murder.
I can not imagine that a rule like this (automatically inferring intent from such an act) would not be known (or at least be obscure) in any sizable DA’s office.
If anything fishy is going on, it’s that. On the other hand, this is not out of line with some stories of incompetence regularly heard of prosecutors around these parts (and I’m not even anywhere near criminal law, professionally).

I will leave BadExampleMan’s statement alone to avoid getting drawn into (another) debate on the folly of jury trials in any situation.
(though seriously, do you think the average American jury is less racially/pro-cop biased than the average American judge? Not the impression I get nowadays.)


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