re: #420 Targetpractice

All the more reason to revise the laws or to strike them. Not say that, despite a defendant not breaking the law, he should be convicted anyway because we simply don’t like the actions he took.

Stolid, unimaginative, mechanical and doctrinaire. His prior actions provide context. Blithely waiving off his calling Martin a suspect, asshole, and punk or coon as not intrinsically illegal actions in and of themselves doesn’t negate that context. Those actions cast his story of how the confrontation went down in a light that isn’t conducive to credulous acceptance. He didn’t just knowingly walk into danger, he eagerly sought it out while labeling Martin with expletives, even going so far as to ignore advice to abandon his pursuit.

I have no idea why none of this enters into whatever mental calculous you use to arrive at reasonable doubt, except that you simply don’t want it to.