Posted on 05/28/2011 11:54:51 PM PDT by TigerClaws
OKLAHOMA CITY - An emotional jury decided Thursday that pharmacist Jerome Jay Ersland is guilty of first-degree murder for fatally shooting a masked robber two years ago in an Oklahoma City drugstore.
Jurors recommended life in prison as punishment.
Two co-workers at Reliable Discount Pharmacy told jurors that Ersland was a hero who saved their lives on May 19, 2009.
Read more from this Tulsa World article at http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=14&articleid=20110527_222_A15_CUTLIN912500
(Excerpt) Read more at tulsaworld.com ...
The 5 shots at issue weren’t “immediate” they followed him removing himself from danger and then returning to load a separate weapon to execute the robber with. Texas’ law covers the first shot the same as Oklahoma’s.
The code word is reasonable, not possibility.
If, by most people’s definition, something could happen, then it is permissible. However, if the Oklahoma jury thought that it was a reasonable possibility that the black man, who had taken a bullet to the head could bounce up, like they do in movies, they probably would have found the pharmacist not guilty.
Remember, there is more evidence than just the video. The jury would have also had a gander the the medical examiner’s report and other pieces of evidence.
Please show me in the video or anywhere else that the robber was incapacitated. He still could have been moving.
Looking at the linked video the robber could be bouncing on a pogo stick with his gun as he is clearly not in the picture.
According to the O.J. jury all of the lab boys were wrong about everything. Was this the same jury?
The jury sure seemed to think he was incapacitated. It is likely that in any appeal that will be a judicial fact, operate from that basis moving forward. He may have been doing all kinds of things, but the behavior of the pharmacist shows that at the least the use of other than deadly force could keep everyone safe.
According to the O.J. jury all of the lab boys were wrong about everything. Was this the same jury?
As to the evidence, YOU don’t know because YOU weren’t there. At the pharmacy or the trial. I am not defending the pharmacist, I am correcting your errors concerning the law.
Further do not presume to lecture me on what the Texas Penal Code says or means.
You are giving your knee jerk opinion based on nothing where as I have been concealed carrying since it became legal in Texas, have been to numerous classes and field training and have lived the life.
You on the other hand have no training and no clue.
I wasn’t there or at the trial. What I am saying is that nothing that I have seen on this thread or at the link has convinced me that the robber wasn’t on a pogo stick much less moving.
Before long you are going to be calling him the victim.
Call him what he is, the robber, the criminal, the instigator or possibly the scumbag not black man.
Acting like a liberal journalist is not going to help your case here.
I don’t need to explain anything to you.
However, the jury saw all the experts, saw all the evidence, and choose to convict. They had far more evidence than you or I do.
I can trust the juries judgment on this.
If the jury thought that anything was doubtful, or that the prosecutor had a weak case, they likely wouldn’t have convicted the pharmacist.
That doesn’t mean the jury was wrong. And it definitely doesn’t mean that he wouldn’t have been convicted in Texas despite a similar law. The jury likely had more information, specifically ME testimony about the likelihood of the robber being conscious in addition to the behavior of the pharmacist when he reentered the pharmacy to arrive at their verdict. There is also the issue of the defense arguing pure self defense which is a hard defense to argue in this case. He may have been on a pogo stick, but I think we can agree a pogo sticking robber isn’t a threat to your life. When he reentered, it seems very possible that he could have prevented any threat to himself and others with less than deadly force whatever condition you think the robber was in. By turning his back on him, it looks like he wasn’t training a gun or close to doing so on the pharmacist who could have held one of his guns on him until police arrived.
No. You can’t presume what I think.
It’s just good writing to not keep using the same terms repeatedly.
My position on this hasn’t changed.
I’ve served on two juries this year - a Grand Jury, and a mock trial jury. Depressing experiences. Juries are dominated by loudmouth uninformed idiots, no exceptions to the rule in my experience. That in a case such as this one, there was not one, not a SINGLE juror skeptical of the very basis of the case, may say something about the case OR about the jury.
Based on both of your posts clearly O.J. was innocent.
The jury said he was so he was.
The evidence that I saw made him look guilty but the jury said he was innocent so I guess I interpreted what I saw incorrectly.
I sure hope they catch the real killer someday.
However, the opportunity is there to say something and it is your responsibility to do so if you have reasonable doubt.
According to the facts, as presented in the news story and the video, I didn’t see anything that would cause me to doubt the juries decision.
That's fine. I just hope you actually read the link I posted and have learned something about actual gun laws. Also, if you break Texas law you will be tried in Texas by Texans so even if you have a goofy liberal interpretation of the law we don't.
No, I think the jury of OJ was wrong. I am capable of making my own decisions on that, thank you very much.
Well, you certainly are not guilty of being consistent that’s for sure.
My views are hardly liberal, but I suppose such an accusation is dependent upon to whom I am talking to.
From where I sit, you don’t get to kill people, just because you think they should get to die.
Obama does though. And you have something common with Obama, congratulations.
Thank you. I take that as a compliment.
Sorry for the above cut, didn’t mean anything by it. :( Unfortunately, you can’t edit posts once you’ve laid them down.
Perhaps you think it is entirely unreasonable for the jury to have come to the conclusion they did. I don’t think so at all. I know how I would have acted if someone who had just tried to rob was moving on the floor at all. For starters I wouldn’t take my eyes off him. Maybe to you it is reasonable to turn your back on someone you think is dangerous and wants to kill you, it isn’t to me.
The right to self defense is only to use the force necessary to protect yourself. I think that is reasonable to find that he went well beyond that in this case, did so with malice aforethought and murdered someone. The jury took all the evidence available to them, considered the defenses given (again if you are mad at someone, be mad at the defense attorneys) and found that what he did constituted murder 1. It was not self defense even if that is what you saw. Had you sat through the trial you may have thought so as well.
Why do you think their decision was unreasonable? Not why you wouldn’t reach the same decision, but why no reasonable person could reach the one they did.
I am being consistent.
I’m just not being simplistic.
I do believe in defending one’s home, even if it means taking somebody out to do it, but that doesn’t give one the right to take somebody out if they are no longer in position to harm you.
That is a consistent position.
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