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CA Drops Murder Charge Because Shooter Might Have Acted in Self Defense

2a4all

Regular Member
Joined
Jul 1, 2008
Messages
1,846
Location
Newport News, Virginia, USA
I thought this story was quite interesting.

HAMPTON — The Hampton Commonwealth's Attorney's Office on Monday dropped all charges in a 4-year-old pending murder case.
Louis H. Haynesworth, 33, formerly of Lassiter Drive, had faced murder and gun charges in the July 2007 death of Rodann Lee Ford, 30, of Kecoughtan Road.
The move to drop the charges came less than three weeks after Judge Wilford Taylor Jr. declared a mistrial just before trial.
Taylor called the mistrial on Aug. 24 after several jurors were removed from a jury pool for saying they wouldn't have sympathy for a drug dealer — such as Ford — killed in the course of dealing. Several raised their hands to the question that such a drug dealer "got what he deserved."

http://www.dailypress.com/news/hampton/dp-nws-murder-case-dropped-0913-20110912,0,3611304.story
 

TFred

Regular Member
Joined
Oct 13, 2008
Messages
7,750
Location
Most historic town in, Virginia, USA
If I recall correctly, it seems we have discussed here before that eligibility for "self-defense" goes away if you are committing a crime.

This would seem to get fairly close to that line from the newspaper account, that the deceased approached the guy who was a known drug-dealer, to essentially somewhat forcefully ask him to expand his product line. (An offer he can't refuse?)

Seems to me that it could have gone either way.

TFred
 

jnojr

Regular Member
Joined
Feb 11, 2010
Messages
42
Location
Reston, VA
I was reading "CA" as "California", and thought WTF? The state of CA would go ahead and charge murder probably even if it was clear-cut self-defense!
 
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