Culpeper shooting

glockfan said:

I wonder is it possible for anyone to say in this forum that he was guilty and got probably less prison time than he deserved.

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I can say his actions led to the unnecessary death of another human being.

I do know the scientific testimony was that his skin was found on the top door jamb, where expected if his hand was caught in the window.

My question is, why didn't he remove his arm when she started rolling up the manually-operated window. I played that game as a kid, even power windows are slow enough to get your hand out of the way.

To my knowledge, neither the press reports nor testimony included a statement to the effect that she grabbed and trapped his arm inside to hold it there until she got the window up where it could hold him. To my knowledge, neither the press reports nor testimony included a statement that he was hung up on a seat belt or anything else while she rolled up the window on his arm.

I conclude he could have gotten his arm out of the way. I conclude he tried to grab something inside (testimony said keys, I think), which would still give time to get out of the way once he realized the manually operated window was being raised. Or, he tried grabbing her, by the hair perhaps? And, tried holding on while the window was raised.

I suspect he was enforcing his sense of "you will do what I tell you because I am the law". Or, maybe it didn't occur to him that she was so scared she might try to drive off.

I am convinced he kept his arm inside that vehicle past the point it was obvious the manually-operated window was being raised. He helped create the exigency. He could have just stepped back and written down the license plate number, or gotten in his cruiser to follow her.

skidmark said:

Why do you feel it necessary/appropriate to bring it up this late in the game?

stay safe.

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Citizen wrote, "He could have just stepped back and written down the license plate number, or gotten in his cruiser to follow her"

That's it.

glockfan said:

Citizen wrote, "He could have just stepped back and written down the license plate number, or gotten in his cruiser to follow her"

That's it.

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Please explain to me why you and Citizen (so far) feel a necessity to continue what-if-ing and he-could-have-ing a case that has been settled?

I could easily understand a general discussion along the lines of "rogue cops need to learn that there alternatives to __" but we all know that Harmon did not __ and that he will never be a cop again so has no chance to apply anything he might have learned about using alternatives to firing his handgun.

As it regards Harmon, it is a dead horse. Leave it be.

stay safe.

skidmark said:

Why do you feel it necessary/appropriate to bring it up this late in the game?
stay safe.

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glockfan said:

Citizen wrote, "He could have just stepped back and written down the license plate number, or gotten in his cruiser to follow her"

That's it.

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skidmark said:

Please explain to me why you and Citizen (so far) feel a necessity to continue what-if-ing and he-could-have-ing a case that has been settled?

I could easily understand a general discussion along the lines of "rogue cops need to learn that there alternatives to __" but we all know that Harmon did not __ and that he will never be a cop again so has no chance to apply anything he might have learned about using alternatives to firing his handgun.

As it regards Harmon, it is a dead horse. Leave it be.

stay safe.

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To all - please do not respond. Let that horse/issue rest where it fell.

Citizen said:

I can say his actions led to the unnecessary death of another human being.

I do know the scientific testimony was that his skin was found on the top door jamb, where expected if his hand was caught in the window.

My question is, why didn't he remove his arm when she started rolling up the manually-operated window. I played that game as a kid, even power windows are slow enough to get your hand out of the way.

To my knowledge, neither the press reports nor testimony included a statement to the effect that she grabbed and trapped his arm inside to hold it there until she got the window up where it could hold him. To my knowledge, neither the press reports nor testimony included a statement that he was hung up on a seat belt or anything else while she rolled up the window on his arm.

I conclude he could have gotten his arm out of the way. I conclude he tried to grab something inside (testimony said keys, I think), which would still give time to get out of the way once he realized the manually operated window was being raised. Or, he tried grabbing her, by the hair perhaps? And, tried holding on while the window was raised.

I suspect he was enforcing his sense of "you will do what I tell you because I am the law". Or, maybe it didn't occur to him that she was so scared she might try to drive off.

I am convinced he kept his arm inside that vehicle past the point it was obvious the manually-operated window was being raised. He helped create the exigency. He could have just stepped back and written down the license plate number, or gotten in his cruiser to follow her.

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He had a heavy coat on at the time, and he was able to pull his arm out, mostly. But she was keeping the pressure on the window crank and caught his hand just above the knuckles in the window frame. Then she hit the gas. But you know, this is sort of a tangential issue. The trial was about the five shots he put in the back of the vehicle after he'd gotten free. And what was significant in that was that, having been detained for a misdemeanor, escaping by means of force, assaulting a police officer, and committing five other felonies in the cop's immediate presence, she turned onto a residential street and was accelerating towards the busiest part of downtown Culpeper on the wrong side of the street and with her vision completely obscured by the sunscreen. The Commonwealth's evidence clearly demonstrated that there were hundreds of people down there at about ten a.m. on a weekday morning, and I can just picture some young mother with a stroller and a couple of kids in tow attempting to cross the street at a crosswalk and getting mowed down by this nut-case bent on destruction.

glockfan said:

Citizen wrote, "He could have just stepped back and written down the license plate number, or gotten in his cruiser to follow her"

That's it.

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He could have done that. He felt the fleeing felon, who'd just used her vehicle as a weapon against him, represented an immediate danger to the public and made the snap-decision to stop her. Because of his quick action, the only people hurt were the decedent and himself. But you're right, a person who cared more about his own political future, would have let the woman mow down pedestrians that were likely to have been down the street. This guy is the sort of romantic idealist whose only thought at the time was serving the public. He's a lot smarter and less naive now. Good guys who join the police force in order to right wrongs and correct injustices get ground up in the system, and they either learn how to get along in a corrupt system or quit, and that's from my uncle, the former Chief of the Alexandria PD (who, after having become chief, actually did some good, but not without a heavy dose of pragmatism).

(Whip that horse!)

By the way...

It was reported earlier that an anonymous and nonspecific complaint was made to the Virginia State Bar about my having posted messages on this website regarding this case. The complaint consisted solely of a newspaper clipping with the headline, "Harmon-Wright Defense Attorney Blogs Profusely". The headline was dead wrong, and much of the article misleading, but the VSB took it seriously, although contrary to their policy of not considering anonymous complaints and of not considering complaints lodged during ongoing litigation.

In some respects it was pretty funny, since the folks behind the prosecution had been broadcasting all sorts of nonsense about my client in every medium imaginable. I did a motion for change of venue, citing millions and millions of "hits" on Google for a couple of searches involving Harmon-Wright. One thing that was odd about that was that the "secret" grand jury testimony and evidence was being broadcast while the grand jury was still in process, usually a day or two after presentation. So the suggestion that what I was doing by participating in OCDO was going to taint the jury pool was absurd.

Ok, so their investigation took about three years, but it's finally over. The VSB referred it to the local disciplinary committee which evaluated the complaint and not only found that there was nothing that met the "clear and convincing evidence" standard that applies to attorney discipline, but that I had specifically not violated any rule. No question in my mind that the reason for the complaint was that I was being effective as Harmon-Wright's attorney and someone wanted to screw that up for political reasons.

user said:

It was reported earlier that an anonymous and nonspecific complaint was made to the Virginia State Bar about my having posted messages on this website regarding this case. The complaint consisted solely of a newspaper clipping with the headline, "Harmon-Wright Defense Attorney Blogs Profusely". The headline was dead wrong, and much of the article misleading, but the VSB took it seriously, although contrary to their policy of not considering anonymous complaints and of not considering complaints lodged during ongoing litigation.

In some respects it was pretty funny, since the folks behind the prosecution had been broadcasting all sorts of nonsense about my client in every medium imaginable. I did a motion for change of venue, citing millions and millions of "hits" on Google for a couple of searches involving Harmon-Wright. One thing that was odd about that was that the "secret" grand jury testimony and evidence was being broadcast while the grand jury was still in process, usually a day or two after presentation. So the suggestion that what I was doing by participating in OCDO was going to taint the jury pool was absurd.

Ok, so their investigation took about three years, but it's finally over. The VSB referred it to the local disciplinary committee which evaluated the complaint and not only found that there was nothing that met the "clear and convincing evidence" standard that applies to attorney discipline, but that I had specifically not violated any rule. No question in my mind that the reason for the complaint was that I was being effective as Harmon-Wright's attorney and someone wanted to screw that up for political reasons.

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To that I add my hearty congratulations.

user said:

And what was significant in that was that, having been detained for a misdemeanor, escaping by means of force, assaulting a police officer, and committing five other felonies in the cop's immediate presence, she turned onto a residential street and was accelerating towards the busiest part of downtown Culpeper on the wrong side of the street and with her vision completely obscured by the sunscreen. The Commonwealth's evidence clearly demonstrated that there were hundreds of people down there at about ten a.m. on a weekday morning, and I can just picture some young mother with a stroller and a couple of kids in tow attempting to cross the street at a crosswalk and getting mowed down by this nut-case bent on destruction.

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And that's why your client was convicted: his only defense was an emotional one (not to mention stretching and question-begging).

Grapeshot said:

To that I add my hearty congratulations.

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+1. That was bogus from the get-go.

Maverick9 said:

He allegedly didn't turn his flashers on either, leading one to believe that he was not detaining the 'suspect'. She was legally within her rights to drive away, and some might agree had reason to fear this out of control LEO who had been reprimanded for not being truthful.

Culpeper and the Staties wanted to flush this one, but public opinion and a GJ had other ideas. Gotta wonder why they were standing behind this very suspicious shooting with a brush dipped in white-wash. Knee-jerk thin blue-lining?

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Error on most all points. Flashers have nothing whatsoever to do with detention; flashers are an emergency warning signal only. Cop stops you on the street, you're "detained". If you're being detained because you committed a misdemeanor (as in this case), you are not "free to leave", and doing so constitutes a separate crime. She really only had "reason to fear" after he fired a couple of shots through the glass, both of which struck her, in order to free himself from the car after she'd hit the gas with his hand trapped in the window frame. And he wasn't reprimanded for not having been truthful, but for having used improper procedures in "clearing" a house while attempting to apprehend a suspect who lived in the house, not that she'd have had any reason for knowing about that. And all of this disregards the fact (which at the time, the officer didn't know about either) that the woman had been "stalking" the children at that school for several weeks (using the term as applied by one of the kids), or that the school management had called him to the scene because the woman was "creeping out" the staff and had refused to leave when ordered to do so.

And finally, the main instigator of the prosecution was apparently within the Culpeper PD; not only did they not try to cover anything up, I believe (based on comments made to me by "official sources" who'd deny they'd said anything if asked) some people in the Culpeper PD went on a propaganda campaign to smear him in the press and were responsible for "leaking" secret grand jury testimony. I believe that the "public opinion" you cite was a creation of the local press and local law enforcement. Sort of reminds me of "The Song of the Bandar Log" (monkey people) from Kipling's "Jungle Book": "We all say it, it must be true!"

Fuller Malarkey said:

I have little doubt you understand that dash cams are often designed to activate when the police car roof light bar is activated. If you didn't know that, now you do. I have little doubt the "flasher" reference was in fact a reference to the roof top light bar.

As far as "heretofore unposted/undisclosed new information", my post informing of this latest development [Murder conviction appeal denied considered a dead horse????] was posted five days ago and updated three days ago. Christmas was yesterday. Some may not have had the opportunity to view and comment on these new developments.

And to those who feel Patricia Cook has not received justice, appeals and denials and any other development is all part of a very much alive horse. If Dan Hawes considered this "a dead horse" why would the conviction appeal be pursued? Maybe billing purposes?

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There really was no question about the facts of the shooting, and no "dash-cam" would have made any real difference.
Btw, I'm court-appointed. I got a quarter of my fee for the trial, was appointed by the court immediately thereafter, and have received nothing since that time.

Fuller Malarkey said:

That's a very good question. You may have brought to light something far more significant that was overlooked by others here at the time of conviction. Jury Nullification. Maybe not by intent, however, the end result might have some roots in JN.

Personally, I think the jury leaned more towards the latter in their decision. The BS story just didn't fly. Not to say they didn't engage in what an observer might consider Jury Nullification.

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One of the bases for the appeal is that the jury did not receive correct instructions. They clearly had the idea (based on their individual testimony when grilled about having brought outside reference materials into the jury room) that their choice was between "malicious" and "unlawful"; "not-guilty" was not an option. And they got no instruction that clarified the law as to what was or was not "unlawful" in the context of this case.

Citizen said:

Phfffft. Yeah, that's why victim impact statements are becoming more common--because they get their justice from the civil court system. Suuuure. /sarcasm

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Hogwash. A crime is an offense against the dignity of the state. The style of the case tells it all, "Commonwealth of Virginia v. Joe Defendant". In this particular instance, there was a civil suit filed against the officer seeking "justice for Mrs. Cook", or her estate at least, and her brother accepted a monetary settlement to have the case dismissed. Two separate proceedings with different standards of procedure, different rules of evidence, and different burdens of proof. You can be civilly liable for something without having committed any crime. For example, you could be sued for trespass because you habitually walk across a neighbor's yard. It's only a crime if there are signs posted or the neighbor's told you to quit it. But he can sue for trespass without those things. It's only an offense against the dignity of the sovereign if you did it contrary to the signage and/or instructions. The drive to turn every criminal prosecution into "seeking justice for the victim" is merely a way to water down the protection available to every citizen to be free of baseless criminal charges by making it easier to get convictions where the defendant isn't necessarily guilty of whatever it says he did in the warrant or indictment.

Citizen said:

This line in the linked DailyProgress article caught my attention:

"Harmon-Wright received a three-year sentence for manslaughter in Cook's death, and his appeal in the criminal case was recently denied. On the stand last January in circuit court, he defended his actions, claiming he was acting in self-defense when he shot Cook five times because she had rolled up her vehicle's window on his arm and hand, trapping him." (red emphasis added by Citizen)

This was new to me. Did I miss something earlier, or has this not yet been reported on the forum?

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You didn't miss anything. They made all that crap up. He did, in fact, receive three twelve-month sentences, and his petitions for permission to appeal in the Virginia courts have been denied. These were not decisions on the merits, just decisions about whether or not to even consider the case. Whoever wrote that stuff should go back to ninth-grade English class.

I apologize for the redundancies - in attempting to "catch up", I sometimes respond to the same observations more than once.

marshaul said:

And that's why your client was convicted: his only defense was an emotional one (not to mention stretching and question-begging)...

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Actually, I think it's the other way around - all the frenzy on behalf of poor Mrs. Cook has been emotional. I think that if the law had been applied in a rational way, there's no way he could have been convicted. I sometimes forget that when the humans start doing stuff, it's mostly guided by emotional responses. That's probably my biggest failing as an attorney. For example, it only recently occurred to me that a big reason for things having happened the way they did was that this was an instance of a man who killed a woman. Human brains are hard-wired with the idea that the expendable man's job is to make war on the neighboring tribe and go out and kill large and dangerous beasts for food in order to promote reproductive capacity. So a key imperative is protection of the child-bearing and nurturing women of the tribe, who are not expendable. For a man to kill a woman is a violation of that instinctive imperative. I said at the time, and will repeat, that if the decedent had been a 19-year-old black man driving a beat-up Corolla with an ounce of weed in his pocket, this case would never have come to trial. Emotional basis? You betcha. It's those damn' humans.

Oh, and one other thing - this case wasn't about facts, it was about law. There was no dispute as to the relevant facts at all. It was really for the two shots that killed the woman that he was tried, and his hand was free by that time (the only real dispute in the evidence was the contradictions in the Commonwealth's case about whether or not the officer's hand had actually been trapped in the window frame - they actually produced three different stories about that, though none of it really mattered).

user said:

Hogwash. A crime is an offense against the dignity of the state. The style of the case tells it all, "Commonwealth of Virginia v. Joe Defendant". In this particular instance, there was a civil suit filed against the officer seeking "justice for Mrs. Cook", or her estate at least, and her brother accepted a monetary settlement to have the case dismissed. Two separate proceedings with different standards of procedure, different rules of evidence, and different burdens of proof. You can be civilly liable for something without having committed any crime. For example, you could be sued for trespass because you habitually walk across a neighbor's yard. It's only a crime if there are signs posted or the neighbor's told you to quit it. But he can sue for trespass without those things. It's only an offense against the dignity of the sovereign if you did it contrary to the signage and/or instructions. The drive to turn every criminal prosecution into "seeking justice for the victim" is merely a way to water down the protection available to every citizen to be free of baseless criminal charges by making it easier to get convictions where the defendant isn't necessarily guilty of whatever it says he did in the warrant or indictment.

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Waay too many people make statements based on their "common knowledge."

Several requirements for that. The first being that the knowledge is in fact factual, not just common AND contributes to a better understanding.

We thank you for your patience in educating us.

Since we seem to be continuing to beat this horse that's nailed to his perch, may I offer a thought.

Would it be fair to say that if a party (the other side) could show, or if the defense could not show how a seemingly impossible action could have taken place that it would tend to impeach Harmon-Wright's entire account of the event?

I wonder if the jury was taken to the parking lot and Mr HW was allowed to reenact the events in near real time. Show how he did each action. How he pulled up, where her car was, how he confronted her at the driver's side window, how he got his hand caught (with a person in the drivers' seat rolling up the window with gusto, for example), and how he deployed the firearm on his right hip at, oh, 4:00 with his left hand?

Don't most LE suggest that the officer reach into the car with their LEFT hand to avoid being prevented from drawing if needed?

We can't seem to get anyone to say what happened. I don't suggest that User do it, because the case is on-going, though he's discussed quite a bit here.

Further is there a chance that the entire recounting and testimony could be released some day?

user said:

I said at the time, and will repeat, that if the decedent had been a 19-year-old black man driving a beat-up Corolla with an ounce of weed in his pocket, this case would never have come to trial.

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Right. Because it's totally justified to shoot people so long as they're black and are committing at least one malum prohibitum offense.

Do you really not see how you shoot your own arguments in the foot? I used to think you were just being a good attorney for a client with an unwinnable case, but...

user said:

Oh, and one other thing - this case wasn't about facts, it was about law.

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Fair enough. In which case, since the proffered defense was fundamentally precedential (common law), you've been informed by a jury exactly how mistaken your understanding of the common law is.

You don't get to declare what the common law is any more than government does. That's wholly up to juries. And, thankfully, juries don't believe cops should be as trigger happy as you apparently do.

With that in mind, I'd like to opine that the only thing which makes questioning the verdict of a jury any less "contempt of court" than questioning the judgements of a costumed agent of the state, is precisely the lack of that costumed agent taking personal offense.

Something about respect demanded where not earned and hypocritically not granted in reciprocation...

user said:

I think that if the law had been applied in a rational way, there's no way he could have been convicted.

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Very true.