{"id":3933,"date":"2007-12-03T18:19:17","date_gmt":"2007-12-04T01:39:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2007\/12\/03\/two-cases-two-fatal-shootings-what-do-you-think\/"},"modified":"2007-12-03T18:19:17","modified_gmt":"2007-12-04T01:39:05","slug":"two-cases-two-fatal-shootings-what-do-you-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=3933","title":{"rendered":"Two Cases; Two Fatal Shootings What do you think?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Case #1 Renato Hughes<\/strong><\/p>\n

A few weeks ago I heard about a case in California where a man was being charged with murder, after he and two accomplices broke into the home of a man, who subsequently shot and killed the two accomplices. Just to make it clear the home owner was the shooter not the man being charged with murder.<\/p>\n

Here’s a summary of the events surrounding this case from an AP article<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Three young black men break into a white man’s home in rural Northern California. The homeowner shoots two of them to death \u2014 but it’s the surviving black man who is charged with murder.<\/p>\n

In a case that has brought cries of racism from civil rights groups, Renato Hughes Jr., 22, was charged by prosecutors in this overwhelmingly white county under a rarely invoked legal doctrine that could make him responsible for the bloodshed.<\/p>\n

“It was pandemonium” inside the house that night, District Attorney Jon Hopkins said. Hughes was responsible for “setting the whole thing in motion by his actions and the actions of his accomplices.”<\/p>\n

Prosecutors said homeowner Shannon Edmonds opened fire Dec. 7, 2005 after three young men rampaged through the Clearlake house demanding marijuana and brutally beat his stepson. Rashad Williams, 21, and Christian Foster, 22, were shot in the back. Hughes fled.<\/p>\n

Hughes was charged with first-degree murder under California’s Provocative Act doctrine, versions of which have been on the books in many states for generations but are rarely used.<\/p>\n

The Provocative Act doctrine does not require prosecutors to prove the accused intended to kill. Instead, “they have to show that it was reasonably foreseeable that the criminal enterprise could trigger a fatal response from the homeowner,” said Brian Getz, a San Francisco defense attorney unconnected to the case.<\/p>\n

The NAACP complained that prosecutors came down too hard on Hughes, who also faces robbery, burglary and assault charges. Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty.<\/p>\n

The Rev. Amos Brown, head of the San Francisco chapter of the NAACP and pastor at Hughes’ church, said the case demonstrates the legal system is racist in remote Lake County, aspiring wine country 100 miles north of San Francisco. The sparsely populated county of 13,000 people is 91 percent white and 2 percent black.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There seems to be some contention over exactly what was happening when the two young men were shot; some have suggested they were shot “in the back,” but it is unclear if they were shot in the back while fleeing or while attacking Edmonds’ stepson. From several accounts, Hughes (who is black and Filipino<\/a>) never entered the home, but he was the get-away driver. Depending on which account you believe, the three men went to the Edmonds’ home to buy or steal marijuana (and there was marijuana in the home). The Edmonds’ might have been selling drugs, but they are claiming the marijuana was for medicinal use. What is also clear is that Edmonds’ stepson was severely injured, and is now in a rehabilitation center because he suffered a brain injury in the beating.<\/p>\n

So what do you think? Do you think the shooting was justified, or do you think that the shooter should be charged with a crime? Do you think that it is fair for Hughes to be charged with murder under the Provocation Act doctrine? My personal view is that the shooting appears to be justified, but I think the murder charge is not appropriate, especially given the fact that evidence seems to suggest that Hughes wasn’t even in the house. There was some debate about this over at field negro’s site, and Hughes got very little sympathy from most commenters.<\/a><\/p>\n

Case #2 John White<\/strong><\/p>\n

John White is a black man and a father, who is being charged with manslaughter in the death of Daniel Cicciaro. Cicciaro and 4 other teenagers came to the White home, angry at Mr. White’s teenage son. Keith Boykin<\/a> summarizes what happened before and after this confrontation:<\/p>\n

One day a black teenager goes to a party where alcohol is served and a white teenage girl asks him to leave because she feels “uncomfortable” around him. He complies and goes home, but the girl then tells a male teenager at the party that the black teen had threatened her once before in an Internet chat room. The white teen then calls the black teen on his cell phone and yells at him using the N-word. Unsatisfied, the white teen then gathers four other white teenagers and they drive to the black teen’s house.<\/p>\n

The drunk white teenagers pull up in the driveway of the house and block off the street. One of the teens is carrying an aluminum baseball bat. The black teen and his father then walk outside the house to the driveway. The father is carrying an unlicensed handgun. The black teen follows with a hunting shotgun. Words and threats are exchanged and eventually the father fires one shot into the face of the first white teenager. The white teen dies at a hospital an hour later.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Apparently, a “friend” made a fake Myspace page pretending to be White’s son Aaron<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Michael Longo, 20, told the court that he created a phony MySpace page – filled with insults and threats – and made it look like the work of Aaron White.<\/p>\n

Aaron is the son of John White, who is charged with shooting 17-year-old Daniel Cicciaro Jr. to death on his lawn in August 2006.<\/p>\n

On the bogus Web page, Longo posted messages under Aaron’s name that spewed hatred against a mutual acquaintance named Jenny Martin, he admitted on the witness stand today.<\/p>\n

Those phony messages were soon spotted by the girl. One of them, which threatened rape, particularly disturbed her. She then told Cicciaro what she thought Aaron was planning to do.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

White’s attorney claims that Mr. White viewed the young men as a “lynch mob,” and racial slurs were recorded when one of Cicciaro’s friend’s made an inadvertent cell phone call to a dispatcher. <\/a><\/p>\n

Mr. White, who by all accounts is an upstanding citizen, says he accidentally shot Cicciaro when the teen grabbed his gun. Cicciaro’s friends claim he pushed the gun away, and then White shot him<\/a>. The forensic evidence suggests that Cicciaro was shot at close range.<\/p>\n

Initially, the prosecutor’s charged Mr. White with murder, but the grand jury subsequently reduced charges to manslaughter. Prosecutors have suggested that Mr. White should have locked his doors and called 911, rather than confronting the teenagers with a handgun.<\/p>\n

So what do you think? Do you think the shooting was justified? What about the manslaughter charge: do you think it was fair? From what I can tell about the evidence presented so far, the manslaughter charge seems too harsh, and initial murder charge was way out of line with the circumstances of the case. I’m sympathetic to Mr. White, and surprisingly many comments on the Newsday links above where also sympathetic to him (I expected less sympathy since I have seen some really racist comments on that site in the past.).<\/p>\n

Similarities and Differences in the Cases<\/strong><\/p>\n

One thing I find striking about both cases is that in both cases black men were charged with crimes. In one case, the black man was part of the home invading group, and in the other case the black man was the home owner. The cases also bring up the issues related to self defense, gun rights, and over zealous prosecution.<\/p>\n

There are also differences. In the White case, the teenagers never entered the White’s home, unlike Hughes accomplices. The Hughes case seems to rest on an obscure legal principle that is not used in many states or nations, while the law used in the White case is a little more conventional.<\/p>\n

What do you think?<\/p>\n

End Note:<\/strong> Ann, let me know about a case in Texas that has some of the same dynamics; however, in this case the man shot people breaking into his neighbor’s home<\/a>. She also has a follow up post with more info<\/a>. You can go over to her site to comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Case #1 Renato Hughes A few weeks ago I heard about a case in California where a man was being charged with murder, after he and two accomplices broke into the home of a man, who subsequently shot and killed … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-the-news","category-race-racism-and-related-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3933\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}