Hypothetical ... Would you vote to convict?

[TXlib]

Imagine you're sitting on a jury.

You're hearing a homicide case.

A man and his wife and kids were driving in their minivan, and get sideswiped as they go through an intersection; they had the right of way.

The children are badly injured. While the wife is tending to them, the husband calls 911 to request an ambulance, and checks the other driver, as well.

He discovers the other driver is stinking drunk. He flies into a rage, and beats the drunk to death with his bare hands. The drunk was so incapacitated (from alcohol; he was relatively uninjured in the collision) he stood no chance of defending himself.

At trial, the man's actions are described by the defence lawyer as those of a father who thought his kids could die, and discovered that some damn drunk was the cause of it, and flew into an uncontrollable rage.

Assume the victim (the dead drunk) was a 23 year old unmarried guy. Would you vote to convict or acquit?

What if the victim was a 35 year old married man with two small kids at home? Would you feel differently?

Would the family circumstances of the victim matter at all to you?

[whathappened]

1. it would be a tuff call

i would have checked my family and then checked to see if the other driver was ok and then went back to assist wife with my family if the other driver was ok , other then being drunk , to kill this man out of rage is no better then the drunk who mite have killed , but it is'nt my call

[toddzilla]

3. hmm

it would be a tough call, but i'd probably convict regardless.

i think sentencing in these cases is more important. I saw some movie a long time ago about a guy who was drunk driving and killed someone. His sentence was to write a check for a dollar to the family of the person he killed on a regular interval. i'm not sure if it was the person's birthday or what, but i thought that pretty fitting.

[SOteric]

2. I think

society devolves into madness and chaos when you allow some segment of the population to believe their is a righteous reason to murder. I understand the rage. I would be inclined to go easy on a person so motivated. In a functioning society rage cannot be 'uncontrollable.'

I think it wrong to murder. The rage of the father in this scenario is not substantially different than the drunkeness of the driver; both are impaired. But both must be responsible for the consequence of their actions.

[Cappurr]

4. Convict for what?

There are degrees of homicide.....all the way from murder one to negligent manslaughter. I personally would convict for manslaughter (not negligent but intentional). I wouldn't convict for murder.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

5. YOu beat me to it

but yes I would definitely convict for manslaughter

[TXlib]

7. I would imagine

a DA would likely be aiming for manslaughter rather than homicide in such a situation, fearing too much jury sympathy for the defendant.

[fedupwithbush]

6. Manslaughter, maybe.

We've talked about just this scenario. My husband is a musician. Many times we have driven after 2:30 or 3 a.m. in the morning to go home. We know the chances of meeting a drunk driver are greater then. He doesn't drink when he plays,(go figure, a rock-n-roll drummer who doesn't drink when he plays, haha). We have seen so many bad and possibly drunk drivers at that time of morning. It's one of the main reasons we hire one really good babysitter that must come to our home. We never wanted to wake up our kids to take them home to accomodate our hobby.

Anyway, back on subject, if 911 has been called and we can't do anymore, emotions would be high. I'm not making excuses, just stating it like it might be. Terrible but true, emotions might escalate over common sense. If your children are laying there possibly dying and you can't do anything for them, the unimaginable might happen. Doesn't matter what age the drunk is. Just rage.

[Lady President]

8. Manslaughter

I would convict him of voluntary manslaughter in either case. It would be a heat of passion crime, so I wouldn't convict him of murder.

The background of the drunk driver makes no difference to me at all. Regardless of driving drunk, I don't think certain people are "better victims." I would find someone guilty of rape without caring if the victim was a nun or hooker as long as the evidence was there.

(Of course, as a lawyer, the second I read the hypothetical the first thing I thought of was that the father/defendant could have had a closed head injury causing him to act violently. A couple more facts and a good lawyer could easy get the charge down to invol. man. with a probation sentence. ;))