Hiccup Girl's Murder Defense: She Has Tourette's, Says Lawyer

[RamboLiberal]

Source: ABC News

The lawyer, for a Florida teen famous for her non-stop hiccupping and now facing trial for murder, says he may employ an unusual defense for his client – she has Tourette's syndrome.

Jennifer Mee, 19, has been charged with first degree murder. Police accuse Mee of luring a young man she met online to a home in St. Petersburg to be robbed. When the victim, Shannon Griffin, 22, allegedly resisted Mee and her two accomplices, he was shot multiple times in the upper body, according to police.

"Hiccups are a symptom of Tourette's," her lawyer John Trevena told the Associated Press without explaining how Tourettes would qualify as a legal defense in a murder case. Calls by ABC News to Trevena were not returned.

Mee is currently being held without bond and in protective isolation at the Pinellas County Jail because she is a high-profile inmate. The AP said Travena described her as "distraught."



Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/US/hiccup-girl-lawyers-defense-tourettes/story?id=11975237

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Try another one lawyer. I really wonder if your client has Tourette's and sure have never heard it drives someone to murder!

[Politicalboi]

1. Harvey Milk all over again

Too much sugar caused him to do it. How can some defense lawyers sleep at night. Something is wrong with our system where someone like this can be defended on such bogus claims. Like the man "sleepwalking" and killed his wife. Not in bed, he drowned her in their pool, and he still didn't wake up. LOL! The victims family shouldn't have to put up with bullshit like that.

[Duer 157099]

2. Is he suggesting that her finger had a tic or spasms or something?

:shrug:

An itchy trigger finger as an analog of a verbal tic? WTF?

[rpannier]

3. That's really bizarre

[customerserviceguy]

4. That's an excuse to swear at someone

Not to shoot them.

[depakid]

7. She wasn't the trigger person

The charge is under the felony murder rule, which has been abolished in many other nations with British common law history.

So unless there was proof of a conspiracy to commit murder (as opposed to robbery) there wouldn't be a murder charge in say, Melbourne, Victoria like she would in Melbourne, Florida.

[mitchum]

5. Fuck that fucking fuck!

[wordpix]

6. as a lawyer friend said to me, he's being paid to defend to the best of his ability

and not to assist the prosecutor

[AndrewP]

8. Yep. For better or worse, defenders defend

This one seems like quite the stretch though.

[eShirl]

10. That's really the best he can do?

Sad.

[Barack_America]

9. Luring, robbing and killing? Sounds like a pretty complex tic.

:eyes:

What B.S.

[Evasporque]

11. I went to school with person who had Tourettes...

She had to carry a large Chef's knife...and from time to time she would yell JESUS CHRIST!! Really loud and thrust the knife out in front of her...

We all learned to stand a few feet away when near her.

:sarcasm: