Massad Ayoob's Blog, page 108

GET ALL THE FACTS

A case of “OMG, the cops shot another unarmed man” is in trial as I write this, and new evidence is coming out that seems to favor the officer.  It’s a classic example of why a recurring theme in this blog has been to avoid the rush to judgment and wait until all the facts are in before a one-sided accusation convinces us of someone’s guilt.

Unmeritorious cases can be brought against citizens as well as cops. My friend and student Ken Ewing recently lent me an instructive book: “Drawn to Injustice: the Wrongful Conviction of Timothy Masters,” written by Masters with law professor Steve Lehto.  Masters was a 15-year- old boy who collected knives and, like many of his demographic, had a morbid interest in violent fiction. When a 37-year-old woman was stabbed to death near his home, detectives – one in particular – fixated on him as the suspect.  Several years later they arrested him for it, overlooking more likely suspects, and a perfect storm of misinterpreted circumstantial evidence,  exculpatory evidence withheld from the defense, a couple of overzealous prosecutors, and a psychologist who testified for the prosecution without examining the defendant or having full knowledge of the evidence, resulted in a conviction and a sentence of life without parole.

A decade later, DNA evidence conclusively proved that Tim Masters could not have been the killer.

“Though the wheels of God grind slowly, they grind exceeding small.” That’s sometimes true of the wheels of Justice, too. Masters was compensated by settlements that added up to roughly a million dollars per year of his imprisonment.  The two prosecutors, who in the interim had been elected to judgeships, were censured by the state bar association and largely as a result of this, were booted off their benches by voters in the next election.  The lead investigator was indicted on multiple counts of perjury, which were dismissed due to the statute of limitations. He remained suspended pending internal affairs investigation in spite of that, and resigned, ending a 33-year police career under an ugly cloud.  A brave cop who stepped forward, and a new prosecutor who understood his obligations as a minister of justice, had a lot to do with the outcome, too.

Read the book.  It’s so important to wait for ALL the evidence.  Despite clear proof otherwise, there are still people who think Masters is a murderer, and are even confused enough to believe he was 37 and killed a 15-year-old, getting the ages backwards.  For that matter, there are still people who think poor George Zimmerman is guilty of murder.

It’s a sad thing, and the kind of injustice we all have to work to keep from repeating.

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WHAT THE OTHER SIDE WANTS

Does the other side really want “reasonable, common sense gun control”?

Nah.

Remember Nancy Pelosi saying that if she could have, she would have said “Mr. and Mrs. America, turn ‘em all in,” or words to that effect?  That intent still exists beneath the relatively transparent surface of the usually more disingenuous gun prohibitionist movement.

We offer as evidence, Professor Alan Dershowitz.

Now, “to give the devil his due,” I’ve had some good things to say about Professor Dershowitz in public, and I’m happy to repeat them here.  I’ve heard lawyers criticize him for using his law students to do his research for cases he was getting paid for, and I defended him for that: he was giving those students priceless real-world on-the-job training in high profile cases, and reducing the legal research costs for the defendants in the bargain.  His comments why the prosecution of George Zimmerman, and the manner thereof, constituted an outrage were outrage were in my opinion spot on, and I said so…in this space, and elsewhere.

However, there are some points where I profoundly and vehemently disagree with the professor. One of those was his assertion that police are taught to lie on the witness stand – to “testi-lie” – in the police academy.  Having more time by far in police training than he has, I call BS on that.

And then, of course, there is Dershowitz’ radical position on “gun control.”

On the opposing side is an old friend of mine, Richard Feldman, Esq.  Watch it yourself. Feel free to comment here as to who won the “reality check.”

The Hard Line | Alan Dershowitz and Richard Feldman discuss proposed gun-free zones

Or see it here: https://youtu.be/DqeiLQoazt8

 

 

 

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THE BEST OF INTENTIONS…

…do not always guarantee the best of results.

After the atrocious mass murder at the recruiting office in Chattanooga, some civilians who support their military have showed up conspicuously armed to perform volunteer guard duty at other recruiting centers.  Some of them are military vets.  I totally sympathize with their wish to protect the people who protect their nation.

However, it has not worked out as well as some might have hoped.  In one incident, a volunteer was “showing” his AR15 to a passerby – something not normally compatible with “guard duty” – and an unintended discharge occurred.

Here, a volunteer guard was authoritatively requested to leave.

And here, we find the military itself less than thrilled with the idea.

As one observer noted, most of us would be leery of a volunteer unknown to us who showed up on our roof fixing the shingles, let alone standing outside our house with a military rifle to guard us, uninvited.  Moreover, if strangers with visible rifles become the norm outside recruiting stations, it will allow the next jihadi to make a closer approach and not trigger alert status until he starts shooting.

What’s that saying about the road to Hell being paved with good intentions?  I appreciate Americans who care about the safety of their soldiers and Marines.  It seems, however, that political activism to get trained, armed military personnel distributed on base and in recruiting stations is going to be the best support we can offer in this vein to our service men and women.

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THE COLOR OF JUSTICE

There has been a lot of talk lately about self-defense shootings of black suspects by white people being treated differently than if it had been a white person harmed by an African-American.  The perception is nothing new. I recently had occasion, for another reason, to review a story about one of my cases that I had written in the late 1990s. The following is an excerpt from my assessment of a trial I had participated in a year before.

The quote: Johnny Cochran, NAACP-coordinated picketing, a white versus black thing. I hate it when that happens. I worry about it sometimes, but probably more than I should.

            Cross-racial shootings bring the same concerns whether I’m speaking for white good guy who shot black bad guy, or vice versa, both of which I’ve done several times.

            A little more than six months before this trial, I testified for a black man charged with first degree murder and standing before an all-white jury after he had shot a white man in self-defense. That jury found him not guilty, and did so during the O.J. Simpson civil trial in the courtroom next door to where the Simpson case was being adjudicated. Justice was served.

            This time, I spoke for a white man charged with first degree murder and standing before a largely black jury after he had shot a black man in self-defense. I knew how much pressure there had to be on the black jurors, and knew what they’d face if they acquitted and went home to a community that had heard Johnny Cochran and the media say that (defendant) Hubbard had killed a black man for no good reason.

            The jury was out for about an hour and 40 minutes before they returned their verdict and found Blake Hubbard not guilty. One juror said later that they’d reached the acquittal verdict unanimously during their first five minutes of deliberation.

Call me a starry-eyed optimist if you will, but my opinion hasn’t changed in the 17 years since I wrote that.  I’ve learned to trust the jury.  Get the facts in front of them, and they’ll do the right thing, the forces of media bias and hate-mongering notwithstanding.

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A TIMELY RESPONSE

After yet another vicious, cowardly, murderous assault that has left five American service personnel dead on American soil, someone has finally insisted on an appropriate response. After the recent atrocity at the Marine recruiting office in Chattanooga, Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson has ordered full time National Guardsmen in his state to be armed on duty. http://www.thv11.com/story/news/2015/07/17/gov-hutchinson-directs-states-full-time-guardsmen-to-be-armed/30319691/ .

Asa Hutchinson, we recall, was the man named to head the NRA School Shield program to put armed security in our nation’s schools in the wake of the horror at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.  He is a man who understands the logical truth: the only way to stop mad dog mass killers is to do what we would do with any other mad dog.

“Big Army” may be reviewing something similar, though apparently more hesitantly: http://www.aol.com/article/2015/07/17/army-chief-security-at-recruiting-posts-will-be-reviewed/21210711/?icid=maing-fluid|bon|dl2|sec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D1496193374 .

According to the Associated Press, “A day after a gunman shot and killed four Marines and wounded three other people in Chattanooga, Gen. Ray Odierno, chief of staff of the Army, told reporters that arming troops in those offices could cause more problems than it might solve. ‘I think we have to be careful about over-arming ourselves, and I’m not talking about where you end up attacking each other,’ Odierno said during a morning breakfast. Instead, he said, it’s more about “accidental discharges and everything else that goes along with having weapons that are loaded that causes injuries.”

“We’re always going to be somewhat vulnerable to a lone wolf, or whatever you want to call it, a surprise shooter, because we are out there with the population and that’s where we have to be,” added the Chief of Staff.

Kudos to Governor Hutchinson for decisively doing what is obviously the right thing.  I sincerely hope it starts a trend.

In the meantime, that picture of the bullet-riddled window of the recruiting office in Chattanooga – replete with its “no guns” sign – stands as stark proof of the fact that “gun free zones” are simply hunting preserves for mass murderers.

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ANOTHER TRUTH IN JOURNALISM MOMENT

Reading a city newspaper while having breakfast in the airport yesterday, I glanced at the news roundup. It included that fact that in Texas outlets, the Whataburger chain is putting up “no open carry” signs, since the allowing that recently passed in the Lone Star State.

The item, printed without a byline, says in part, “In an open letter on the company’s website, Whataburger president and CEO Preston Atkinson said many employees and customers are ‘uncomfortable being around someone with a visible firearm.’”

It went on, “Atkinson’s letter comes one month after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill that made it legal to carry handguns openly on the streets of the nation’s second most-populous state, ending a prohibition dating back to the post-Civil War era that disarmed former Confederate soldiers and freed slaves.”

Emphasis mine. True words belong to Seth Robbins, who turns out to have written the piece even though the paper I read it in did not give credit to him, nor to AP, which distributed it.

Good to see this in a mainstream city newspaper.

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AUTUMN OF THE LOONS

Jackie Clay, Backwoods Home’s most popular author, has followed up her first novel with a sequel that her fans hope will be the first of many, “Autumn of the Loons.”  I enjoyed it as much as I did her first, “Summer of the Eagles.”  You can order both here: http://www.backwoodshome.com/blogs/JackieClay/ .

            “Autumn of the Loons” picks up a few years after the first novel, on a ranch in the Old Western frontier where the good folks who survived the first story (the bad folks didn’t) are building happy new lives.  And then…     

            Look, I don’t do spoilers. Let me just say that as in the first book, there are life lessons that will resonate with anyone who lives or at least understands self-reliance and the backwoods home lifestyle.  Things from the past that we all want to leave behind come back to haunt us, and have to be dealt with.  Only adversity shows you who’s really your friend.  Good deeds pay themselves forward in unexpected ways.  Racial hatred seems never to end, but at least can be ameliorated between people of honor.

            Jackie seems to have followed the long-standing advice to writers, “write what you know.”  She does, and her evocative writing style puts you there with her characters.  She makes you feel the heat and the terror of the onrushing wildfire, the icy rain and snow of encroaching winter where there’s no shelter you can’t fabricate yourself out of nature.  Perhaps just for us geezers, there’s a moment where a seasoned veteran of life’s anguish uses his well-worn Colt Frontier .44-40 to put a homicidal young gunman with a state of the art double action Colt Lightning in his place, which happens to be six feet under.

            The characters are well-drawn. Yes, there’s one stone evil psychopath who seems like a cartoon villain from a Charles Bronson movie, but there are people like that.  She gives us another, more complex villain who’s a sociopath with enough humanity to redeem himself and save an innocent life before he meets his maker.  And finally, as in her first novel, Jackie gives us Justice…DIY justice, it’s true, but the novel is set in a time and place where that’s pretty much the only kind available.

            Like I said, I won’t spoil it for you. I’ll only say, read the book, and be standing by for the third in the series, “Winter of the Wolves.”  As they say in my world, “Further, the affiant sayeth not.”

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SOMETHING YOU DON’T NORMALLY SHOOT

I was tied up all weekend with a murder case report, but couldn’t let Independence Day pass without a little fireworks.  My brief time-out of trigger-pulling on the backyard range was with 10mm and .45 caliber 1911 pistols.  While safe-diving for the ones I wanted, I spotted a little fancy-stocked, silvery stainless ParaOrdnance Companion .45 from Para’s LDA  (Light Double Action) series. Realizing I didn’t remember the last time I’d shot an LDA, I threw it into the gun box for the short walk to the range.

And with the first five rounds of Remington 185 grain .45 hollow point I fired from it, two-hand standing at fifteen yards, I got an exactly one-inch group.

The Companion was a concealed carry design, with 3.5” barrel. Guns that size aren’t supposed to shoot that well, particularly in the 1911 platform.  The light double action (about 6.5 pounds pull weight in this specimen) distributes over a long stroke, making it less likely the shooter will anticipate the shot. I was conscious of not having run an LDA in, oh, a decade or so, and was taking care with the trigger pull.

I found myself doing the same a week before, teaching a MAG-40 class for Thunderbird Tactical in Wichita with a Heckler and Koch P30SK subcompact 9mm that I’m testing for Guns Magazine.  It gave me a 300/300 score on the pace-setter qualification demonstration, and I was happy with its performance.  It has the LEM (Law Enforcement Modification) trigger, which like the LDA is a long, light double action stroke for every shot.

Many years ago, when the great Mike Plaxco was world speed shooting champion and The Man to Beat on the pro shooting tour, I took his advanced class. Therein, he commented that if you’ve hit a plateau in your shooting skills, you might want to try something new – different technique or even different gun – because it will make you focus more on what you’re doing.

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen Michael proven right. Now that that damn 30-some page report is done, I’m gonna spend some more time on this end playing with that neat little LDA. It’s a useful concept. I’m told ParaOrdnance has recently been bought by Remington; I hope they keep the LDA option.

While I’m doing that, you’re invited to chime in on any shooting experiences you may have had in a similar vein.

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INDEPENDENCE DAY

The Fourth of July is almost upon us, and there are safety concerns.

There are rumblings from ISIS that they are trying to instigate their minions and the mindless “lone wolves” they influence to do bad things to Americans on Independence Day.  Ratchet your alertness level up one notch at least, and be ready to protect yourself, and yours, and those around you.

In commentary on another blog entry here, one of our readers asked about safety tips on fireworks.  If it’s being professionally done in your community, my advice is to stand well back away from the damn launchers.  A rearward perspective will probably give you a better set of “oohs” and “aahs” when they burst in the sky anyway.  But it will also keep you and your kids more out of range of anything that could go wrong.  The worst such debacle I know of occurred when a Chinese sky torpedo, which proved to have been defective, exploded in its launch tube in Michigan. Death and dismemberment resulted.

Be really, REALLY careful about fireworks at home.  I’ve trained multiple one-armed people in self-defense shooting, who needed that special attention because in their younger days they were careless with home-made fireworks and assorted other incendiary/explosive devices.  We can all learn from their suffering.

With all that said, I’ll be making noise on the Fourth one way or the other.  I’m in the process of writing a pre-trial report in a murder case, where I’ll be speaking as an expert witness called by the defense for a young woman who saved her life with a gun when a man attacked her with deadly force.  That, obviously, takes precedence over fun.  If the report is done as soon as I hope it will be, this weekend I’ll be shooting an IDPA match with good friends.  If it isn’t, I’ll take some time off to get out on my own home range and do some trigger pulling, to commemorate the armed citizens of 18th Century America who preserved my right to do so.

For many years now, I’ve been in my beloved home country to celebrate the Fourth.  In my younger days, with kids to support, I couldn’t teach classes on holidays so July 4 usually found me in another nation earning money for my wife and children.  Most often – before their handgun ban of 1996, which must have made the longbowmen of Agincourt spin in their graves – that was in one or another part of Great Britain.  When I spent the Fourth in the British Empire, I would flush a teabag down a toilet in commemoration of the Boston Tea Party…and my British brothers and sisters understood.

Have a great Independence Day.  Stay safe!

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SCOTUS’ GAY MARRIAGE DECISION AND CONCEALED CARRY

This past week, the Supreme Court of the United States announced its decision that gay marriage was legal, and such a marriage performed in any one state has legal standing in all the other 49.  I have no problem with gay marriage – why should we heterosexuals be the only ones to suffer?

Now, though, we have some in the 2A community who feel this opens the door to – or may even create – the long-sought national reciprocity for concealed carry. http://bearingarms.com/scotus-ruling-sex-marriage-mandates-nationwide-concealed-carry-reciprocity/.

This actually makes sense.  It has always been anomalous that states would recognize one another’s pilot’s license, heterosexual marriage license, driver’s license, etc., but not one another’s permit to carry concealed and loaded handguns.  If heterosexual marriage didn’t set a precedent creating national reciprocity on carry, I’m not clear on how gay marriage somehow will.

Opinions?

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