🚀 go-pugleaf

Mike Rutherford <mrut@chevron.com> wrote:

>And once again proof positive that the legal system in
>this country has become a joke.  Lets see grabbing a loaded
>handgun to resolve a drunken dispute certainly sounds like
>negligence to me.  Compare this to McDonalds being held
>negligent because a lady spills hot coffee in her lap.  
>Looks like justice now translate into "Reward the Stupid"

>Mike Rutherford

Hey....I'm not saying the legal system is perfect, but let's be clear
here. Our legal system has been operating on the principle that a few
guilty people are going to go free, in order to keep from wrongly
punishing innocent people. That's reality, and it's been that way for
several centuries. It's not a new concept. That's why we were the
first country to have a judicial system founded on the conecpt of
innocent until proven guilty.

The prosecution attempted to prove that Brian could not have
accidently shot his cousin, that it had to be deliberate. The
prosecutor staged a mock scuffle with a handgun expert in an attempt
to show that the gun in question couldn't have gone off accidently.
But that's exactly what happened during the demonstration. It went off
accidently.

I agree that Brian grabbing his gun was the dumbest thing a person
could do in that situation. This was a horrible tragedy. And maybe it
was even intentional (but I don't think so...he and Charles were
extremely tight). What it boils down to is that the prosecution
couldn't prove it. The defense didn't even call any witnesses.

As far as the McDonalds situation, that was a civil case with
different criteria for negligence. But the ruling was still stupid. 
However if you saw the news about a month ago, the Supreme Court took
a step towards common sense when it struck down a $10,000,000 award
that had been granted to a Dr. in Alabama who claimed he was seriously
harmed by the fact that BMW repainted his car and didn't tell him.



Rusty Neff