[Politics] "Pregnant Woman Indicted For Baby's Death After Being Shot"

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

It's a VERY important part of this scenario. It sheds the light of context on the entire situation. What were the actions that led to the shooting? That the "police held her responsible" is NOT enough. The police should not get to decide that when it comes to a court case, that should be up to the jury that the woman was responsible for the action - that is exactly how guilt is determined, not by police!

Alabama woman Marshae Jones has been indicted by a grand jury over the death of her unborn baby after she was shot in the stomach when she was five months pregnant.

I don't understand why you're focusing on an irrelevant part of the case. It wouldn't be noteworthy if an attacker were shot in self-defence. The remarkable part of this is the attacker being charged with manslaughter for the death of the baby she was carrying. That's the crazy part that isn't being discussed.

Based on the different articles, blame for the incident and the firing of the gun isn't in dispute. By every account, there's no dispute over who started the fight, whether the other lady had the right to defend herself or her right to use a gun to do so. (Guns are completely legal in the US, and presumably Alabama permits the use of such to defend oneself.) The main crux of the issue stems from the fact that she was the aggressor, and thus to blame for the following events.

Anyway, this story doesn't warrant this much discussion, least of all when the actual issue isn't even being discussed. It would be interesting to talk about a pregnant woman's obligation to her baby, if she can be said to have one, whether a manslaughter charge is appropriate, but instead something irrelevant keeps getting repeated. 😪

 

[Silvanus]

I don't understand why you're focusing on an irrelevant part of the case. It wouldn't be noteworthy if an attacker were shot in self-defence.

Well, obviously, because then it would be an entirely different case in almost every respect.

The remarkable part of this is the attacker being charged with manslaughter for the death of the baby she was carrying. That's the crazy part that isn't being discussed.

How do you propose to discuss that without discussing how it happened?

The main crux of the issue stems from the fact that she was the aggressor, and thus to blame for the following events.

Being the aggressor only renders someone responsible for direct outcomes or reasonably foreseeable consequences.

And that is very much in dispute. Only in exceptionally rare circumstances would the use of lethal force by another party be a "reasonably foreseeable" consequence (and never in a verbal exchange). So, we need to actually know what those circumstances are.

It's not enough to merely trust a police force with an exceptionally shoddy track record to make that judgement.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

Again, what the hell did the pregnant woman do to WARRANT LETHAL FORCE?! Is Alabama's laws so fucked that you can literally employ lethal force on someone for saying something mean? I want this detail, dammit!

I'm not sure that's relevant to the discussion at hand. It might be a different subject entirely (when is using a gun justified), but that isn't what the story is about.

The story here is that she's charged with killing her unborn baby, not whether a gun should or should not have been used. You're disputing something entirely different and without a basis. Is the fact that the police held her responsible not enough for you? A jury of 12 people found her guilty. I don't see what your argument has to do with the story.

In this case I think its mostly bafflement. We're having trouble parsing out why and how a verbal argument escalated to the use of deadly force. I mean this shouldn't be a difficult question to answer and personally I'm expecting something like "The accused produced a knife" or some similar, straight forward explanation.

Then we can debate the utterly inane, or perhaps that should be insane, notion of this court case.

 

[Nielas]

It's a VERY important part of this scenario. It sheds the light of context on the entire situation. What were the actions that led to the shooting? That the "police held her responsible" is NOT enough. The police should not get to decide that when it comes to a court case, that should be up to the jury that the woman was responsible for the action - that is exactly how guilt is determined, not by police!

Alabama woman Marshae Jones has been indicted by a grand jury over the death of her unborn baby after she was shot in the stomach when she was five months pregnant.

I don't understand why you're focusing on an irrelevant part of the case. It wouldn't be noteworthy if an attacker were shot in self-defence. The remarkable part of this is the attacker being charged with manslaughter for the death of the baby she was carrying. That's the crazy part that isn't being discussed.

Based on the different articles, blame for the incident and the firing of the gun isn't in dispute. By every account, there's no dispute over who started the fight, whether the other lady had the right to defend herself or her right to use a gun to do so. (Guns are completely legal in the US, and presumably Alabama permits the use of such to defend oneself.) The main crux of the issue stems from the fact that she was the aggressor, and thus to blame for the following events.

Anyway, this story doesn't warrant this much discussion, least of all when the actual issue isn't even being discussed. It would be interesting to talk about a pregnant woman's obligation to her baby, if she can be said to have one, whether a manslaughter charge is appropriate, but instead something irrelevant keeps getting repeated. 😪

Why would you consider that irrelevant? If the case actually makes to court, I would imagine the woman's lawyer will argue that shooting was unjustified and thus the accused cannot be guilty of manslaughter.

These charges are based on a legal principle that can only apply if:

a) the shooting was justified in response to the accused's actions
b) the fetus has rights that would make its death a manslaughter

If the shooting was unjustified then the culpability for the death of the fetus shifts to the shooter.

Just because you want to focus on the abortion angle, you cannot ignore the other legal issues at work here.

 

[Nielas]

It's not enough to merely trust a police force with an exceptionally shoddy track record to make that judgement.

In this instance, it is the District Attorney making the judgement. The charges were not filed by the police but by a grand jury on the DA's insistence. That same DA also decided that the shooter would not be charged.

 

[Silvanus]

In this instance, it is the District Attorney making the judgement. The charges were not filed by the police but by a grand jury on the DA's insistence. That same DA also decided that the shooter would not be charged.

I was referring to the investigation rather than the charge, actually, though I perhaps should have widened the point to cover both.

 

[davidmc1158_v1legacy]

Well, there's been an update in this sad state of affairs: They've decided to drop the charges against her.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48849040

In regards to the question of whether or not the use of a firearms was justified . . . . well, a little more information is here but details are still somewhat sparse. As stated in the article:

The altercation on 4 December happened outside a Dollar General store where both Ms Jones and the shooter, Ebony Jemison, worked.

Police ruled that Ms Jones had started the fight and hit Ms Jemison, then pinned her against a car.

They said Ms Jemison had then reached for a gun and fired point-blank into Ms Jones's stomach.

An unnamed police source told the New York Times that the feud had started over a man with whom they both worked.

 

[Shadowstar38]

Well, there you go. If true, that seems like more than enough justification. Though thankfully they dropped the asinine charge.

 

[Agema]

Every police officer is trained to investigate, interrogate, and build cases for prosecuting attorneys, which means their default state is "guilty until proven innocent"...

Where's a like button when you need it?

I agree that the behaviour of cops (or indeed, any profession) is often highly explainable in terms of their training and the existing institutional attitude of the organisation they join.

* * *

At any rate, case dropped. I think someone knew how painfully awful that charge would play out - I even suspect a jury would simply refuse to convict even if by the letter of the law she was guilty. At worst, of course, it was dropped because it brouhgt the fetal homicide law into disrepute, and they want to keep it for punishing women in other ways.

 

[Trunkage]

Well, there's been an update in this sad state of affairs: They've decided to drop the charges against her.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48849040

In regards to the question of whether or not the use of a firearms was justified . . . . well, a little more information is here but details are still somewhat sparse. As stated in the article:

The altercation on 4 December happened outside a Dollar General store where both Ms Jones and the shooter, Ebony Jemison, worked.

Police ruled that Ms Jones had started the fight and hit Ms Jemison, then pinned her against a car.

They said Ms Jemison had then reached for a gun and fired point-blank into Ms Jones's stomach.

An unnamed police source told the New York Times that the feud had started over a man with whom they both worked.

That makes the shooting make more sense.

 

[Kwak]

Well, there you go. If true, that seems like more than enough justification. Though thankfully they dropped the asinine charge.

Really?
"Police ruled that Ms Jones had started the fight and hit Ms Jemison, then pinned her against a car.

They said Ms Jemison had then reached for a gun and fired point-blank into Ms Jones's stomach."
What is she had knifed her in the gut instead? Just as justified?

 

[Shadowstar38]

Well, there you go. If true, that seems like more than enough justification. Though thankfully they dropped the asinine charge.

Really?
"Police ruled that Ms Jones had started the fight and hit Ms Jemison, then pinned her against a car.

They said Ms Jemison had then reached for a gun and fired point-blank into Ms Jones's stomach."
What is she had knifed her in the gut instead? Just as justified?

Yes? What are you disagreeing with?

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

... Ok, as a gun owner, the fact that the police's depiction (although I rarely believe those any more without video tape) is what it is and people are ok with the shooting makes me horrified.

Literally, do any of you have any idea how many people are punched per day? Pushed? And if everyone was 'justified' with fighting back with a bullet, we would be losing literally millions of people every day.

 

[Nielas]

Well, there you go. If true, that seems like more than enough justification. Though thankfully they dropped the asinine charge.

Really?
"Police ruled that Ms Jones had started the fight and hit Ms Jemison, then pinned her against a car.

They said Ms Jemison had then reached for a gun and fired point-blank into Ms Jones's stomach."
What is she had knifed her in the gut instead? Just as justified?

"Pinned" is so vague. It can be as minor as "got too close to me" or as serious "she was suffocating me and I could not breathe". If someone is on me and I cannot breathe as a result, I could justify shooting or knifing them since that is life-or-death.

 

[generals3]

Well, there you go. If true, that seems like more than enough justification. Though thankfully they dropped the asinine charge.

Is that truly enough justification... Self defence is supposed to be proportional, no? Being hit and pinned against a car isn't necessarily a life threatening situation and hence using deadly force wouldn't necessarily be warranted. How badly was she hit? What do they mean with "pinned"? You seem quite quick to judge the use of deadly force was warranted...

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

How well could a five-month pregnant woman really pin someone to anything? I mean, not well enough to stop the other one reaching a gun clearly

 

[Shadowstar38]

Is that truly enough justification... Self defence is supposed to be proportional, no? Being hit and pinned against a car isn't necessarily a life threatening situation and hence using deadly force wouldn't necessarily be warranted. How badly was she hit? What do they mean with "pinned"? You seem quite quick to judge the use of deadly force was warranted...

Is it really up to the person getting assaulted to take all these variables into consideration while in the middle of a flight or fight scenario? Seems like the primary thing that would be going through someone's head is stopping the conflict quickly and with the least amount of additional personal injury feasible.

You pose a lot of fair questions. But my whole thing is, can we be civil and not physically assault people at all? That would put a stop to questions of proportional response right there.

 

[CaitSeith]

Is that truly enough justification... Self defence is supposed to be proportional, no? Being hit and pinned against a car isn't necessarily a life threatening situation and hence using deadly force wouldn't necessarily be warranted. How badly was she hit? What do they mean with "pinned"? You seem quite quick to judge the use of deadly force was warranted...

Is it really up to the person getting assaulted to take all these variables into consideration while in the middle of a flight or fight scenario? Seems like the primary thing that would be going through someone's head is stopping the conflict quickly and with the least amount of additional personal injury feasible.

Using lethal force for that goal is going too far (as the consequences here show why).

 

[Silvanus]

Is it really up to the person getting assaulted to take all these variables into consideration while in the middle of a flight or fight scenario? Seems like the primary thing that would be going through someone's head is stopping the conflict quickly and with the least amount of additional personal injury feasible.

Even mid-fight, any rational person has some gauge of whether it's a threat to their life or not.

To take any physical altercation involving punches or "pinning" as grounds for lethal force is impossibly ridiculous. It would turn every single day into a global bloodbath.

 

[Abomination]

Is that truly enough justification... Self defence is supposed to be proportional, no? Being hit and pinned against a car isn't necessarily a life threatening situation and hence using deadly force wouldn't necessarily be warranted. How badly was she hit? What do they mean with "pinned"? You seem quite quick to judge the use of deadly force was warranted...

Is it really up to the person getting assaulted to take all these variables into consideration while in the middle of a flight or fight scenario? Seems like the primary thing that would be going through someone's head is stopping the conflict quickly and with the least amount of additional personal injury feasible.

You pose a lot of fair questions. But my whole thing is, can we be civil and not physically assault people at all? That would put a stop to questions of proportional response right there.

"Be civil or we'll put a cap in your ass, ************!"

*BLAT-BLAT-BLAT!*

Happy 4th of July!