A brief caution on basing legal opinions off of the writings on law firm websites. Those writings are essentially cleverly designed advertisements which offer just enough evidence to convince readers that the lawyers are experts & that you have issues worth discussing with a lawyer.
They can be a good starting point for legal research. But the actual law is found in statutes & cases. Law firm interpretations can vary–even when citing specific statutes & cases as direct authority
@Publisher I thought you said you had to go. 
My intuition is that your off the cuff guess is wrong. But to be honest, I could be wrong too - there’s a reason I’m not the lawyer in our family. By the time you get back, I’ll either have the answer or given up.
@Publisher I’d love to hear the longer explanation, really. And I disagree, I think there is a lot of debate over what’s excessive force when someone refuses to comply. One case that immediately comes to my mind is the guy in NYC who was selling cigars without tax stamps and he’d been arrested several times for this and when they tried to arrest him again he said, “No, not today” and tried to walk away. He was circled by several police officers and one of them who was short tried to take him down (he was tall) and got him in a choke hold and he died as a result. At the other end of the spectrum for seriousness is the girl at some beach (I think in NJ) who had an open bottle of alcohol nearby and was underage and she refused to give her name to the cops when asked. She was taken down hard and there was a question whether that was excessive force. She didn’t have permanent damage, but the amount of force used just because she didn’t want to give her name? That seemed crazy to me and I don’t think we want to live in a police state where that kind of force can be used for that kind of offense. Maybe you just disagree with my example of the NRA guy shooting a cop breaking into his house, which is legitimate. But my question there would be whether the homeowner reasonably realized that the intruder was a cop, especially when it’s dark and you can’t see a uniform and there is no reason to expect the police coming into the house.
My off the cuff guess is not wrong in this instance. And yes, I do have to go, but your posts intrigued me.
Some of this comes down to human nature. Legally, there is no (or should be no) relevance regarding whether or not the victim is a good person or not. But let’s not pretend that we are not all humans. If the victim had been a convicted child molester, documented wife beater, abuser of vulnerable elderly, it would not change the facts of the case, but the sense of tragedy and waste of life would sit differently with people than if the victim is a wonderful human being as all accounts of this young man would suggest. I think anyone who denies this is being a little disingenuous. The loss of the life of a wonderful human being just seems even more upsetting and tragic than the loss of life of someone inherently bad, evil even. Don’t think for a moment that this man’s wonderful qualities will not be played up to the jury by the prosecution as a means to the end.
@Nrdsb4 I think what @melvin123 and I are saying is not that there would be less outpouring of grief , it’s just that everyone would be more on cop’s side given the same set of facts if the victim wasn’t such an upstanding citizen.
If the victim was an average joe, no college, maybe had a prior misdemeanor he would being raked across the coals right now and that shouldn’t be the case. We shouldn’t have to have a pristine record to get justice, and heck even then it didn’t help Philando Castile.
https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/PE/htm/PE.19.htm
Texas Penal Code 19.02 – Murder
“A person commits an offense if he:
(1) intentionally or knowingly causes the death of an individual; …”
Texas Penal Code 19.04 – Manslaughter
“(a) A person commits an offense if he recklessly causes the death of an individual.”
It appears that @Publisher was correct.
Well, the smearing of the victim has begun. A search warrant reveals that some marijuana was found in his apartment. Why was his apartment searched? Did it go beyond just a search of the crime scene? It’s doubtful that he kept marijuana near his front door. And why was the detail about the marijuana leaked on the day of his funeral?
Was the shooter’s apartment searched? Or her car? Or her purse? I’m not seeing anywhere that her premises were searched.
Was the marijuana planted by the cops? Was a toxicology report done on him? Where are her results?
ETA: I haven’t followed this thread, but this story disgusts me.
What is the possible relevance of some marijuana being found in his apartment? Jeez, are they next going to tell us he left dirty dishes in the sink, and he didn’t call his mother on her birthday? This is contemptible smearing by the Dallas PD.
I don’t know about any of that. I hope they had body cams on from the moment they arrived on the scene.
Not everything is worthy of a conspiracy theory. If you don’t expect what you perceive as irrelevant details to be leaked to the media from all sides, you’ve been living on a different planet for a long time… welcome back!
Why should he have to quickly comply with a police command? He probably thought that someone was breaking into his home, and had no idea it was a police officer. It was dark, and it doesn’t sound like she even declared that she was a police officer. This is awful, and I don’t think the police should form a protective circle around her. She was not on duty and acting against a suspect, she screwed up and killed someone out of fear.
@partyof5 post 325 is exactly what I was saying.
So are they next going to try to say that she had heard that he was dealing out of his apartment so that’s why she was so quick to think she might be in danger? Unless that’s where they are going with this, the fact that he had enough pot in his apartment for personal consumption is irrelevant. And I too find the timing a little suspicious.
You know…this woman killed an innocent man…who was in his own apartment not causing one bit of harm to her.
I haven’t heard any remorse from this shooter. Nothing. That’s shameful…considering she took a life with no reason.
^^If they try to say that she heard he was dealing out of his apartment, then they would be saying that she knew she wasn’t in her own apartment…negating her entire argument and putting her up for a possible murder charge. So I think that would be a very bad move.
He was in his own apartment, minding his own business. There’s no reason for him to expect anyone, police officer or otherwise, would enter his home and bark commands at him. It’s not surprising that he might not have understood what was happening and not react to those commands. He didn’t deserve to die, and no reasonable person would dispute that.
That doesn’t mean he wasn’t the victim of a horrible misunderstanding. If she truly thought she was entering her own apartment and had discovered an intruder, and if she thought her own life was in immediate danger, then it’s also not surprising that an officer of the law, on or off duty, would shoot the supposed intruder. I’d like to think she would have considered backing out of the apartment and calling for backup. I mean, what if all the above was true, but the “intruder” was actually her father or brother, there for a surprise visit?
@busdriver11 exactly.
@RandyErika but what is the basis for her reasonably believing her life was in danger? The only fact that I’ve heard so far is that the guy didn’t comply with her order. That doesn’t equate to a reasonable fear for her life.
There are sometimes on a trip or a run in an isolated area, where I inadvertently end up in a sketchy area, and I believe that my life (or wallet) may be in danger. And then I start walking fast, sometimes I even run (or run faster). I have even pretended to call to a fictitious person who is supposedly right in front of me. It doesn’t mean I feel entitled to shoot the shady looking person/people who have approached or appear to be following me. I can’t imagine doing that unless I was DEAD SURE I was going to die otherwise.